In a world that's increasingly data-driven, understanding the nuances of digital marketing can make or break a business's online presence.

It's not just about collecting data; it's about interpreting it, asking the right questions, and taking action.

From turning analytics into compelling narratives to avoiding the temptations of vanity metrics, join Philippa Gamse and Kaylee Johnson for a chat that promises to enlighten, engage, and empower you to use the full potential of data in your business strategy.

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Read the Blog Post: Strengthen Your Digital Strategy with Analytics

Vanity Metrics - What Are They?

On a website, one of the biggest vanity metrics was bounce rate. 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.

Bounce rate is the number of people who who see something but they barely look at it and they're off.

But you know, most of us who actually want to do analytics properly thought the bounce rate was a pretty useless metric anyway.

So in old web metrics, 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 at first didn't include bounce rate.

Another vanity metric is literally the number of visitors.

So we got X number of thousand visitors. Great.

Were they the right type of visitor? Did they do anything?

Because if they didn't, then so what?

Unless they take action upon it, then you're wasting your time

Engagement Matters

Engagement is important because you can do things like measure how much of your content people are actually interacting with. You know if are they actually watching the videos that you make.

I can't tell you how many people I've worked with on YouTube statistics that make the most amazing videos 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.

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.

What to do with Your Metrics

There's no point measuring anything unless you're going to do something about it.

You can sit there and feel good because you got more visitors than week, but what does that actually do for your business?

It's really important for for business owners to think about what they want to happen in order to approach the metrics intelligently.

Otherwise, it's overwhelming.

It's just numbers and charts and figures and heaven knows what. 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?"

Use the Metrics to Thrive!

The power of analytics lies in its ability to challenge assumptions and reveal truths about a business's online engagement.

It's not just about collecting data; it's about interpreting it, asking the right questions, and taking action.

About Philippa Gamse

Philippa has over 20 years of experience in translating metrics into creative ideas to move businesses forward and creating effective data-driven digital strategies. They're designed to achieve goals and maximize return on investments, and all in understandable English, not techie jargon.

• Philippa Gamse's Website and FREE ebook: www.WebsitesThatWin.com

• Philippa Gamse on Social Media: LinkedIn