Decoding the Power of Analytics in the Online Realm
Apr 30, 2024Season 1Episode 17
Kaylee Johnson
Ever wondered how understanding the analytics of digital strategy matters? Well, get ready to gain a whole bunch of insights as we welcome the remarkable Philippa Gamse to our podcast stage.
From turning analytics into compelling narratives to dodging the snares of vanity metrics, there is a lot to unpack in this episode.
Join us for a chat that promises to enlighten, engage, and empower you to harness the full potential of data in your business strategy.
Ever wondered how understanding the analytics of digital strategy matters? Well, get ready to gain a whole bunch of insights as we welcome the remarkable Philippa Gamse to our podcast stage.
From turning analytics into compelling narratives to dodging the snares of vanity metrics, there is a lot to unpack in this episode.
Join us for a chat that promises to enlighten, engage, and empower you to harness the full potential of data in your business strategy.
Philippa has over 20 years of experience in translating metrics into creative ideas to move businesses forward and creating effective data-driven digital strategies. Now they're designed to achieve goals and maximize return on investments, and all in understandable English, not techie jargon. So that's key, because sometimes people can throw around words so much you're like I have no idea what that means. So super excited to have you on. Thank you, yeah, it's great to be here Now. I'd love to just hear your story. Tell us how you got to where you are today, just kind of the path that led you there.
Philippa Gamse:
So well, I am kind of an analytics geek around the Internet but I also do digital's sake. But one of the things I can say that I enjoy is that I've been around for a bit. I shouldn't say that, but you know, the advantage that gives you is you can see what works and what doesn't work and you you can sort of see the trends. But I was actually probably one of the first women involved in this whole piece because, honestly, it's, and it's still to a large extent is, more of a guy's world. Yes, in in data and the whole sort of technology, I mean, there are lots of women in marketing, but they tend not to go for the more geeky stuff. Yes, so so I also kind of enjoy being being a woman, a woman in this world, yeah, that's awesome.
Kaylee Johnson:
That's awesome. So were you always into data, or is that something that developed later on?
Philippa Gamse:
yeah, I, I'm actually an information scientist by training.
Philippa Gamse:
Whoa, that's so cool that is so cool yeah, well, I sort of you know on the librarianship kind of side, but, um, but I've always enjoyed kind of what is information and what can it do for us and how do you structure it so that it comes out useful? But that sort of blends into marketing. The thing I love about it is actually that, because of what I do, so we get the data and we get the analytics, and that's all lovely and, yes, we have to make sure the data is clean and do all that stuff, because obviously, if you're working with bad data, you're going to make bad decisions, right. But then there's the so what? So you know, we find out that something on our website isn't working properly, or you know nobody's responding to our social media posts or whatever it is, and then the question becomes so what? What are we going to do about it?
Philippa Gamse:
And that's where you can get creative. Um, because you've got to come up with some ideas, yeah, or you see an opportunity. Hey, look, there's all sorts of people who are looking for x. Um, I've seen this a lot with my clients, actually, and x isn't something that we currently provide, but we could. So, you know, maybe that's a new piece of content or even a new product or service, um, and that's where again you can get creative. So I one of the things I really enjoy about analytics for me is is that it's a blend of of the sort of geeky with with the creative skills.
Kaylee Johnson:
I. I love that. I started off um doing social media through an internship and when I started they were like giving me metrics and analytics and I was like I don't know what any of this means, much less what to do with it. So it was a process of being like OK, looking at them isn't just OK, we're doing great, ok, we're not, and leaving it there. It's like you know, looking at metrics and analytics like has a point, and if you're not willing to take action off of what you learn, then it's pointless. Right, and you know people talk a lot about vanity metrics and you know what really matters. So what are some vanity metrics and what do you really need to pay attention to when you're looking at all of it?
