Data Driven
Posts
💾 Badly Broken

💾 Badly Broken

What is really being tracked, anyway?

Jeff Sauer
January 17, 2024

Sponsored by

In Today's Issue

Analytics on Shaky Ground
Why You’re Doing Measurement Wrong
Black Swans, Bench Marks, and Big Threats
Bye-bye, Google Business Profiles?
CRO That Won’t Crash and Burn
Social Proof

📢 TOP STORY

I feel the Earth move under my feet. I feel the sky tumbling down

We all know that Carole King was talking about being swept off her feet by love when she sang those lyrics. But it’s also a pretty accurate description of how a lot of marketers are feeling at the moment. That’s because the data landscape continues to shift. And it’s destabilizing what we used to think of as solid ground.

Juan Mendoza at MarTech is arguing that web analytics is badly broken. After a quarter century of unrestricted access to customer data, Big Tech and government regulators are making moves that have sent the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction. He laments the loss of the kind of certainty that allowed e-commerce teams to make hiring and firing decisions based on their Google Analytics dashboards. But goes on to say that it’s not all doom and gloom.

There’s no denying the chaotic influence of the changes that are taking place as everybody from Google to Apple to the European Union tries to establish a balance between privacy protections and economic opportunity. Still, innovation is happening. Some vendors are building privacy-focused web analytics packages. Others are leaning into first-party data.

Web analytics as we used to know it is broken due to a reduction in the data available to collect and uncertainty over the best path forward. But with change comes opportunity. Perhaps the next wave will be driven by finesse and reworking our ability to trust our analytics, not technology alone.

That’s why I’m excited to invite you to a webinar I’m hosting next week called “Confession: I've Been Doing Measurement Wrong And You Probably Are Too.” If you want to hear about my journey of dealing with broken analytics and the steps I’ve taken to make it a strength for DDU in 2024, you can register here.

🤝 LIVE TRAINING OPPORTUNITY

Three Reasons Why I've Been Doing Measurement Wrong And You Probably Are Too

Is it just me, or does every analytics tool seem to be focused more on features for billion-dollar enterprises who spend tons on ads than the average small business just trying to eke out a living online?

When I first launched Data Driven U, I made the mistake of trying to apply the same measurement strategies I used for fortune 500 companies to my own business. Boy was that an expensive mistake that cost me months of wasted time with little to show for it.

Over the years, I’ve tried to find the right framework to implement, and even created my own to varying levels of success and clarity. But it wasn’t until I started my podcast with Chris “Mercer” Mercer that I realized I was doing it all wrong.

That’s why I’m happy to let you know that I’ve invited Mercer to join me on a webinar next week to talk about how measurement is broken for small businesses, and how you can implement a proven framework that will make everything clear for you moving forward. It all takes place next Wednesday, January 24th, at 1 PM EST.

📰 THREE HEADLINES

👮 Does Google Know Something We Don’t About a 2024 Black Swan Event?

If you’ve ever advertised with Google, you might have received an email yesterday. It began by stating that Google will update its inappropriate content policy to clarify the definition of sensitive events.

Google has established itself as the arbiter of truth in the digital age. So, it's worth a closer look when it changes the rules around what information can be censored in a sensitive event scenario.

💸 E-commerce Conversion Rate Benchmarks – 2024 Update

Conversion rate is the top choice of KPIs for evaluating the effectiveness of e-commerce sites. Naturally, site managers want to know how their conversion rates stack up.

But, as consumer and business confidence falls, it’s more important than ever to audit and optimize marketing success metrics. Check out the best free industry sources focused on retail e-commerce conversion.

🤥 AI-Powered Misinformation is the World’s Biggest Short-Term Threat, Davos Report Says

As CEOs, experts, industry leaders, and policymakers get ready to descend on Davos, the World Economic Forum has released its latest Global Risks Report.

It warns that misinformation and disinformation pose the most severe risk to the global economy over the next two years. The report highlights how rapid advances in technology are creating new problems and making existing ones worse.

🤝 WITH SUPERSIDE

Need marketing assets? Like Yesterday?

Maybe your brand launch is tomorrow.

Maybe you have no hiring budget (been there).

Or maybe your team is simply understaffed and overworked.

Regardless, if you need designs ASAP, you need Superside. They deliver high-quality, on-brand assets in as little as 24 hours.

Yup, Superside hires the top 1% of creatives across the globe, so you don’t have to vet freelancers or make any hasty hires in a pinch.

Why Superside?

Graphic design, websites, ad copy–it’s all on-brand and on-time
Used by over 450 companies like Google, Meta, Reddit, and Shopify
Transparent pricing from the start to save you up to 50%

TL;DR: It’s a design subscription service tailored for MM and ENT companies.

Start using Superside!

🧵 THREADS

Websites made with Google Business Profiles will be turned off soon - Google My Business
I spent the yearly budget of my client in 5 days - Reddit
Hitting $1k/m after 1 year, and hitting $3k/m after 2 years possible? - Reddit
Revived a dead product from $0 and gave it life ($400/MRR) in 1 month - Indie Hackers Twitter
How High-Performing Teams Build Trust- Harvard Business Review

🤿 DEEP DIVE

Heisenberg or Hindenburg: Conversion Rate Optimization Misconceptions That Can Cause You to Crash and Burn

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) has quickly become a hot topic in digital marketing. But that comes with both pros and cons. You’ve probably seen the clickbait offering you a glimpse at an amazing case study that will show you how to achieve phenomenal increases, right?

Here’s the thing. Conversion rate optimization isn’t “a thing”. It’s the interaction between several very important things. And making progress in any reliable and repeatable way takes a thoughtful approach.

Ayat Shukairy should know. She’s a co-founder of Invesp, a conversion rate optimization company, and Figpii, an all-in-one CRO platform. Ayat recently ran down the CRO Misconceptions Every SEO Should Know on the Moz blog.

Ayat believes that CRO takes a lot more than changing the color of the button on a CTA to be successful. It’s about thoughtful testing, asking the right questions, and knowing just enough about statistics to find the answers you need.

A/B testing tools can be your best friend or your worst enemy when you’re focused on CRO.

Sure, every test will cause a screen flicker, just as Heisenberg would have predicted. But the flicker is just the cost of doing business when the tests you run have enough juice to be worth the squeeze.

On the other hand, an ad hoc approach with no connection to usability and persuasion can have your conversion rate going down in flames.

🎧 AUDIO VISUAL CORNER 🎥

🤝 A CALL FOR SPONSORS

What Do 41,000 Marketers Have In Common?

Their main source of news, case studies, and software recommendations every week comes from the Data Driven newsletter.

You can see rates and placements here to sponsor this newsletter and get your message in front of your ideal customers.