Why is the Data in Ad-Managers Different from Backend Results?
Agency manager, your data is shouting at you! And not in a good way, like “loud and clear”. The data from your campaigns, channels, and funnels is a signal-drowning racket that conveys a mess of messages from different sources. And – unfortunately – there are conflicts in what it’s shouting about. You want your dashboard to tell you which channel drove which customer action, so you can see the Big Picture and sharpen your spend. But when you look at attributions, it seems like every ad, every click, every touchpoint on the customer journey wants to claim sole credit for the close. Worst case, your dashboard is telling you you’ve 10x’d your sales, while the real figures from the stockroom tell a very different story. Let’s take a look at what causes this … and how savvy managers can solve it.
The problem: a customer journey isn’t a single step
In old-time direct response, Conversion Reporting (CR) was easy. Customers mailed in the coupon on your newspaper ad, you invoiced them and booked the sale. Attribution wasn’t hiding in a murky mass of data; it was upfront and in-your-face.
Contrast that to today. They see your ad, but don’t click. They search on a different device. Check out a review site. Watch a demo video. Not so much a customer journey from A to B as a leisurely road trip taking in the sights. And, sometime later, smash the Buy button.
Maybe one event triggered the sale, or maybe they all did, each contributing a different part of the total value. But you’ll never know the truth if every channel manager in your org chart draws a straight line from his data point to that sale.
Of course, these people aren’t unreasonable. And they’re certainly not stupid. They genuinely believe their channel is the star, because they can’t see data from anywhere else. To them, their conclusion makes sense, because the Big(ger) Picture isn’t available.
In that insight is our problem. But also our opportunity.
The outcomes: accurate attribution needs accurate data
When the data’s in chaos, the decisions get confused too. It’s not so much a shortage of data, just a shortage of meaningful connections between disparate sets of it. More politely, it’s called misalignment: getting to the right decision is impossible based on what’s available to you.
It’s misalignment that makes different channel managers all decide their channel was the key driver. And that drives agency bosses to pour money into channel options that aren’t right for the business. Which obscures the campaigns that really add to your topline. And makes the real genius marketers in your business feel unloved.
In other words, your little attribution problem was also a business strategy problem … a human resources problem … and an existential threat to the company. So what’s the solution?
The solution: effective use of connected tools
Sum it up as centralization. You need tools that present diverse datasets as one, showing you all events in proper context. You need tools that see the data not as individual points, but as connected narratives that make sense of what happened at each interaction … and why. Above all, you need assurances that it’s complete and accurate: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Because if you’re making decisions that take thousands of dollars out of one channel and put it into another, you’d better be able to justify them to the C-Suite.
And while we believe software from Billy Grace is a great answer (of course) we freely admit it’s not perfect for every company. As a specialized SaaS that solves specific problems, we work with companies whose customers follow complex online journeys where the “right” conclusion isn’t obvious. So let’s see how it compares to the tool everyone knows already – Google Analytics.
The lowdown on Google Analytics …
- Google Analytics is well-known and long-established, collecting data across devices and reasonably adept at resolving entities and interactions.
- What it lacks, though, is precision – since there aren’t many options for integrating it with all today’s channels, nor for connecting all the dots between web, CRM, and e-commerce.
- This makes attribution difficult, since the data collection, while extensive, is low-level – much of it “counting clicks” rather than seeing connected narratives.
… and how Billy Grace goes next-level
- Billy Grace isn’t a competitor to GA – it’s a different way of thinking that puts sales attribution front and center.
- It integrates your channels and CMS with more accurate tracking of entities, and it uses a larger universe of data, giving you a better basis for making decisions.
- It uses more advanced attribution models that are not only more effective in click attribution but can also attribute value to views and generic influencers like seasonality.
- While GA is great for smaller organizations, more complex customer journeys need deeper insights and smarter inferences at scale – and that’s what Billy Grace brings.
Your choice of tool will depend on how much you spend, what you do, and how you approach your marketing now. But adopting the right tool, at the right time will equip you to make the most of what you’ve got.
Conclusion: centralize it to understand it
If your adspend is small-scale, your online marketing straightforward, or you’re just starting out, we recommend seeing what the base-level tool Google Analytics can do first – then check out Billy Grace when you’re ready. But when your customer journeys span many media, it’s time to understand broad-brush tools don’t give you the whole story. Or even the right narrative.
Because when it comes to data, intelligent decisions matter above all. Why not explore how Billy Grace can add that to your mix, today? Visit our homepage.
