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Why Having a Data and Analytics Strategy is Critical for Your Business

Now more than ever, our world is being driven by data and analytics, leading to the rise of a data-driven economy. Gartner predicts, “By 2022, 90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency.” Indeed growing a corporation’s data and analytics competency is how modern businesses are finding success with digital transformation.

What Is Big Data?

 Big Data is a term describing all the many sources of data that a corporation, organization or business may have access to. Data can be gathered internally, such as recording sales and financial data, social media sentiment, online interactions, and from research and development. External data also can be accessed or purchased to give a more complete picture to inform your decisionmaking. Data by itself isn’t an asset until you have a solid plan and strategy that lines up with your business goals. A strategy defines (1) who is working on your strategy and will be working with the data, (2) what processes and decision making you will use, and  (3) the technology to make actionable insights possible. The following are elements to consider as you develop a robust data and analytics strategy that will give you a road map long into the future.

Business Goals

Begin with the end in mind. Determine first what your business goals are and what questions you need to answer to reach those goals. Do you need a way to make innovation faster, comply with regulations, decrease costs, connect more authentically customers or identify new sales opportunities? Look at the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you are using now throughout the organization to inform your discussions. These important conversations will help you get laser-focused on what data you will be able to gather to give you the business intelligence you need to move ahead.

Data Sources

Data can be structured or unstructured and come from both internal and external sources. You need to know where the data comes from, how it is gathered and what regulations you will need to abide by to keep it private and secure. An effective data governance policy will ensure the integrity of data and make sure it is not mishandled.

Data Storage and Infrastructure

Large quantities of data presents challenges for storing and analysis. What technology infrastructure will you need to store and process the data so you can gather the insights you need? Many companies use the cloud as a cost-effective and secure way to store data. Raw data can be stored in a data lake until is ready to be processed or accessed by a data scientist. Data warehouses, on the other hand, are set up to process data so it can be used for advanced analysis so it can act as a “single source of truth” to guide decision making. Some companies may choose one or the other, or even both! Data warehouse cloud solutions include Google BigQuery, Microsoft Azure, Snowflake, and Amazon RedShift. Cloud solutions for data lakes include Data Bricks, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform. Microsoft Azure and Snowflake.

Insights and Dashboards

Once you have your data set up, the next step is turning the data into insights. Determine what dashboards will you need and who in the organization will be using them to make decisions. Having the right level of detail for each audience who will be using these dashboards is important. At this level, you can spot efficiencies in the supply chain, leverage advertising and sales information, and better understand your customers and what they are wanting or don’t even know that they need yet. As your analytics game advances you’ll grow from not only understanding what is happening and why but also making better predictions for the future.

People and Process

As you move through this strategy process, you will need to take special care toward incorporating data-based decision making throughout your organization. You may need to hire employees with new skills or outsource to a specialized team on site or offshore. As your plan evolves, you may need to plan for training and incentives for employees to learn how to effectively and efficiently use these insights and to adopt new internal processes and operations. Be sure your plan includes a budget and considers what competing projects might affect the timeline for getting started.

Business Intelligence for the Modern Age

Harnessing and convertingdata into actionable business intelligence you can use to transform your business requires special expertise. But digital transformation is all but impossible without it. We live and breathe data, and can help you create a data and analytics strategy to propel your organization forward. Contact us to start a conversation today.
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Unlocking Business Growth with Google Analytics 360: Harnessing Data and Insights for Success

Businesses grow proportionally to their ability act on insights received from their data and analytics team. Google Analytics 360 is one of the most popular tools that large companies or enterprises use to gather data and use it to understand their customers, predict their behavior and drive results.

Google Analytics 360 vs Free

Google Analytics 360(formerly known as Google 360 Premium) is the paid version of the software. Large companies use Google 360 to measure trends, better understand the customer journey and use their data in ways that bolster return on investment.

Besides advanced analytics reporting, Google Analytics 360 differs from the free version in a variety of ways:

  • Dedicated service and technical support
  • Guaranteed data freshness
  • Customizable funnel reporting
  • Attribution modeling
  • Access to unsampled reports
  • Higher limits for data collection
  • Seamless integrations to Google BigQuery, Saleforce Marketing Cloudand others

The pricing for the enterprise edition is based on hit volume and requires a call with the Google sales team. Alternately, you can purchase it through a Google Marketing Platform Sales Partner.

How Does Google Analytics 360 Help?

 Google Analytics 360 is designed to help large companies to make sense of a large quantities of data so they can better understand their customers and what they need. Whether a customer interacts from an app or makes an online purchase, Google Analytics 360 can help you track the entire customer journey from start to finish.

Understanding how customers interact with your sites and apps makes it easier to measure trends and predict future customer behavior.

You can use these insights to improve your return on investment, optimizing your marketing performance overall. You use information you learn to create a more personalized experience and reach difference audiences to nudge them further along the marketing funnel.

