SayPro Conduct trend comparisons with previous months.

✅ Steps for Trend Comparisons with Previous Months

🔹 Step 1: Define Key Metrics for Comparison

Identify the metrics you will compare across months. Some examples of metrics to track trends:

• Revenue: Total revenue for each month.
• Conversions: Number of completed goals or actions (e.g., product purchases, sign-ups, donations).
• Bounce Rate: Percentage of visitors who leave after visiting only one page.
• Website Traffic: Number of visitors to the website (new vs. returning users).
• Lead Generation: Number of leads captured from forms or sign-ups.
• Campaign Performance: Performance of specific marketing campaigns (e.g., Facebook, email).

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🔹 Step 2: Gather Data for Each Month

Pull the relevant data for each metric. Depending on your data source (e.g., Google Analytics, CRM, internal reports), you should have month-over-month reports. Here’s how to pull the data:

In Google Analytics:

1. Log in to Google Analytics.
2. Go to Reports → Acquisition → All Traffic → Channels (for traffic comparison).
3. Use the Date Range Picker to select two months (e.g., April and May 2025).
4. Compare key metrics (sessions, bounce rate, goal completions) for these months.

In CRM (e.g., HubSpot, Salesforce):

1. Access Revenue Reports or Lead Generation reports.
2. Set the Date Range to cover previous months (e.g., April 2025 vs. May 2025).
3. Export the relevant data.

In Excel or Google Sheets:

If you’re tracking performance manually:

1. Open your SayPro Revenue Tracking Sheet or Performance Dashboard.
2. Filter by month and track metrics like Total Revenue, Conversion Rate, and Bounce Rate.

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🔹 Step 3: Create a Comparison Table

Use a table to compare the key metrics from the current and previous months:

Metric	May 2025	April 2025	Change (%)	Trend
Revenue (ZAR)	150,000	130,000	+15.4%	Up
Total Visitors	15,000	12,500	+20%	Up
Conversions	1,200	1,100	+9.1%	Up
Bounce Rate (%)	35%	38%	-7.9%	Down
Lead Generation	350	250	+40%	Up

• Change (%) is calculated using: textCopyEditChange (%) = ((Current Month - Previous Month) / Previous Month) * 100
• Trend can be tagged as Up if the metric improved, or Down if it decreased.

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🔹 Step 4: Visualize the Trends

For easier comparison, create charts to visualize the trends over the last few months. You can use line charts or bar charts to plot metrics like revenue, traffic, conversion rates, and bounce rates.

Example: Line Chart of Revenue Trend Over 6 Months

1. Plot Revenue (ZAR) for each month.
2. Add a trendline to identify if the revenue is consistently rising or fluctuating.

Example: Bar Chart for Monthly Bounce Rate Comparison

• Y-Axis: Bounce Rate (%) for each month.
• X-Axis: Months (e.g., April, May, June).

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🔹 Step 5: Analyze and Interpret Trends

Now that you have your comparison, analyze the results:

Positive Trends (e.g., increasing revenue, more conversions, or lower bounce rate):

• Why?: Identify the factors that contributed to this positive change. Did you run successful campaigns? Were there any promotions or seasonal impacts?

Negative Trends (e.g., lower revenue, high bounce rate):

• Why?: Identify areas of concern. Did you experience lower website traffic? Were there issues with landing pages or technical performance?

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🔹 Step 6: Take Action Based on Insights

From the trend analysis, take steps to capitalize on strengths and address weaknesses.

Example Actions:

• Increase Marketing Budget: If Google Ads has a high ROI, increase the budget for the next month.
• Improve Website Engagement: If the bounce rate increased, consider improving landing page designs, call-to-action buttons, or reducing page load time.
• Optimize Campaigns: If a specific campaign (e.g., email marketing) is showing strong performance, scale it up or replicate it in future campaigns.

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🔹 Step 7: Reporting and Documenting

Document the results in a monthly report or dashboard that can be shared with internal stakeholders. Highlight:

• Month-over-month performance trends.
• Key successes or areas of improvement.
• Recommendations for next steps.

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🗂 Tools for Trend Analysis:

1. Google Data Studio: Create a custom dashboard that pulls data from Google Analytics and CRM tools, showing month-over-month comparisons.
2. Excel or Google Sheets: Manually track and compare key metrics.
3. Power BI or Tableau: For advanced visualizations, these tools can automatically connect to data sources like Google Analytics and CRM platforms.