Save Yourself Some Pain. Remember These Steps!

Instituting a solid analytics program is the first step toward realizing better performance from your marketing initiatives. as you set up your analytics application to track the data points that you want, take a few minutes to preserve your settings and create a backup plan. 



Here are two (and a half) easy steps to take care of this:



Many different analytics applications have an interface to export your configuration settings. it would be a good idea to export your settings and save them in a safe location. if your application doesn’t have a way to export the configuration, take the time to write down the steps you used to set it up. these simple steps can make the overall process easier in case you ever need to start over.



Next, you should create a backup of the data that you are collecting. Most applications will feature a built-in export tool, but if yours doesn’t, you should be able to create a copy of the data folder. keep in mind that if you want to export the data to another application, you’ll need to export to a universal format (.csv is usually a good format for this).



Another way to preserve the data for future use is to backup and archive the raw log files from the server. Not all analytics applications will use raw log files, but most will. if your current application does not use log files, make sure your service provider has configured the server to record all of the data points that you want to track.



With these simple steps, not only will you preserve your ability to compare data points and trends for years to come, you will also save yourself a ton of time (and potentially headaches) should you experience a bump or two down the road.