September 26, 2024 • 25 mins
A solid web analytics strategy gives the insight you need to better understand your audiences, optimize your campaigns, and ultimately, drive more ticket sales or donations. But for many arts marketers, justifying a greater investment of time and money in web analytics can feel like an uphill battle—especially when making the case to senior leaders who are farther removed from the digital weeds.
In this episode, we’ll help you bridge the gap between the technical side of GA4 and the high-level goals that matter to your organization’s decision-makers. With a few key tips, you’ll be able to show your boss and board members that investing in analytics is not only worthwhile, but actually critical for long-term success.
CI to Eye Interview (2:30) - Dan sits down with Yosaif Cohain, CI’s VP of Analytics, to help listeners bridge the gap between the technical side of analytics and the high-level goals that matter to arts organizations’ decision-makers.
CI-lebrity Sightings (23:10) - Dan shares his favorite news stories about CI clients.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
As a musician, you wouldn't practice oneconcerto alone in your bedroom forever.
You'd develop your skills,explore new techniques,
and join fellow musicians shoulderto shoulder in the orchestra,
moving classical music forwardwith every stroke of the bow.
It's the same with artsmarketing and leadership.
We don't grow by staying in abubble. We grow by learning together.
(00:22):
That's what Boot Camp 2024 is all about.
This one of a kind conference brings artsprofessionals together to share fresh
ideas, hone their skills, andfuel the future of our industry.
A ticket to Boot Camp unlocks twofull days of expert-led sessions and
peer-driven insights,
all 100% tailored to the artsand all 100% actionable when you
(00:44):
return to your desk on Monday.
It's happening at the Times Center inNew York City, October 24th and 25th,
and it won't be the same without you.
Don't miss this chance to level upyour organization and join the creative
community shaping the future of the arts.
Save your seat at capacityinteractive boot camp dot com.
(01:13):
Hi everyone, and welcomeback to CI to Eye.
Today we're tackling a commonchallenge for arts marketers:
how to justify investing more time, money,
and energy into website analytics.If you're a data nerd like me,
you already know the power ofa solid analytics strategy.
It gives you the insight you needto better understand your audiences,
(01:35):
optimize your campaigns, and ultimatelydrive more ticket sales or donations.
But let's face it,
sometimes it can feel like you're speakinga different language when you try to
explain this to leadership. The technicalterms, the dashboards, the KPIs...
it can all feel overly complicated tosomeone who isn't in the digital trenches
day in, day out.
(01:55):
So how can you show your boss and boardmembers that investing in analytics is
not only worthwhile, but actuallycritical for long-term success?
In today's episode, I'll sit down withYosaif Cohain, CI's VP of Analytics,
to help you bridge the gap between thetechnical side of analytics and the high
level goals that matter to yourorganization's decision-makers.
(02:16):
We are heading up into the clouds fora 10,000 foot view that will have your
leadership team ready to double down ondata. Ready, everyone? Up, up, and away!
Yosaif, thanks for being here.
Hey, Dan. Thanks for having me.
(02:37):
So most of our listeners are probablyfamiliar with you from the general CI
world, but for those who aren't,
can you give us a bit of a backgroundabout how you ended up at Capacity?
Sure.
I actually started my career outsidethe arts and was working at a design
agency during a very transitionaland transformational time in
digital,
(02:57):
right when companies werestarting to realize that digital
isn't just a requirement,
but it can truly be acompetitive advantage and a differentiator and a driver of
growth.
We were doing this work for really bigbrands and I would say having a lot of
fun doing it.
We were the top agency thatfocused on the user experience and
(03:19):
focusing on the user experience wasactually pretty unique at the time.
Other agencies werefocused on innovation and
shiny and pretty and winning awards,
and our focus was usability.
Our ethos was that the useris the number one stakeholder
(03:39):
for the website and that the userexperience must reflect that and must
be elevated. So I hadgreat years working there.
