Marketing without analytics is like farming without watching the weather – you’re relying on guesswork instead of informed decisions. Whether you’re running a glamping site, selling meat boxes, or offering farm tours, understanding your data can transform your efforts into a targeted and effective farm marketing strategy.
We’ll break down the basics of marketing analytics, from social media insights to website traffic and email stats. We’ll also show you how to gather useful data from face-to-face interactions and use it to make smarter, more profitable marketing decisions for your farm business.
Marketing analytics refers to the data and insights you gather about how your marketing is performing. It helps you understand what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus your time and budget. For farmers running diversification ventures—like meat boxes, glamping sites, or on-farm shops—this can be the difference between hit-and-miss marketing and a clear, profitable farm marketing strategy.
At its core, marketing analytics allows you to track customer behaviour, see how people find your business, and measure how they engage with your content. Are most of your visitors coming from Facebook? Which blog posts or Reels lead to the most sales? What email subject lines get the highest open rates? These are the kinds of questions analytics can answer.
By using marketing analytics, you stop relying on assumptions and start making decisions backed by data. For example, you might discover that your recipe blogs bring in more website traffic than product pages—or that your email subscribers are more likely to buy than your social media followers. Armed with this information, you can tweak and improve your marketing approach to get better results with less effort.
Analytics isn’t just for big businesses—it’s a vital tool for every modern farm business.
Meta Insights is the built-in analytics tool for Facebook and Instagram. It shows how your posts, stories, and Reels are performing. You can track reach, engagement, profile visits, and follower growth over time. These metrics help you understand what content resonates with your audience—whether it’s behind-the-scenes videos, educational posts, or promotions. Insights also reveal the best days and times to post for maximum visibility. For example, if your recipe Reels perform best on Sundays, you can schedule content accordingly. This tool is essential for shaping a consistent and results-driven farm marketing strategy across your social channels.
Google Analytics helps you track how visitors find and interact with your website. Key metrics include traffic sources (e.g., social media, search engines), bounce rate, time spent on pages, and conversion rates (like email sign-ups or online orders). With GA4, you can also monitor user journeys—seeing how someone navigates your site before making a purchase or leaving. For farm businesses, this could mean discovering that blog posts on lamb cuts lead to more sales than recipe pages. By reviewing this data regularly, you can refine your website and content to better align with customer behaviour and increase conversions.
Email marketing platforms offer valuable analytics to track how well your campaigns perform. Key stats include open rate (who’s reading), click-through rate (who’s engaging), and unsubscribes (who’s dropping off). You can also run A/B tests to compare subject lines or sending times. Over time, this data helps you refine your email content, segment your audience by interest, and personalise your offers. For example, a wool business might find that spinners prefer exclusive discounts while knitters engage more with free pattern content. By analysing this data, you can turn email marketing into a high-performing pillar of your overall farm marketing strategy.
Not all marketing insights come from digital tools. For many farm businesses—especially those selling at markets, running events, or offering on-farm experiences—offline interactions are just as valuable for shaping your farm marketing strategy.
Start by simply asking customers how they heard about you. This could be done verbally at a market stall, via a tick box on a booking form, or even with a “How did you find us?” sign near your farm gate. You can also use QR codes on flyers, signs, or packaging to track which materials drive visits to your website or social pages.
Customer conversations are another goldmine. Take note of common questions, hesitations, or compliments. These themes can be used to guide blog topics, social content, or FAQs. For example, if several visitors ask about how your animals are raised, that’s a cue to highlight your welfare standards in future marketing.
You can even treat physical events like mini experiments—try different product displays, sample offers, or signage to see what draws attention. Just keep a simple log of what you changed and what happened. By combining digital and offline insights, you get a well-rounded view of what works and how to evolve your marketing with confidence.
Running small marketing experiments is one of the easiest ways to improve your results over time—and it doesn’t need to be technical or complicated. A marketing experiment simply means testing two different versions of something to see which performs better. This could be as simple as trialling two social media captions for the same post, or offering two different types of promotions at a market to see which generates more sales.
Start with a clear goal—do you want more engagement, sales, email sign-ups, or footfall? Then, test one variable at a time. For example, you might trial “10% off this week” versus “Buy one, get one free” and track which leads to more conversions. Or you could compare posting a video versus a photo to see which drives more clicks.
Keep it simple and consistent. Run each version for a similar amount of time, and record your results using a basic spreadsheet or notebook. This helps you learn what your audience responds to and apply that insight across your farm marketing strategy.
Over time, these small tests build into powerful knowledge—helping you refine your content, pricing, offers, and messaging based on real customer behaviour, not just gut instinct.
Analytics only become valuable when you act on what they tell you. The goal isn’t to drown in data—it’s to spot patterns, learn from them, and make informed decisions that improve your farm marketing strategy.
Start by choosing one or two key metrics to focus on. For social media, that could be engagement rate or follower growth. For your website, it might be how long people spend on your most popular blog. In email marketing, you might track click-through rates or how many people use a promo code. The aim is to spot what’s working and do more of it.
Use your findings to adjust your content plan, posting schedule, product range or even how you talk about your business. For example, if your “how-to” videos consistently outperform product posts, create more educational content. If blog traffic spikes when you write about animal welfare, make that a regular theme.
It’s also important to review your data regularly—monthly is ideal for small farm businesses. This habit keeps you proactive, helps spot seasonal trends, and ensures your marketing remains relevant and effective.
Ready to turn insights into action?
Download our free Farm Marketing Strategy Workbook – your step-by-step guide to tracking results and building a smarter, more profitable farm marketing plan.
