Or, re-building a creaking data stack with GA and GTM…
Our client, leading international publishing business IHS, was about to divest a significant business unit which it had owned for many years but that had long history as a well known brand for many years.
Over the years when the unit had been part of a larger global corporation, purchasing decisions and data policies were often made for the whole organisation, creating complicated interdependencies which had to be carefully unpicked so that the unit being divested was able to retain strategically critical data. That’s where Evisible came in.
The transition to digital
During this time their business transitioned from being a predominantly print media company, to a mainly digital one.
As the digital business grew so did the importance of accurately measuring online activity and customer engagement with it’s websites and other online assets.
This required an ever more sophisticated and diverse analytics stack. Specifically, one that was distributed and integrated widely across the parent organisation.
Our brief
When time came for our client’s business to begin their journey outside of the parent company, they asked Evisible to help them unpick the elements of the broader data technology stack that were relevant to their part of the organisation. Our role was in short to bring their now autonomous data collection up to the level necessary for running a modern online business.
Under the bonnet
As with many older, large organisations that evolved a digital business rapidly from a paper one, some of the resources and tracking tools adopted over the years had become neglected, or even just forgotten about. Whilst in many cases they were collecting valuable data, unfortunately no one was looking at what was going on under the bonnet.
The available data was often either misleading, incorrectly interpreted, or just wrong. This was because legacy policies and scripts associated with the existing tools had not been updated, or had been poorly implemented in the first place, often with multiple duplications of tags, causing big errors in reporting.
Rebuilding and repurposing tracking resources
Often, analytics projects and applications out lived the teams that built them, account holders and gate keepers simply move on within the parent company or leave the business altogether. This can lead to plethora of ghost accounts and duplicated scripts.
Our role was to unpick the various analytics platforms, properties, and data silos that had developed over the preceding years, in order to rebuild and repurpose their whole marketing analytics stack.
Importantly we also needed to form a credible, easy to understand management reporting template, and upskill the inhouse marketing team on the continued upkeep of their data systems.
Integrating GA and GTM with HubSpot
Using Google Analytics (GA) for data collection, Google Tag Manager (GTM) for script management, integrated with HubSpot and other analytics, data visualisation and CRM tools, we helped to build a robust, accurate and sustainable data management, and analysis environment. One with granular visibility and providing a clear performance picture across the business.
This project began in early 2020 and now the client enjoys and continues to build upon a reliable and sustainable reporting suite, that stretches back beyond the divestment of the business from the parent company.
A/B and Multivariant testing
Reporting tools and applications provide a wealth comparative data and detailed insight into the performance of the online business as a whole. But, with the addition of A/B and Multivariant functionality our client also now has the ability to regularly and easily test the effectiveness of new content and design changes for everything from page layouts to form CTAs.
The halo effect of good data collection
Incidentally this new transparent analytics stack, had the halo effect of being able to clearly demonstrate the benefits of the broader marketing technology support we also provide including; SEO, PPC, ABM, Digital Advertising campaign management and UX and accessibility consultancy.
How this experience helps your business
We know that the circumstances outlined above are not uncommon in many organisations, if you recognise these issues within your own organisation, get in touch and let Evisible help you to resolve them.