There was something amazing for meabout working with brands like IKEA
or being part of a very smallteam that redesigned the CNN
website. The truth is that Ikind of became a little bit
(04:02):
addicted to it. I wouldn't saythat I had a passion, let's say,
for Pizza Hut as a product,
but I got hooked to thepuzzle and the challenge that
we're going to beat our competitorsas an agency and that Pizza Hut will
beat their competitors by beingsmarter and more strategic.
(04:22):
It was this rush and itwas incredibly rewarding.
Eventually,
we started getting clients thatI had personal issues with and
I knew I couldn't stay there andfeel proud of the work I was doing.
And speak of timing,
in the year that I was trying to figureout next steps and doing some freelance
(04:46):
projects, I get an email froma former client, Erik Gensler,
CI's founder-.
Heard of him.
Yeah. Yes, we've heard of him.
He and I had worked together when hewas project managing the redesign for
Ailey, and we met for coffee.
We instantly meshed and gelledand we both knew we wanted to work
(05:06):
together. And yeah,
that was over 10 years ago and it'sbeen an amazing ride ever since.
What's the best part of working witharts and cultural clients at CI?
Obviously doing my small piece tohelp cultural institutions be more
successful and by extensionhelping more people connect with
art is something thatis very special to me.
(05:30):
More specifically,
and to compare to my earlier daysin the corporate side of things,
I remember after being at CI forabout six months and Erik telling
me that I need to present at Boot Camp.
And I go and I work on mypresentation for about a week or so,
and I show it to him. And I've donethis dozens of times in my career,
(05:53):
creating PowerPoints, but I blur outall the numbers and the client names.
And I show this to Eric andhe looks at me like I'm crazy,
and he says to me-and this iswhen the light bulb moment,
when the light switched for me-he says,
"Do you think the Boston Balletis competing with the Seattle
(06:14):
Opera?
The marketing director at the ballet wentinto this field because she loves art.
Not only is she not competing with them,
she wants to see them succeed and shewants to help." And it was this small
thing,
but it was so beautiful and so meaningfulto me and it's something that I get to
see over and over.
(06:34):
So being part of this communityof people that have a shared
goal and want to uplifteach other is very unique
and it's something that I deeply cherish.
Yeah, that's such a good point.
Everyone is genuinely enthusiasticto help lift everyone else.
I love that about this industry.So let's talk about GA4.
(06:57):
What is available right now and fairlyaccessible to people out of the box,
as it were, and what requires morecustom work to understand or implement?
Out of the box,
you get a lot of data abouttraffic to the website
and to specific pages.
You'll also get data ontraffic sources and some other
(07:18):
reports with a little customization.
You can collect e-commerce data andyou should be doing that with more
work and intentionality.
You can and you should trackmore behavioral data about how
people are interacting withkey parts of the site. Now,
the challenge with all of thisis that it's still just reports
(07:42):
and data. There's so muchdata to make sense of,
and no one has time for this.
When I worked with corporationsin my previous life,
my counterparts were teams oreven departments of analytics
people. I think in my 10 years at CI,
I can still count on one hand the numberof organizations that I've worked with
(08:04):
that have even one full-timeperson dedicated to web analytics.
So this is the challenge and theopportunity and what we try to do to
help our clients with analytics, is:
given your more limitedinternal resources,
how can we push through that and how canwe still be great and get the most out
(08:25):
of analytics?
One of the first points you showedus, I remember when I first joined CI,
was that your website touches everything.
So if you can increasea Facebook ad by 20%
performance, that's great.
If you can increase the amount oforganic traffic going to your site by 5%,
that's great. If you evenincrease the website by just 1%,
(08:49):
that touches every single channel.
Yes. If you improve yourFacebook conversion rate by 10%,
that's awesome,
and we should certainly be lookingto make channel optimizations,
but at the end of the day, ifyou look at your marketing mix,
Facebook is going to be, what?20% of your traffic? 30%?
(09:09):
It'll vary based on organization,
but a 10% lift off of 20% oftraffic is not going to be as
big as making a 5% lift on the actual
website that-like your landing pagefor example-that gets a lot of traffic,
right?
