How much do you trust your data?

When you see information displayed, are you skeptical of it, or do you believe that it is telling you the truth?

Today we wanted to go over why most businesses don’t trust their data, and how to increase your confidence in your data.

Assume nothing

One of the top 5 mistakes that businesses make is assuming that everything is tracking properly. Your output is only as good as your input. If your tracking software isn’t set up properly, then all of the insights that you get from that data are tainted.

Google Analytics is a very powerful, robust tool that helps businesses gain insights into their customers and their behaviors. It is also the number one most underutilized and error-prone tool used by small and medium businesses.

Analytics tools are notoriously difficult to set up properly, and unless you have an expert come in to set it up for you, or you invest the time to truly understand how to set it up properly, it can quickly turn from a bucket full of data to a bucket full of holes. Many businesses know that their tracking is not correct, but they don’t know how to fix it; so they take the incomplete or inaccurate data that they have and they do their best with what they have.

If you take anything away from this, do not assume that everything is set up properly, or tracking properly. Make sure that you have an expert set up and validate as much as possible.

People also make the mistake of assuming that once they have Google Analytics set up properly that they can leave it and it will track everything perfectly. Your business is constantly evolving, and your website also is going through constant tweaks, updates, and changes. You need to make sure that everything that you do is tracked in Google Analytics properly, from your goals to your ecommerce, you need to make sure that any changes that you make are reflected in your tracking.

Set up a Data Dictionary

Another big thing that you can do to help increase your trust in your data is to set up a data dictionary for yourself. A data dictionary is a place where you have a source of truth for all of your systems. This will act as a reference point and a description for where that data is generated (Like a phone book for your data). Having a data dictionary helps you know exactly where all of your numbers come from, and it also helps you keep your naming conventions consistent across the board.

Data dictionaries are awesome, but in order to get the most out of them, you need to keep them constantly updated and make them accessible to everyone. Data works best when it is democratized across an organization, rather than in one person’s head or computer. By democratizing the data, you can gain insights and perspectives from everyone across the organization, helping propel your entire company to be more data driven.

Track your data over time

If you want to increase your trust in your data, you need to track it over time. Tracking your data over time lets you pinpoint what works and what doesn’t work with your measurements and reporting. Having a finger on the pulse of your data lets you know when something seems wrong or out of place. This can protect you from making decisions based off bad data.

Do you have a hard time trusting your data? Would you like to have someone check up on your Google Analytics? We perform a 64 point Google Analytics audit to make sure that everything is set up and tracking properly. Contact us hereand we can help you trust in your data again.

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