From cookies to validation: 11 Insights about the current state of digital analytics

Theme 1: Demonstrating the Value of Digital Analytics

1. Proving the value of digital analytics remains challenging due to its indirect contributions. How does one articulate the worth of qualitative insights or the creation of a dashboard?
2. This challenge often stems from the relatively immature state of digital analytics within many organizations.
3. The placement of the digital analytics team within an organization it is crucial for recognizing its value. When the team operates centrally, questions about the added value of tools like dashboards arise more frequently. However, when analysts are integrated into business teams, their contributions are evaluated from a team perspective.

Theme 2: Scaling Digital Analytics Teams in Uncertain Times

4. Many organizations have had to reduce their analytics resources due to budget constraints or other factors. Larger companies are cutting back on external support (freelancers and agencies) in favor of in-house teams. Unfortunately, retaining and recruiting talent for in-house positions can be challenging, making it hard to replace external assistance.
5. Smaller teams must become more efficient. Sharing knowledge about data and tools within the organization yields significant benefits. This self-served approach eliminates many common queries. Companies with over 1000 data users employ webinars, video courses, bi-weekly Q&A sessions, and workshops for onboarding and knowledge sharing. It also breaks down silos and promotes communication between different teams.
6. Smaller teams must prioritize effectively and decide whom to say no to. This can involve giving priority to “Highest Paid Person’s Opinion” (HIPPO) requests or convening all stakeholders to jointly determine priorities. In some cases, delegating requests to other support teams can ease the workload.

Theme 3: Navigating the Cookieless World

7. The challenge of going cookieless in analytics goes beyond cookies and encompasses data privacy issues as well.
8. Most organizations have established a cookie/data governance taskforce to stay abreast of the latest developments related to GDPR and other regulations.
9. Cookieless policies often depend on the legal officer/Data Protection Officer within an organization, making legislation interpretation not always clear to everyone.
10. Currently, organizations are in a waiting mode regarding the latest legislation in NL/Europe that may impact Google Analytics settings. While organizations get apprehensive when GA is banned in other countries, as long as significant fines are absent, there may be no compelling reason to switch. It’s worth noting that the damage to a brand’s reputation can be more detrimental than any fines.
11. The shift to cookieless primarily affects marketing more than analytics. In the field of analytics, is having fewer cookies significant at all? Should campaigns be tested without cookies to observe the outcomes? Should we improve our reporting based on sessions rather than individual users? Instead of seeking workarounds, we should strive to operate efficiently without cookies.

Bob Younge

Contentspecialist