Like your newsletters are pulling thereand organic search is pointing there and
the Google grant and your Facebook stuff.
(09:32):
So making optimizations around theuser experience can actually have a
trickle down effect.
It'll have an increase in your conversionrate for when you're looking at data
just in aggregate in your GA4,
but then also when you lookat your ROIs in your channels,
that should have an impact there as well.
What are the majormistakes, misunderstandings,
or missed opportunities that you mostoften see when folks are coming to us with
(09:54):
analytics questions for the first time?
I think that some organizationsare getting it right as far as data
collection,
but I think the big opportunityis moving beyond that to data
integration. Now that wehave this awesome data,
how do we incorporateit into our processes?
Sometimes I worry that people think ofanalytics as a one-time checkbox to cross
(10:18):
off the list when what you really shouldbe signing up for is a changed approach
where data becomes part ofyour process and culture.
Instead of maybe coming to us andsaying, here's what we had in the past,
can you fix it?
Or is there an improved versionof this thing we've been doing
to instead really think bigger and askhow can analytics help us shift the
(10:42):
way we do things? How can datatransform our digital work?
I can definitely understand thatcheckbox aspect to analytics.
I work mostly with SEO as you know,
and that can often be asort of checkbox as well,
whereas the real strengthfrom these channels,
which do require a little bitmore [of an] in-the-weeds,
(11:04):
technical look at our website, comesfrom over time, constantly updating,
constantly making changes,
having those incremental changes thatI know especially for analytics are so
important.
Yes,
it's not a one-time thing where youcheck a box and "we did SEO this
quarter" or "we did analytics," butwe built the foundation and now we
(11:25):
are leveraging it on an ongoing basis,
and that can be at differentrates and different paces,
but the important thing isthat it's not a one-time thing.
It's an ongoing thingthat you're buying into.
It's not that we did analytics,it's that we do analytics.
Exactly.
What do you find high levelfolks-talking like executive directors,
(11:46):
board members-are most focused onwhen it comes to website analytics and
what should they be focused on instead?
I think there's still a focus on highlevel data and those numbers being big
numbers. On seeing the trendthat points up and to the right.
On variance numbers beinggreen instead of red.
(12:07):
I've always been less focusedon high level numbers,
like total users or totalpage views. Instead,
I've been focused on the user story anduser engagement once people arrive at
the website.
The two types of questions that I wouldrecommend focusing on instead: one,
what are people doing when they come tothe website? Are we meeting their needs?
(12:31):
And then number two,
how are we doing internally atintegrating data into our team's work?
And both of these are processes thatwill take some time to get good at,
but these are the questions that I thinkare far more interesting and important
than the high level 'how muchtraffic is the site getting'?
I think a lot of the usability comes frombeing able to create a narrative from
(12:52):
the data as well.
To tell a story with the data so it'snot just a sort of wall of numbers.
Do you think that can make it easierwhen talking to high level folks about
analytics, people like executivedirectors, board members?
I think that's such an interestingpoint, Dan, and it's something that...
I used to use this quote a lot,
which is "The plural formof anecdote is data." If we
(13:16):
want to talk to someone and ask them,
what was your experience when youwent to the theater last night?
They're going to answer thatto us in the form of a story.
The challenge is how many ofthose people can we talk to?
And once we get many of them, and that'swhat the website and your analytics is,
it's thousands of sessionsand thousands of people,
then you are basicallygetting a lot of data points,
(13:37):
which are a collectionof various anecdotes,
and that's the job of an analystis not to just report on numbers
and to say, here's how much traffic wegot and here's what the top 10 pages are.
But to start framing it morearound the user and the user story.
Can you give us a couple of examples ofanalytics projects that you considered
(13:58):
to be really successful?
Sure. The first is one of myfavorite types of projects,
and that's a website redesign.There's so much excitement about redesigns
and I have a passion for great websitesand that's what my background is in,
but there's something that no one talksabout with redesigns and that's that
they contain a lot ofunknowns and a lot of risk.
