STEPS TO GETTING YOUR ANALYTICS RESULT RIGHT.

Back in 2006 nobody do care about integrated data. Well maybe that's a bit of exaggeration...but the reality was that marketing efforts were often siloed, disjointed or some messy combination of the two. Today Integrated data is not only essential to pricing marketing efforts, but we are now flooded with "Big Data", which has huge potential but can often be confusing to digest and when implemented well, it is being harnessed to drive more revenue through digital strategy than ever before.

In this brave new world of truly integrated digital activity and huge volumes of available data, how do we collect, utilize and interpret the exact data we need to aid strategic decision making without overwhelming ourselves with more data than we can make sense of?

In the fairy tale, Goldilocks finds an empty house owned by three bears and decides to help herself to their food before having a nap, only to find that their porridge and beds were either too hot or hard, or too cold or soft.

It took several attempts to find the ideal. This is the essence of The Goldilocks Principle, which states that something must fall within certain parameters, as opposed to reaching extremes. Getting data requirement just right is essential for companies who want to be market leaders.

Here are a few key requirements I have learnt are necessary to ensure you have the right data, to provide the level of insight you might require.

START WITH THE OUTPUT: What do you want to see? Which business decisions will the data influence? Who needs to use the data? How do you want it visualized and how will it be communicated and shared? When speaking to customers about their data requirements, I always start at the end. It may seem counter-intuitive, but people often forget why they’re embarking on a ‘data discovery journey’ - it shouldn’t be to use data just because it’s available. In order to use data effectively it’s essential to first understand what you’re trying to achieve.

Start with your key performance indicators (KPIs). I can’t stress that strongly enough. It may seem obvious, but it’s amazing how often these get forgotten when there’s a lot of exciting juicy nuggets of information available to use. KPIs can, and should, change throughout the life of a business, and particularly within the digital industry as it rapidly evolves.

CLEARLY COMMUNICATE YOUR OBJECTIVES: Does everyone in the team understand the end goal? Does the tech team understand what the digital marketers need to see and vice versa? Once everyone is on the same page, you may find that you don’t need as much data as you originally thought. For instance, I heard of a large organization that gave its digital agency an enormous budget to ensure its

products were ranking well in natural and paid search and drive traffic to key product pages.

Monthly reports took days to put together due to the sheer number of keywords and campaigns being monitored. Traffic to the product pages from these efforts was high, and therefore the agency’s KPIs were met. However, customers weren’t converting. They were dropping off the product pages like flies because the commodity service just wasn’t competitive. In the end, all the promotion in the world wasn’t going to drive revenue unless the products themselves became what people were looking for.

While all the reports showed campaign success, the organization wasn’t happy. An enormous amount of data at a granular level was available to see the problem and provide a solution, however everyone was so focused on the detail they lost sight of the bigger picture.

Their report was too complex and missing the most important KPI - customers converting.

EVALUATE THE INPUT: Evaluate the inputs which data sources are necessary to achieve the agreed output? What are the technical, legal or cost limitations? How will you obtain and manage the data? With so much information being created every day, when aggregating and reporting on data it’s very easy to find yourself in a situation that is probably best described as “information overload”.

Instead of using some of it, you end up using none of it because it becomes unmanageable. Once your KPIs are defined, technology can handle more data aggregation and output than most companies need, often at affordable prices.

Finding the right technology to meet your exact requirements will avoid you ending up in a cloud-based super storm of data. However technology is only just one part of it. Can you legally use the data? Do you have to pay for it and is it worth it? Is the data reliable and going to remain consistent in the future? Perhaps you don’t need granular data, but just a high level summary. If you can’t extract useful actionable insights, then the data you are collecting has no value. 

START SMALL THINK BIG: Don’t get caught up in the big data hype, believing that all companies should be investing big budgets into collecting and analyzing all available data immediately. The reality is that most businesses can achieve exactly what they need by starting with just a few key data sets and utilizing technology already on the market. It’s essential to avoid flooding yourself with too much data if you don’t initially have the resource to use it effectively.

Learn what works and keep adding to it, but avoid adding data for data’s sake - ensure that any additional metrics enhance the measurement of your objectives and KPIs. Don't make the mistake Goldilocks did by going straight for what appears the “biggest or best”, but instead spend a bit of time figuring out what is right for you. It will save you a lot of pain in the long run and provide a much more valuable journey.