Validate your data and sleep easy at night

[Jahangir147]

To an analyst, there’s not a lot worse than having your boss question the validity of your work. If you’re making business decisions or providing recommendations based on data, then you obviously need it to be as accurate as possible. The problem is there are many different ways your data accuracy can go awry.

Here’s a few common ones you may not be aware of:

position of code on page – yes this still impacts web analytics
speed of connection / speed of click away – if the page hasn’t fully saint lucia email list 26037 contact leads loaded and a visitor clicks away, they’re not tracked
changes to browser technologies – browsers change all the time and they don’t care about your measurement
cookies – some deny them by default, some allow them, but cookies still remain the mainstay of the visitor identification
tagging errors – mistagging something through the chain of command is common; what you describe to your dev team is not always what you get back
missing tags – new feature sets across the site and new pages added with no tags are still very common problems
Because of this web analytics is generally used as a directional tool – I don’t think you’d find anyone that will swear blind it’s 100% accurate. Out of the box, a standard implementation can normally be within 5-7% of internal systems when capturing things like revenue and orders etc. However, with a bit of extra work, it can be within 1% of internal systems – and that’s what we should all strive for.

Getting there can be a bit of process. Staying there can be even harder.

So how can you ensure that you remain as accurate as possible over the long haul, sleep well at night, and confidently respond to the accuracy question? Well it’s now a little easier by using tag auditing services.

At digital balance we’re seeing the resourcing model blend as the market continues to mature. We have clients that use us for reporting and insights, others for a range of implementation services, some for thought leadership in the space, and then there are those that outsource their entire analytics to us.