You can also learn more about customer interests which you can deploy to optimize search and content marketing.

Greater insights about what is working well and not working well means you can quickly pivot to take advantage of opportunities, trends and ideas to streamline your business as they emerge.

In short, Google Analytics 360 turns your digital data into business intelligence.

What Components Are Part of the Google Marketing Platform?

 Google Analytics 360 integrates analytics and advertising data on a single marketing platform. The enterprise edition of Google Analytics 360 works seamlessly with the following modules:

Google Analytics 360 also integrates with other Google products and partner products. An integration with Google BigQuerygives even more flexibility to combine and analyze many different sources of data for further insights.

Data and Analytics for the Business Growth

Are you ready to deploy Google Analytics 360 for your business and have questions about what the next step might be? SiRA Consulting can partner with your team to deploy Google Analytics 360 and help you determine a smart strategy to accelerate your business. Contact us to start a conversation today.

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Benefits of Implementing Adobe Analytics for Your Business

Adobe Analytics is an enterprise solution known for its ability to harvest insights from every aspect of the customer journey. Unlike its well-known competitor, Google Analytics 360, there is no free version of Adobe Analytics. The application is used by larger enterprises that want to track every aspect of the customer journey, both online and offline.

These days a business’s website isn’t the only place where customers interact. They may engage with you using a mobile device, wearable tech, social media, a call center, digital assistants and surveys. They may also make a purchase in-person at brick-and-mortar store, access streaming media (OTT), use products with sensors that perform a function and connect to the Internet, called the Internet of Things (IoT). What’s a business to do to make sense of all of this data and gather the insights needed to really propel a business forward?

While most people think of Google Analytics to capture and analyze data, there are some important reasons they might choose the Adobe Experience Cloud solution instead.

What Google Analytics 360 and Adobe Analytics Have in Common?

Both Google Analytics 360 Suite and Adobe Analytics are designed for large companies that are ready to gather important business intelligence from the data they collect. Both enterprise analytics software packages have features in common:

  • Both integrate with their own proprietary marketing stack of applications: Google Marketing Platform and Adobe Experience Cloud
  • Both solutions are complex to setup, maintain and use. They require specific expertise to make use of all their capabilities.
  • Both measure website traffic and channels that bring online traffic.
  • Both have the ability to build reports.
  • Both are paid solutions.

What Are the Benefits of Using Adobe Analytics?

Adobe Analytics provides a more comprehensive way to track and analyze complex customer journeys and makes it possible to integrate your existing customer database for analysis. One data expert believes that it is the superior analytics platform for businesses that are ready to go beyond web reporting.

Adobe Analytics provides these four main benefits:

  • Website Analytics – Go beyond traffic to learn not only who is visiting your website but why they are there and what content they are looking for. Gather greater insights by looking at your website data alongside other channels to create a fuller picture.
  • Marketing Analytics – Omnichannel marketing requires the creation of customer journeys, not just measuring individual channels. This will give you a 360 view of your customers, so you can analyze how they react across the entire sales funnel.
  • Attribution – Find out which online and offline actions affect conversion throughout the customer journey. These insights give you the ability to track the value of every interaction.
  • Predictive Analytics – Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning helps spot anomalies and opportunities that can be acted on in real time. These tools help data experts and marketers find the insights they can use immediately.

Which Adobe Experience Cloud Products Are Commonly Used with Adobe Analytics?

Adobe Experience Cloud has a full marketing stack of products that seamless integrate to expand your capabilities. Here’s an overview of the most common applications:

  • Adobe Target – Gives you the ability to optimize and test every experience and apply AI-powered automation.
  • Adobe Experience Manager – This suite of apps combines the management of content and digital assets in one place.
  • Adobe Advertising Cloud – Unify and automate advertising in one place.
  • Adobe Campaign – Track customer journeys and deliver dynamic campaigns through multi-channels (email, mobile, etc.)
  • Adobe Audience Manager – This data management platform helps you segment and understand your customers.

Why Does My Enterprise Need Adobe Analytics?

 In a nutshell, Adobe Analytics can transform your business, giving the insights you need to better understand your customers and respond to them in real time.

In a nutshell, Adobe Analytic excels at helping large enterprises

  • Accommodate complex customer journeys
  • Access raw, unsampled data for greater accuracy
  • Make closed-loop analytics possible
  • Customize dashboards and reports for comprehensive analysis
  • Apply machine learning and intelligence technology (Adobe Sensei) to surface insights faster

Comprehensive Analytics for the Modern Enterprise

The largest companies choose Adobe Analytics to dig into their data to make the business decisions that lead to a long-term return on investment. This analytics platform is a superior choice for companies that have laid the groundwork for data-driven operations and are ready for true digital transformation. Not sure whether Google Analytics 360 or Adobe Analytics is best for you? Contact us today to start a conversation.