(14:21):
What happens when you spend ayear plus of your time and tens
or hundreds of thousands of dollarson a project that not only doesn't
move the needle up, it actuallymoves it down? The question is,
how can we mitigate risk and how canwe best set ourselves up for success?
And the answer is by being asuser-centric as possible in the
(14:44):
process, and that's goingto mean being data-driven.
So our part in this equationhas been partnering with
dozens of organizations heading intoredesigns where we're just looking to
learn.
We're part of the discovery phase andwe're just trying to learn as much as we
can about existing user behavior.So we're looking to answer
(15:05):
questions like, how arepeople using the current site?
And based on those results,trying to determine:
how can we incorporate those behaviorsand those learnings about user needs
into the new website?
It's not me telling a designer 'move thisfive pixels to the right' or 'make it
a slightly different version of red,'but it's about 'here's what people are
(15:27):
trying to do when they come to thewebsite and here's what they're currently
doing,
and now you as a designer take thisinformation and design a great solution
based on that context.'.
Things like if people are alwaysnavigating towards one page and it's
five clicks away, like knowing thatand knowing how important that page is,
(15:47):
moving that to the front of thetop nav for a website redesign.
Is that the kind of thingsyou're talking about?
Exactly like that.
So it's about learning about existingbehavior and then building solutions
around that. And it's funnyyou give that example.
That's one of the first examples thatI got introduced to with web analytics.
We were doing a redesign forJetBlue and we looked at the
(16:10):
data and everyone was on the homepageand clicking on one thing every single
time, and that was,
"I want to book a flight."And the simple solution was,
let's move the little mini booker,
let's create a mini bookerand move that to the homepage.
And it's such an obviousno-duh kind of thing,
but literally JetBlue wasthe first airline to do that.
(16:32):
It's become ubiquitous. Every singleairline, every single car rental,
every single hotel has a mini booker onthe homepage because that's what users
want. Someone had to be the first.
And that happened to be us with JetBlue.
And that was purely based on lookingat behavioral data and trying to
say, how can I save theuser even just one click,
(16:53):
and that was the solution.
What goes into a particularlymeaningful analytics partnership?
[With] all of your experience of workingwith hundreds of clients over the last
few years, when does thatpartnership really excel?
I think like most things,the key is communication.
One of the things that I've worked veryhard on throughout my career is using
(17:16):
data to invite people in.
I try to convey excitementat what's possible,
and I like to show howto make things happen.
I want to get rid of thisconcept of analytics being this quote "black box" that
only people who specialize in it canaccess. I think on the receiving end,
for us as consultants,
(17:37):
I think that we provide the most valueand we do the best work when we're able
to hear directly from our clients andour stakeholders about their goals and
challenges, about theirlearning styles and preferences,
about their workloads and priorities.
That's when it helps ushave a great partnership.
I never want analytics tofeel like an awful chore.
(17:59):
I want it to represent informationthat you get to access.
I want to help generate that thirst andshow you the tools of how to get there.
So the more context that we have aroundwhat's going on outside of analytics,
I think the better we can be at findingways to help you incorporate that data
into your work.
Yeah.
(18:19):
What does an executive director or boardmember need to understand about the
importance of investing in strongdata collection and the use of website
analytics?
We don't need to be web analysts torecognize how important the website is to
our success. It's obvious that ifthe website went away tomorrow,
we'd be in trouble. We are relianton the website as an organization.
(18:42):
All of our marketing and advertisingpushes people to the website.
We sell most of our tickets online. Weshowcase our exhibitions and productions.
We get people to make a purchasedecision with the user experience that we
control.
So having a great websiteisn't just a want,
it's an imperative.
(19:02):
I think one of the most common andsubconscious mistakes that we can make is
that we assume people use thewebsite the same way we do,
so we don't need to usedata. We know about behavior,
but we are far from the typical user.
We've been to the websitehundreds of times already.
(19:22):
We know our organization inside out.
We already have a deep knowledgeand love for our art form.