Philippa Gamse:
So well, ok, on a website, you know, one of the biggest vanity metrics was bounce rate, so bounce rate in. So Google Analytics, which is what I mostly work in now, has a new version and they might still have bounce rate at some point. They didn't. But you know, most of us who actually want to do analytics properly thought the bounce rate was a pretty useless metric anyway. Actually want to do analytics properly thought the bounce rate was a pretty useless metric anyway.
Philippa Gamse:
What it was or is is is the number of people who who see something that so maybe it's a social media post or whatever, but they, they, they barely look at it and they're off. Um, they leave. So in old web metrics, um, that meant somebody who only looked at one page and actually could could have meant that they read a whole blog post, but then they left, but because they didn't go anywhere else, it didn't record another hit. So therefore it had to say they bounced because it didn't know any better, which is why in the new version of Google Analytics for the web, well, at first they didn't include bounce rate. I think they do now. But what they're much more interested in, which I agree is, is engagement rate. So because, if you think about it, the people who come to your website or your social media and they stay for one second and they're gone are not your ideal client right, they're not interested in your stuff and people obsessed about bounce rate Like, oh my God, my bounce rate is 50%, what do I do?
Philippa Gamse:
Whereas what they should have been doing is saying, oh look, 50% of our visitors at least stayed for some point and they did some, maybe some things. And what can we do to get them more engaged and hopefully, to actually do what we want them to do? You know, on our side or our social media or whatever, right? So they were focusing on the bad stuff as opposed to the good, making the good stuff better.
Kaylee Johnson:
Kind of changing that mindset there.
Philippa Gamse:
Right.
Kaylee Johnson:
That makes sense.
Philippa Gamse:
I mean, and again, another vanity metric is literally the number of visitors. Right, so we got X number of thousand visitors. Great, were they the right type of visitor? Did they do anything? You know? Because if they didn't, then so what? Yes, so that you know the so what, as you, as you just said, is is really important and and that's something I think for your audience to really get, is that we can talk about. You know what's good metrics, what's useful metrics, but for every single different business, there's different things that they're really wanting to measure right now, different things that they're trying to do, because there's no point measuring anything unless you're going to do something about it very true um because you know you can sit there and feel good because you got more visitors than week, but what does that actually do for your business, right?
Philippa Gamse:
So, um, it's really important for for business owners to think about what is it we want to happen here, um, in order to approach the metrics intelligently, because otherwise, you know, like you said, it's overwhelming. There are just numbers and charts and figures and heaven knows what, right and it is. People glaze over and you can't blame them, right? So the way in is to is to start that thought process of saying what I want to happen is this how do I make that happen?
Kaylee Johnson:
Right, that's right, because without that call to action, you're not going to be it. It's, you know, the website or social media platform isn't going to do any good just because people see you. It's, it's when you you make them realize that they need or want your product, or say this is how you can learn more.
Philippa Gamse:
This is the action you should take, um, because you know people view information, but unless they take action upon it, and you know, if you're using social media or your website for sales specifically, then you're wasting your time right if, if you're just creating it and people are just viewing it and then moving on by um and so engagement is also important because you know there's also, for example, um, you can do things like measure how much of your content people are actually engaging with. So you know, are they actually watching the videos that you make? And I can't tell you how many people I've worked with on like youtube statistics right, and people make the most amazing videos and full of really great content but the problem is they start the video by saying hello, my name is, and blah blah, blah blah, and it's really boring and people tune out because they just don't have the patience to go through that and so by the time they get to the good stuff, they've lost 90% of their viewers, which is not helpful.
Kaylee Johnson:
I call it the three second rule. I'm like you have about three seconds in audio or video to catch the person's attention before they skip past it, which is sad that that's our engagement rate now, or the amount of time we're willing to engage in something, but it's true and that's why I'm always like make sure it's catching your attention within the first three seconds, because if it's not catching your attention, it's definitely not going to catch someone else's attention.
Philippa Gamse:
Right, and what's great about the data is that it's so. The numbers are then there, right, because I mean, I've had people argue with me and say, no, no, that can't be true. And the nice thing about the data is it proves it. Right, so you're going to have all sorts of theories, but unless you actually have the numbers, then you can actually see what's going on.
