With the right systems in place, more data can equal more opportunity. Yet many marketers are struggling to make sense of the information available to them.
This was a familiar story for online contact lens and eyewear retailer Clearly (Coastal in the U.S.) For years, the Vancouver-based company used multiple analytics platforms to measure performance, despite discrepancies that made it difficult for them to act. The result? Missed opportunities for growth.
Andre Luchaninov, Head of Growth at Clearly, knew that if they could rule out these inconsistencies, it would give them a better picture of their success on a product level, around specific campaigns — and save them staff time and money.
Working with reliable data can:
Working from the same data improves efficiency
Data discrepancies across platforms can result from how pages are tagged, if the data is reported in real-time or delayed by a few hours, and whether or not the platform integrates with other products that take post-impression data into account.
Clearly was already using Google tools and products to plan, develop, and manage their digital campaigns, so they decided to move to Google Analytics 360 for channel reporting. The integration between products would help improve efficiency across the team, and that made it easier to get buy-in from the CEO, which was fundamental to the transition.
"People tend to get lost in details, and that can make it hard to move projects like this forward," says Luchaninov. “We needed the CEO to make the final call to ensure the entire organization was on board.”
Saving time saves money
Clearly’s Growth Team invested in training the team over a few months, then switched to using primarily Google Analytics 360. Now, the entire marketing team is looking at the same reports, which included data-driven attribution for paid and organic channels, demonstrating how particular touchpoints impact conversions.
They can use these insights to remarket across search, display, and video, and are no longer spending time trying to reconcile data that doesn’t add up.
Luchaninov says the time-saving benefits of training the entire team on one analytics platform with real-time reporting were almost immediate. Within three months, they were saving about 80 hours each week, which translates to roughly $150,000 a year that can be reallocated. And with better insight into campaign performance, he says they’re no longer “spending money for the sake of spending money.”
We used to get conflicting reports and end up doing nothing, because we didn’t know what to trust.
Data-driven strategies maximize media spend
Now that the team is on the same page about how products or campaigns are performing — and through what channels — there’s less pressure on Luchaninov’s team. They’re aligned on what’s working and what’s not, and that frees up time for clearer, more creative thinking, so they can develop data-driven strategies.
“We used to get conflicting reports and end up doing nothing, because we didn’t know what to trust,” says Luchaninov. “Now, we can more confidently say that SEO is down YoY in performance, everyone knows it’s down, and we’re addressing it.”
