How to do a marketing analysis if you are not a marketer

You can run a marketing analysis without marketing experience in four steps: collect product and sales data, describe your customers, study competitors and channels, and draw conclusions. Free tools are enough: GA4, Search Console, Google Trends and your CRM.

What does a marketing analysis include?

A marketing analysis looks at the product, customers, competitors, market and sales channels. Its goal is to see where the company loses money and where it could earn more. A professional market and consumer analysis adds surveys and market sizing. For a first pass, the data already inside the company is enough.

Step 1. What data should you collect?

• Sales: revenue by product and month, average order value, repeat purchases.
• CRM: the source of each deal, reasons for losing deals, deal length.
• GA4 and Search Console: where visitors come from, which queries they use, which pages bring enquiries.
• Google Trends: seasonality of demand for your main queries.

Step 2. What do you need to know about your target audience?

• who buys and who makes the buying decision;
• which problem the customer solves with your product;
• what drives the choice: price, timing, terms, recommendations;
• what causes dissatisfaction and lost deals;
• where the customer looks for information: Google, AI assistants, social media, friends.

The best source is 5–10 short conversations with real customers. Write down their words exactly: you will reuse them on the website and in ads.

Ask open questions: what were you looking for, who else did you compare us with, what tipped the decision, what nearly stopped you from buying. Answers to the last question usually show what information is missing on your website.

Step 3. How do you study competitors and channels?

Pick 3–5 competitors from Google results and compare their offer, terms, website and ads. The full method is in competitor website analysis. For each of your own channels, count enquiries and cost per enquiry: how much went into Google Ads, Meta Ads or SEO and how many deals came back.

Which numbers should you calculate?

• Cost per enquiry: channel spend divided by the number of enquiries from it.
• Enquiry-to-sale conversion: the share of enquiries that became deals, from the CRM.
• Cost per customer: channel spend divided by the number of deals.
• Average order value and repeat purchases: how much a customer brings in a year.

Compare the cost per customer with the profit from that customer. If a channel brings customers at a higher cost than they return, it gets reconfigured or switched off. A single Data Studio (formerly Looker Studio) report pulling from GA4, ad accounts and the CRM makes this easy.

What mistakes happen in a first analysis?

• relying on management opinion over CRM data and customer conversations;
• looking at website traffic with no link to sales;
• comparing yourself with much larger players;
• drawing conclusions from one month without accounting for seasonality;
• collecting data but never writing down tasks and owners.

A short rule: every conclusion should point to a number or a customer quote.

Step 4. How do you draw conclusions?

Put your findings into a SWOT matrix: the company’s strengths and weaknesses, the market’s opportunities and threats. From the matrix, write down 5–7 tasks with an owner and a deadline. For example: add delivery terms to the website, pause a campaign with expensive enquiries, script an answer to a common objection.

These conclusions are a solid base for a marketing strategy. We carried out market research, a SWOT and competitor analysis, for example, in a strategy project for a motorbike taxi service in Istanbul.

FAQ

Can I do a marketing analysis myself?

A business owner can do a basic analysis from sales, CRM and GA4 data. For surveys, market sizing and channel comparison, a specialist is useful.

Which free tools work for marketing analysis?

GA4, Search Console, Google Trends, the Google Ads Transparency Center, the Meta Ad Library and Data Studio for reports.

How many customers should I interview?

For a small business, 5–10 conversations are usually enough to see recurring reasons for choosing you and for walking away.

How often should a marketing analysis be done?

A full one once a year. A channel and cost-per-enquiry review every month.

How long does a basic marketing analysis take?

If sales and CRM data are available, from a few days to two weeks. Customer conversations take the most time.

How is a marketing analysis different from a marketing audit?

An analysis studies the market, customers and competitors. An audit evaluates how your channels, analytics, website and sales team perform.

Related: Marketing audit

Sources

• Google Trends
• Search Console Help: Performance report