Kaylee Johnson:
Yeah, numbers are a lot harder to argue with than ideas.
Philippa Gamse:
Right, yeah, and I mean I can't tell you how many people like they find out what I do. They say, oh, could you take a quick look at my website? And I'll say no, no, not not only because you know it would be nice to get paid to do that, but also because, honestly it there's no point me looking at your website without looking at the actual inside numbers. Um, because you know otherwise, it's just my opinion, which is only as valid as anybody else's, and I could take all sorts of guesses about what's going on. Ok, my guesses might be a bit more educated than than a lot of people, because I've done this for a long time, but it's still a guess. So so, again, without the actual hard data, you know you're shooting in the dark. You're just yeah no, very true.
Kaylee Johnson:
One of my friends is starting his first youtube channel and he was like, can you look at it? I was like, well, I have to see the data. I was like I'm not gonna be able to just watch a video and tell you how it's doing, you know. And then he's actually become pretty enthralled with data now, which has been, which has been cool to see. But you know, it's like you can't take things at face value. Um, you have to be willing to look into that deeper stuff if you're really wanting your content to succeed.
Kaylee Johnson:
Thanks for listening to the episode. We're going to take a quick pause, real fast, and I have a question for you. Are you overwhelmed and struggling with your business's social media is? Are you putting so much? Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We're going to put a quick pause on it and I have a question for you. Are you struggling with social media? Are you overwhelmed by what platforms to be on, what to post? We talked a little bit about how, knowing where you should be, I can help you.
Kaylee Johnson:
Digital Journey is an exclusive group mastermind that teaches you how to grow your social media, to find where your target audience is on, so that you can spend less time on social media and increase your profits and gain new respect from clients and grow your product in general. You deserve that. So if you're interested, I'd love for you to set up a call with me. You can reach out at wwwdigitaljourneynet and you'll be able to find me there. If this is something you're serious about, I want to hear from you. If you have a question, maybe you're still trying to figure out where in the world should I be for social media. Let me help, and we're going to get back to the episode. So if you could tell the audience one final tip, what would be your tip for them when it comes to analytics and metrics? Jump?
Philippa Gamse:
in, don't be worried about it. You know, give it a go, see what, or ask somebody like me to help you a little bit. So one thing I wanted to offer the audience so to maybe ignite your imagination a little bit.
Philippa Gamse:
So on my website uh, which is websites that wincom, uh, hopefully you can put that in the notes, right I love that yeah um, there's a free ebook, so it's called uh, five digital, five hidden gems, and it's it's five stories from my experience of um of of insights that we found in analytics that we wouldn't have found otherwise and what we did about it. So, like I said earlier, creating a new product or service or doing something different in the business, big things that we could change, that really made a difference, based on stuff that we wouldn't otherwise have known, and my goal is to help business owners sort of there's no, this is not techie stuff, there's no techie, it's all in English, there's no charts and there's no numbers. Right, it's, but it's. It's hopefully to sort of give people ideas so that they can say, hey, maybe that is something I could check for on my site and we talk about. I show you how to look for it. Um, so if anybody would like that ebook, please feel free, go ahead and get it, it's absolutely free.
Kaylee Johnson:
On my website amazing and we'll have that linked below also. And if they want to reach out to you, where's the best place for them to find you?
Philippa Gamse:
on linkedin, um and uh, so I'm the only person with my name on LinkedIn, so so please feel free to go ahead and connect. I always really enjoy connecting with people on LinkedIn.
Kaylee Johnson:
Awesome. Well, we'll have all that linked down below and thank you so much for coming on today. This was really insightful. I appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed that episode and that you learned something new and interesting today. Go ahead and hit that like button, smash that subscribe button so that you never miss an episode of Digital Journey with Kaylee Johnson. Also check out some of our other videos up here. They're pretty great.