Unlocking Growth for SMBs: How to use data to supercharge Your Marketing for Better Results
In Singapore's competitive market, relying on instincts and vanity metrics won't cut it. Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need to build marketing strategies grounded in data. With customer acquisition costs rising and digital attention spans shrinking, using analytics allows you to pinpoint what works, cut waste, and scale results sustainably. While it is potentially daunting to start on this - it is important so that you are able to continually grow your business!
Step-by-Step: How to Build a Data-Centric Marketing Approach
Step 1: Define Your Business Goals
What are you trying to achieve—more leads, higher sales, reduced churn? Being crystal clear about objectives helps you identify what metrics to focus on.
Small Businesses / Startups: Focus on awareness and lead generation. Your goals may include growing your email list, getting more website visits, or achieving your first 100 customers. Prioritize clear, trackable outcomes like conversion rate or cost per lead.
Medium Businesses: Shift towards efficiency and scaling. Goals could include reducing customer acquisition costs, improving ROAS, or increasing repeat purchases. Here, it's also important to understand what channels deliver the highest ROI and double down on them.
Established or Growing Businesses: Emphasize long-term value and retention. Aim for improving CLV, reducing churn, or expanding into new markets. Strategic goals like multi-channel attribution and segment-level ROI analysis become critical.
Being crystal clear about objectives helps you identify what metrics to focus on and build a tracking strategy that fits your current growth phase.
Step 2: Identify Key Marketing Metrics (Tiered Approach)
Before you can improve your marketing, you need to measure what matters. But not all metrics are created equal—and tracking everything at once leads to overwhelm. The key is to tier your metrics based on the maturity of your business and marketing setup. This step helps you prioritize what to track now, and what to track next as you grow.
Use this tiered framework to progressively build up your marketing intelligence:
Tier 1: Foundational Metrics
Click-Through Rate (CTR):
Measures how often people click on your ads after seeing them. It reflects how compelling your ad copy and visuals are. A healthy CTR means your message is resonating with your audience.
Conversion Rate (CVR):
Indicates the percentage of users who complete a desired action (e.g. purchase or sign-up). It helps you assess whether your landing pages and offers are doing their job.
Tier 2: Growth & Efficiency Metrics
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC):
Tells you how much you're spending to acquire a new customer. It’s essential for understanding marketing efficiency and long-term profitability.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS):
Measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on ads. A strong ROAS ensures your campaigns are not just driving traffic but also delivering business value.
Tier 3: Strategic & Lifetime Value Metrics
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV):
Estimates the total revenue a customer will generate over their relationship with your brand. This helps you justify acquisition spend and focus on long-term growth.
Churn Rate:
Indicates how many customers stop buying from you over time. Monitoring churn helps you identify retention issues and improve customer loyalty.
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs):
Tracks leads that show strong buying signals based on behavior and engagement. MQLs bridge the gap between marketing and sales by identifying prospects worth nurturing.
Start with Tier 1 if you're new to tracking, and gradually progress to more advanced layers as you gain confidence and better data infrastructure.
Step 3: Set Up Tracking Tools
You don’t need expensive software to get started. Begin by installing tracking tools on your website and marketing channels:
Google Analytics (GA4): Every website should be integrated with GA4. With this, you understand website traffic, user behaviour and goals such as page views, add to carts, purchases. Furthermore, GA4 can be integrated with advertising platforms like Google Ads allowing you to segment and target users effectively.
Meta / Google Pixel: Track ad performance and conversions on Facebook , Instagram and Google allowing you to collect the user data and retarget or suppress these users for your campaigns.
UTM Parameters: Use these in your URLs to track which campaigns are driving results
Step 4: Build a Simple Dashboard
Even a spreadsheet can work to start. Organize your metrics in one place to track performance weekly. Use free tools like and connect these dashboards with your main advertising platforms. Doing so, will allow you to consolidate your data and look at the performance of your campaigns as a whole and provide you with a bird’s eye view.
Google Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio)
Notion or Airtable for lightweight dashboards
Step 5: Build and Segment Your AudiencE
With tracking tools in place, you can start identifying distinct customer behaviors and grouping them into actionable audience segments. Using tools like Meta Pixel and GA4, you can create various tiers of audiences—ranging from broad to highly specific.
Tier 1: Broad Interest-Based Audiences – These include users who have visited your site but taken no significant action, social media engagers, or lookalike audiences based on general traits. They help build brand awareness and fill the top of your funnel.
Tier 2: Mid-Funnel Audiences – These consist of users who’ve added products to cart, viewed specific product pages, or engaged with content multiple times. They’re high-intent but not yet converted.
Tier 3: Bottom-of-Funnel and Loyalty Audiences – These are your most valuable users: past purchasers, repeat customers, high AOV buyers, or subscribers. Use these segments for retention campaigns and upsells.
Each tier supports different marketing objectives—brand visibility, conversion, or retention. Personalizing your messaging to match each group’s behavior significantly boosts ad relevance and ROI.
Step 6: Activate and Optimize Targeted Campaigns
Run tailored ad campaigns for your key segments, testing different creatives and offers. Monitor performance regularly to see which messages resonate with each group. This continuous feedback loop allows you to improve precision targeting and scale what works.
Recommended Free or Budget-Friendly Tools
Here are tools that SMBs in Singapore can use to adopt a data-centric marketing approach without breaking the bank:
| Tool | Purpose | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics (GA4) | Website traffic and behavior analysis | Free |
| Meta Ads Manager & Pixel | Track ad performance, conversions | Free |
| Google Looker Studio | Build dashboards and reports | Free |
| Hotjar | Heatmaps and user session recordings | Free (basic plan) |
| Bitly / UTM.io | URL tracking and campaign labeling | Free / Freemium |
| HubSpot CRM | Track leads and marketing touchpoints | Free (starter) |
| Notion / Airtable | Custom metric tracking and dashboards | Free / Freemium |
At Majorform, we help Singaporean businesses move from guesswork to growth with data-backed strategies. Whether it’s setting up analytics infrastructure, designing performance dashboards, or optimizing your paid campaigns, we provide the tools and expertise to drive results.
If you're a business owner ready to start using your data more effectively, we're here to help you set up, scale, and succeed, contact us now.
