12 Building an audience with AI

 

This chapter covers

  • Understanding the purchase funnel
  • Exploring the elements of analytics
  • Taking advantage of tracking options
  • Seeing how AI impacts analytics systems
  • Surveying the four best analytics plugins
  • Using Crazy Egg’s excellent maps
  • Asking AI to critique your site

Where search engine optimization (SEO) helps you attract an initial audience, website analytics help you build and retain your audience. You’ll want to use analytic data to see how your visitors behave during their stay:

  • Where they came from
  • How they navigate through your pages
  • Where they pause
  • Where in the site they are when they leave
  • How to improve your site’s appeal and retention rate

12.1 The purchase funnel

Marketers use the phrase purchase funnel. It’s like a tunnel, but it keeps getting narrower and narrower until there’s only one way out. (The more polite term is purchasing journey.) This funnel has three stages:

12.1.1 AI enters the picture

12.2 Understanding the elements of analytics

12.2.1 Page views

12.2.2 Unique visitors

12.2.3 Bounce rate

12.2.4 Average session duration

12.2.5 Conversion rates

12.2.6 Click path

12.3 Tracking options

12.3.1 Form submission tracking

12.3.2 Google Ads tracking

12.3.3 File downloads tracking

12.3.4 Video plays tracking

12.3.5 Outbound link tracking

12.3.6 Affiliate link performance tracking