If you are into digital marketing, you will be familiar with data and information from your marketing strategies or campaigns. In fact, if you regularly run pay-per-click (PPC) ads campaigns, you cannot run away from data and information.
However, the most crucial thing is not about the data or information but how you can process it. It is where the visualization of data comes from. Sankey Diagram is one of the tools that can help you visualize data generated from your marketing campaigns.
There are other types of tools, including pie charts, bar charts, and histograms. However, the Sankey chart has an advantage over them because it is quite easy to understand and clearly shows your customers’ behaviors.
In this blog, we will find out regarding what is a Sankey Diagram, its benefits and how to use it. It will profit you greatly if you continue to read to find out all you need to know.
What is a Sankey Diagram?
A Sankey diagram is a visualization tool that helps to show an easy-to-follow flow of customers’ journeys in digital marketing or advertising.
The Sankey diagram is handy in numerous areas, and the flow usually has varying heights, depending on the number of contributions each of the data has incorporated. It makes it easy to understand the data or information with the highest contribution.
If you look at it from the perspective of pay-per-click advertising campaigns or generally in digital marketing, a Sankey diagram can help you find out where you are getting the most customers from. In the end, it will allow you to focus on this area so that you can get more from your strength. Also, it will help you improve your weaknesses and generally have more productive PPC campaign sessions.
Suppose you are trying to present your advertising campaign results to business owners who want to invest in your business. In that case, the Sankey chart will help you do justice in giving your data in the correct pattern. It’s easy to visualize, and your audience does not necessarily need to have prior knowledge before they can use it.
How to create the Sankey Diagram?
You will agree that there is no point in knowing how the Sankey diagram can help you without finding out how to create or use it.
It’s pretty easy to create it, but before you proceed into that, you have to understand a few points regarding the same.
Your goal is to monitor your customers’ behaviors, you have to understand that maps link your customer’s journey. It’s about how a customer moves within the touchpoints of your business which usually includes different channels. These channels can consist of your website, social media platforms, live chat, and offline platforms, including your physical office.
These channels (touchpoints) are what we regard as nodes in creating the Sankey diagram. Then, you can have an excellent visualization that helps you to understand your data even more. Creating this chart will help you understand the various stages of flow your customers use in getting your product. For instance, it will help you notice if a customer stops at the payment gateway without getting the product. You can then find out the reasons behind such behavior. Perhaps, there was a problem with the gateway at that moment.
Depending on where your customers are coming from your website, whether from your PPC campaigns, social media platforms, organic search, or through direct links, the Sankey diagram will help you out. Through this, you can fully find out your strength when it comes to traffic.
It’s pretty irrelevant these days to draw it in excel manually because all you need is now on software. It’s pretty easy, and you only need to know how to operate your Microsoft Excel software to draw. You have no problem as long as you know how to read data and where each component should be. Then, you only need to highlight your data and draw your it accordingly.
Benefits of a Sankey Diagram
It’s not enough to create a Sankey diagram but also to understand what it means. As a digital marketer, your job doesn’t stop at creating a Sankey chart. You must be able to deduce crucial information from it. Let’s check below the benefits of a Sankey diagram.
- You will find out customers interest in your product by checking out how many times he/she viewed the product and the price.
- Other customers will proceed further to read the ratings and reviews concerning the product. They may also add it to their cart and move to other things without buying.
- Some customers only come to your page to compare the prices of your product to those of other brands.
- You will find some customers proceeding to the checkout page after adding it to their cart. Some will shop for more products and add them to their cart.
- You can find out that some customers will abandon their purchase or even clear their cart for one reason or another. For example, it could result from problems with payment gateways or a lack of funds at that moment.
So, you understand the advantages. If you can get all the above information, you can then plan to improve your campaigns.
Conclusion
We cannot overemphasize the importance of the Sankey diagram. It goes beyond merely looking at it as another visualization tool. In fact, it has many advantages over other visualization tools like pie charts, histograms, or bar charts. For example, it has an easy way to understand and process data. It also shows the audience flow for your website.
The most significant benefit of this excellent tool is that it helps you improve your decision-making process. You can focus on your strengths and get better at your weaknesses.
Remember that the more customer conversions you have, the more profit you get and the better for your business. If you are yet to read this blog, read it to find out the effective use of Sankey diagrams.
Author Bio: Lori Gillen is a Blogger/Content Creator who is specialized in the field of Digital Marketing & Data Analysis with 5 years of experience. Currently working at PPCexpo as a Senior Content Creator.