That is not the user thatis quickly arriving at the website from a Facebook ad.
That's not someone who we're hopingwill be a first time attendee or tourist
planning a trip to town oreven a renewing subscriber.
(19:44):
So we need to let go of this bias-it'salmost like a certain level of
humility-and accept that thewebsite is built for the people,
and that's why I keep sayingwe have to be user-centric.
I feel like digital marketing changesevery month or every week sometimes.
So viewing it over 10 plus years,
(20:05):
20 years of seeing how websiteshave changed since then,
it's always really interesting.Whenever I talk to you,
I'm always really inspired by how muchof the world you've seen on the digital
marketing side.
Thank you.
It's interesting how in many waysthings do change very quickly,
and then in many ways the underlyingroot and the principles stay exactly
(20:26):
the same.
What we do today is very similarto what we've been doing for years.
I think that behind thescenes a lot has changed.
The platforms-of course everyone'sheard about migration to the new
GA4-but also I would say theway we go about collecting data,
the richness of what we can collect,
(20:46):
the accuracy of some ofthe data that we collect,
increasingly the incorporation ofmachine learning into the data...
But conceptually,
web analytics today is the same aswhat it's been for the past 10 and
15 years at its core.
And really the simplest way toexplain what it is is that it's a
(21:06):
tool that gives voice to your users.
People are telling us about how theylike our websites and how we're meeting
their needs, only they'retelling us with their clicks.
They're constantly voting just bythe way they're using it. So really,
web analytics is a choice.
Do we pay attention andlisten and optimize or not?
(21:29):
And that's been a constant in thepractice of web analytics and why I
personally love doing this workbecause I want to understand what users
want and I want to help solve forthose user needs because I know,
and I've seen, that this leads to betteruser experiences and to better results.
If you could broadcast one message toexecutive directors, leadership teams,
(21:53):
staff, and boards of thousandsof arts organizations,
what would that message be?
Well, first off,
I just want to say thank you to everyonefor the work you do and for taking the
time to listen to me talk about data.
I will continually advocatefor investing in your website,
investing in the datarevolving around the website,
(22:16):
and investing in your people andprocesses that revolve around the data.
By doing so,
you're really investing both in yourusers and in your organization's success.
I think that being great atdata and UX can seem very
daunting, and maybe the perceptionis that it's only for the Amazons and
(22:37):
Netflixes and tech startups, and yes,
there are going to be some advancedthings that they do that we cannot,
but there is so muchopportunity in front of us,
and with the proper focus and approach,
it is certainly an achievable and Ithink very rewarding journey to take.
Awesome. I'll pass thaton to all of those people.
(22:59):
Thank you so much for joiningus on the podcast, Yosaif.
It's always an absolutepleasure to speak to you.
Thank you so much, Dan.
All right, analytics aficionados.Before we say goodbye,
here's an extra dose of inspirationfrom arts organizations in the news.
(23:22):
First up,
the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra wasfeatured in the New York Times article,
"What if orchestras were morelike Netflix?" Their CEO,
Christina Littlejohn,
shared the positive impacts of theirunique membership program saying,
"Our halls look fuller andour orchestra is happier.
It's just been a gamechanger." Kudos ASO! Next,
(23:43):
the Charlotte Observer reported thatCharlotte Ballet was awarded $5 million
from the Knight Foundationfor its facility expansion,
which will include housing forartists-in-residence, new dance studios,
and an outdoor event space.Incredible news, Charlotte Ballet.
We're so proud of these CI clientsfor expertly evolving along with their
communities. Got a story thatdeserves a shout out? Well,
(24:04):
tag us on social and let us know.
Thank you for listening to CI to Eye.
This episode was edited and produced byKaren McConarty and co-written by Karen
McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss.
Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CIto Eye's designers and video editors,
(24:28):
and all work together tocreate CI's digital content.
Our music is by whoisuzo. Ifyou enjoyed today's episode,
please take a moment torate us or leave a review.
