A Primer On Web Analytics For Marketers

Josh: Hi, this Josh Becerra. I’m here with Megan Upperman, our manager of analytics. We’re going to talk about analytics, which is super fun.

Megan: It’s true, it’s fun.

Josh: Yes, so the deal with analytics is garbage in, garbage out, you need good data. Megan has actually brought some really crazy data statistics to share with us, about how bad it really is if you’re not using analytics properly.

Megan: It’s so true, and a couple of these kind of blew my mind when I found them. I really spent a lot of time fact-checking them because I was a little bit in disbelief. We’ll start with, “Poor quality data, cost the US economy $3.1 trillion.”

Josh: Trillion, with a T.

Megan: Trillion with a T. 

Josh: That’s a lot of money.

Megan: Yes, it’s a ton of money. Here’s another one, “60% percent of marketers don’t trust the cleanliness of their data.”

Josh: Yes, that’s sad.

Megan: It’s sad.

Josh: That’s a sad state of affairs at this time where we should have good data, right?

Megan: Yes. Collecting and actually using data properly is an absolute must for a modern marketing team.

Josh: Yes, for sure.

Megan: It is mission-critical.

Josh: Okay, you got a couple more pieces of data here. It takes $1-

Megan: [chuckles] It does, “It takes $1 to verify that your data’s quality is good with a better implementation on the front end. It takes $10 to fix it later.” Cost you $100 to do nothing.

Josh: Don’t do nothing.

Megan: Don’t do nothing.

Josh: It’s not worth it. At Augurian, we have analytics department. Megan leads that department-

Megan: I do.

Josh: -and we wanted to share with you on this video a little bit about what does that mean to have a retainer with Augurian and our analytics department. Tell us a little bit about that.

Megan: The very first thing that we will do, our kind of base-level point of starting, is to make sure that your implementation is set up to best practice. There’s hundreds, but we’ll start with the basic– Like a 64-point checklist that we’ve developed. It works for E-commerce, it works for LeadGen, just to ensure that you don’t have garbage coming in.

Josh: Nobody likes garbage coming in.

Megan: No, no, so we start with that. The next point after we make sure that the data you have is good and you’re up to a basic best practice that works for everyone, then we start customizing. We work with you to create a measurement strategy. We’ll talk through questions like, “What do I need to know?” “How am I going to measure that?” “How do I define whether this tactic has been successful or not?” “How do I set meaningful goals and benchmarks and how do I make sure I’m pacing right towards those?”

When we’re looking through something like that, as we create that measurement strategy, most of the time what comes out of that is the need to customize your implementation and to start incorporating other types of data sources.

For example, if you’re using call tracking or if you got meaningful data in your CRM that you want to incorporate or if you’ve done, for example, a closed-loop implementation that’ll integrate all the way to the end of your sales funnel, all of those things will bring back into your central analytics area, so that you’ve got a source of truth that works for everyone, All the vendors you’re working with, your internal team, everyone should find what they need here, in the same measurement strategy.

Josh: Having that kind of agreed-upon source of truth, I think is the ultimate goal. We want everybody to believe that the data that’s coming in is the right data, that we don’t have garbage coming in. Then it becomes very actionable, right?

Megan: Yes, it’s true. All of these things are so custom, because everybody’s tech stack looks different. All the tools you’re working with, every business is different. You’ve got different questions to answer, and you’ll need different tools to get there.

Josh: Right on. The way that this becomes actionable is through reporting, so why don’t you tell us a little bit about what that looks like?

Megan: Sure. The very first most basic piece of that, is that we will work together to develop some ongoing reporting that’s really helpful. Everything in this report should be, not just meaningful, but it should also be presented in a way that is actually actionable. The way all of that information is presented should naturally bubble up the kind of insights that you need to make strategic choices.

Josh: This is completely cross channel, right?

Megan: Absolutely. If you’re running a paid search or an organic program with us, you get monthly reports that cover those specific channels. What analytics does is, it takes that channel-agnostic view, it kind of sits one step above that and says, “For everyone across the team, here’s where value is coming in, here’s where the money is being spent and here’s the return on that kind of investment.” It’s a really nice move for transparency, so you can see everything measured the same way.

Josh: That’s awesome. I imagine that this is kind of something that is continually evolving, it’s not like you will create a report and then that’s the report that everybody sees every month. Can you tell us a little bit about how things evolve over time with this analytics retainer?

Megan: Sure. Just like your business is going to evolve over time, you’re going to have different needs, different questions that will come up, you can imagine that– One thing we just finished doing is wrapping up 2019. At the end of 2019, we put together a lot of different reporting that helps people forecast into 2020. “What do I need to spend here?” “What was the return on this tactic?” “What else should I incorporate into my strategy?” Those things over time will work with you, iteration after iteration until you have something that’s meaningful for everyone on your team.

Josh: There you go, so don’t be part of that $3.1 trillion of wasted money on garbage in, garbage out, work with analytics experts like Megan here, and it’s just going to make it really easy to evaluate what you’re investing in, and what are the right tactics you’re working on.

Megan: Definitely.

Josh: Awesome. Thanks so much. Hope you found this valuable. We’ll see you next time.

Megan: Thanks.