How do you know if your data is sound?

Data Fluency & Integrity

Numbers never lie. Numbers can tell us more nuances about your business than a written report would be able to. That’s why it’s crucial to have sound data informing your business decisions.

Google Analytics (GA) has a long-standing reputation for delivering a seamless method of analyzing and interpreting data about your website and marketing activities. But how do you know if what you’re looking at is sound? Are you making decisions based on inaccurate data? Are you even looking at your data? Having a fully-optimized GA account with your goals in mind is where the real value in data comes.

Analytics & Implementation

Are you able to answer the questions above? Well-informed decisions rely on strong data integrity.

A full review of your website and GA account will help ensure your data is strong and accurate. That way, you can be sure that when analysis begins, any flaws–from initial account setup to goal strategy to ad campaign integration (AdWords or otherwise)–are all done properly. It should be a thorough process that includes the following:

• Preliminary assessment of account/discovery session
• Identify pain points in data collection and reporting
• Develop goal strategy
• Implement Google Tag Manager on your sites to seamlessly integrate with GA and Google Optimize
• Optimize dashboard reporting through Google Data Studio or Klipfolio to give you a view of actionable insights

Ongoing Analysis & Consulting

Simply having the most robust data analysis tool at your fingertips might not be enough to begin gleaning actionable insights from your data. After review and implementation, the next step is ongoing analysis. There are a few things you’ll need to dive deep into in order to begin developing your data strategy going forward:

Customization: Custom dimensions, segments, reports, etc. will help you get the most relevant information from your data. It’s advisable to collect data from several different reporting platforms (GA, HubSpot, SalesForce, BigQ, etc.) to get the complete picture of your data. Developing custom dashboards will also ensure these platforms are easy to use and tailored to your specific needs.

E-commerce Set Up & Attribution: Whether you need a basic setup or something more advanced, in the e-commerce space, accurate revenue measurements and proper attribution are essential to your marketing efforts.

For this stage of the analytics process, it’s usually best to seek help from an experienced digital agency. An expert analytics team can provide continual education on how to interpret your data and how to make decisions based on it.

Google Analytics 360

Google Analytics 360 is for enterprise clients needing to churn through large quantities of data. Sites with relatively high amounts of traffic might experience data sampling or run into collection or hit limits; you won’t be experiencing these issues in GA360. In addition, there are exclusive features you won’t find anywhere else (including in regular GA).

Are you ready to get the most out of your data?

No one can predict the future. That’s why it’s so important to learn from the past. When you know exactly how your users are spending time on your site and finding out what is important to them, you can adapt your strategies to improve your conversions, transactions, downloads and more.

A dedicated partner like BFO can help round out the features of GA360 with integrity, expert knowledge and actionable insights. Contact us today to learn how to get the most out of your data to inform the decisions that will be leading you to your digital future!

Thinking it might be time for your business to upgrade your Google Analytics account? Download our ebook to learn about the benefits.

Written by: Mark Gorney, Analytics Account Analyst, ensures data integrity, analysis, and insightful reporting.