It simply amazes me how many case studies are crafted on the back of totally unreliable data.
Digital Expert: “The performance of your website has increased by 200% since our meeting last week. Great News!”
Client: “Is that right?! We haven’t allocated any media budget to online campaigns and we are actually experiencing a decrease in sales…our competitors are gaining market share, too!”
Digital Expert: “I assure you Google Analytics can’t be wrong, I have the report in front of me, I will email it to you right now!”
Image Source: Softpedia.com
Collecting data without analysis and interpretation doesn’t bring any value, and you should allocate a budget for proper analysis.
My recommendation:
- Ensure a technical expert is in charge of both tracking implementation and validation. In fact, data discrepancies can be caused by incorrect tracking code implementation.
- Ensure you fully understand the mechanism of analytics tools and customisation is done accordingly in order to retrieve insightful data and speed up the data collection process.
- Pay attention to any unexpected change in traffic and trends. Furthermore, check if ancillary campaigns, online and/or offline activities have been launched. Understand your competitor strategy and react quickly.
- Recognise spam: most of the spikes in performance which may be detected within a short period of time are caused by malicious bots activity. Ensure you know how to block and filter them.
- Finally, screen the positioning of products and price/volume policies. Ensure this is backed by ad-hoc research that indicates value drivers and threats.
If you want to discuss these topics further and/or you want to have a proper assessment of your website, feel free to email us at info@hedgingbeta.com