A nice comment goes a long way in helpingother people discover CI to Eye and
hear from experts in the arts and beyond.If you didn't enjoy today's episode,
pass it on to all of your enemies.Don't forget to follow us on Facebook,
(24:50):
Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube,
and TikTok for regular contentto help you market smarter.
You can also sign up for our newsletterat capacity interactive dot com so you
never miss an update. Andif you haven't already,
please click the subscribe buttonwherever you get your podcasts.
Until next time, stay nerdy.
As a musician, you wouldn't practice oneconcerto alone in your bedroom forever.
You'd develop your skills,explore new techniques,
and join fellow musicians shoulderto shoulder in the orchestra,
moving classical music forwardwith every stroke of the bow.
It's the same with artsmarketing and leadership.
We don't grow by staying in abubble. We grow by learning together.
(00:22):
That's what Boot Camp 2024 is all about.
This one of a kind conference brings artsprofessionals together to share fresh
ideas, hone their skills, andfuel the future of our industry.
A ticket to Boot Camp unlocks twofull days of expert-led sessions and
peer-driven insights,
all 100% tailored to the artsand all 100% actionable when you
(00:44):
return to your desk on Monday.
It's happening at the Times Center inNew York City, October 24th and 25th,
and it won't be the same without you.
Don't miss this chance to level upyour organization and join the creative
community shaping the future of the arts.
Save your seat at capacityinteractive boot camp dot com.
(01:13):
Hi everyone, and welcomeback to CI to Eye.
Today we're tackling a commonchallenge for arts marketers:
how to justify investing more time, money,
and energy into website analytics.If you're a data nerd like me,
you already know the power ofa solid analytics strategy.
It gives you the insight you needto better understand your audiences,
(01:35):
optimize your campaigns, and ultimatelydrive more ticket sales or donations.
But let's face it,
sometimes it can feel like you're speakinga different language when you try to
explain this to leadership. The technicalterms, the dashboards, the KPIs...
it can all feel overly complicated tosomeone who isn't in the digital trenches
day in, day out.
(01:55):
So how can you show your boss and boardmembers that investing in analytics is
not only worthwhile, but actuallycritical for long-term success?
In today's episode, I'll sit down withYosaif Cohain, CI's VP of Analytics,
to help you bridge the gap between thetechnical side of analytics and the high
level goals that matter to yourorganization's decision-makers.
(02:16):
We are heading up into the clouds fora 10,000 foot view that will have your
leadership team ready to double down ondata. Ready, everyone? Up, up, and away!
Yosaif, thanks for being here.
Hey, Dan. Thanks for having me.
(02:37):
So most of our listeners are probablyfamiliar with you from the general CI
world, but for those who aren't,
can you give us a bit of a backgroundabout how you ended up at Capacity?
Sure.
I actually started my career outsidethe arts and was working at a design
agency during a very transitionaland transformational time in
digital,
(02:57):
right when companies werestarting to realize that digital
isn't just a requirement,
but it can truly be acompetitive advantage and a differentiator and a driver of
growth.
We were doing this work for really bigbrands and I would say having a lot of
fun doing it.
We were the top agency thatfocused on the user experience and
(03:19):
focusing on the user experience wasactually pretty unique at the time.
Other agencies werefocused on innovation and
shiny and pretty and winning awards,
and our focus was usability.
Our ethos was that the useris the number one stakeholder
(03:39):
for the website and that the userexperience must reflect that and must
be elevated. So I hadgreat years working there.
There was something amazing for meabout working with brands like IKEA
or being part of a very smallteam that redesigned the CNN
website. The truth is that Ikind of became a little bit
(04:02):
addicted to it. I wouldn't saythat I had a passion, let's say,
for Pizza Hut as a product,
but I got hooked to thepuzzle and the challenge that
we're going to beat our competitorsas an agency and that Pizza Hut will
beat their competitors by beingsmarter and more strategic.
(04:22):
It was this rush and itwas incredibly rewarding.
Eventually,
we started getting clients thatI had personal issues with and
I knew I couldn't stay there andfeel proud of the work I was doing.
