Data Analytics: Insights to Impact

Analytics and data-driven decisions aren’t new to our branding wheel-house.  Since the 1980s fact-based data has enabled brands to identify opportunities for improvement and growth; a process known as brand analytics.

These days however, the vast swathes of data at our fingertips far exceeds anything our 80s counterpart could ever have imagined.  In the last two years alone, the pandemic and remote working has dramatically increased opportunities to track and measure data – creating a whole new culture in organisations.

Rohit Amarnath in a recent article in Forbes agrees: “Gone are the days when data analytics were considered an afterthought or secondary activity. Organisations are now embracing data analytics as a key business driver for intelligent decision-making and a core element at the start of any new project.”

In fact, Gartner analysts believe, by 2025, 80% of data analytic initiatives focused on business outcomes, will be considered an essential business capability.

With many of the social listening tools and brand dashboards available for free, it’s not just big companies with deep pockets leveraging the benefits of analytics.

A recent study conducted by Forbes CMO Practice and Neustar showed that marketers who invest more than 10% of their working media budgets in performance measurement, or analytics, are three times more likely to exceed their growth plans by 25%.

That said, it’s not just having the data to hand, it’s what brands do with it, that matters.

Netflix is a prime example: utilising viewing history, Netflix employs data and analytics to understand what users want to watch, offers them real time suggestions and then goes on to further use that data to predict trends and commission new original content.  The ultimate in data personalisation…and, with a 93% customer retention rate, they’ve got their insight right.

Multi-touch attributed data is vital to brand strategy because it offers unbiased, transparent truth in an impartial manner.

In the words of Jeff Keenan, SVP International, co-founder at LeadsRx: “One marketer may think radio will work better than Google ads, or that the non-host-read podcast ad will be more effective, but the analytics data will simply say “this works, this doesn’t.”

All brands want that “aha!” moment.

By leveraging the insights gained from brand analytics, brands can better understand their own presence online – and carry out competitor benchmarking, comparing their brand health to that of their rivals.

As we’ve alluded to before, all the data in the world can come to naught if it’s not set up against a brand’s strategic KPI.  This is where the human element comes in.

In an interview, Laura Patterson, co-founder and President of VisionEdge Marketing, speaks to the necessity of asking the right questions:  “Always start every analytics endeavour knowing what business decision your organisation needs to make and what information they need, to make this decision.”

In other words, it takes someone with experience – a data analyst or experienced marketer – who knows how to look at data, draw insights from it, apply real-world human experiences to strengthen those insights – then act upon them to increase brand market performance.

“Today’s creative, media and public relations practitioners must be able to better understand the intricacies and nuances of digital and social media while being able to effectively analyse data to explain results, see opportunities and address client’s challenges.” agrees Tony Cashman, president & CEO of Glastonbury-based communications company, Cashman + Katz.

 No longer is it enough for agencies just to be creative; they need to know, understand and speak the language of numbers too.

In fact, if an agency can use proprietary analytics tools to help clients more closely measure the success of their brand’s perception, reception and position in the market, even better…

If you’re thinking through ways in which analytics can help accelerate growth, let’s chat.