And speak of timing,
in the year that I was trying to figureout next steps and doing some freelance
(04:46):
projects, I get an email froma former client, Erik Gensler,
CI's founder-.
Heard of him.
Yeah. Yes, we've heard of him.
He and I had worked together when hewas project managing the redesign for
Ailey, and we met for coffee.
We instantly meshed and gelledand we both knew we wanted to work
(05:06):
together. And yeah,
that was over 10 years ago and it'sbeen an amazing ride ever since.
What's the best part of working witharts and cultural clients at CI?
Obviously doing my small piece tohelp cultural institutions be more
successful and by extensionhelping more people connect with
art is something thatis very special to me.
(05:30):
More specifically,
and to compare to my earlier daysin the corporate side of things,
I remember after being at CI forabout six months and Erik telling
me that I need to present at Boot Camp.
And I go and I work on mypresentation for about a week or so,
and I show it to him. And I've donethis dozens of times in my career,
(05:53):
creating PowerPoints, but I blur outall the numbers and the client names.
And I show this to Eric andhe looks at me like I'm crazy,
and he says to me-and this iswhen the light bulb moment,
when the light switched for me-he says,
"Do you think the Boston Balletis competing with the Seattle
(06:14):
Opera?
The marketing director at the ballet wentinto this field because she loves art.
Not only is she not competing with them,
she wants to see them succeed and shewants to help." And it was this small
thing,
but it was so beautiful and so meaningfulto me and it's something that I get to
see over and over.
(06:34):
So being part of this communityof people that have a shared
goal and want to uplifteach other is very unique
and it's something that I deeply cherish.
Yeah, that's such a good point.
Everyone is genuinely enthusiasticto help lift everyone else.
I love that about this industry.So let's talk about GA4.
(06:57):
What is available right now and fairlyaccessible to people out of the box,
as it were, and what requires morecustom work to understand or implement?
Out of the box,
you get a lot of data abouttraffic to the website
and to specific pages.
You'll also get data ontraffic sources and some other
(07:18):
reports with a little customization.
You can collect e-commerce data andyou should be doing that with more
work and intentionality.
You can and you should trackmore behavioral data about how
people are interacting withkey parts of the site. Now,
the challenge with all of thisis that it's still just reports
(07:42):
and data. There's so muchdata to make sense of,
and no one has time for this.
When I worked with corporationsin my previous life,
my counterparts were teams oreven departments of analytics
people. I think in my 10 years at CI,
I can still count on one hand the numberof organizations that I've worked with
(08:04):
that have even one full-timeperson dedicated to web analytics.
So this is the challenge and theopportunity and what we try to do to
help our clients with analytics, is:
given your more limitedinternal resources,
how can we push through that and how canwe still be great and get the most out
(08:25):
of analytics?
One of the first points you showedus, I remember when I first joined CI,
was that your website touches everything.
So if you can increasea Facebook ad by 20%
performance, that's great.
If you can increase the amount oforganic traffic going to your site by 5%,
that's great. If you evenincrease the website by just 1%,
(08:49):
that touches every single channel.
Yes. If you improve yourFacebook conversion rate by 10%,
that's awesome,
and we should certainly be lookingto make channel optimizations,
but at the end of the day, ifyou look at your marketing mix,
Facebook is going to be, what?20% of your traffic? 30%?
(09:09):
It'll vary based on organization,
but a 10% lift off of 20% oftraffic is not going to be as
big as making a 5% lift on the actual
website that-like your landing pagefor example-that gets a lot of traffic,
right?
Like your newsletters are pulling thereand organic search is pointing there and
the Google grant and your Facebook stuff.
(09:32):
So making optimizations around theuser experience can actually have a
trickle down effect.
It'll have an increase in your conversionrate for when you're looking at data
just in aggregate in your GA4,
but then also when you lookat your ROIs in your channels,
that should have an impact there as well.
What are the majormistakes, misunderstandings,
or missed opportunities that you mostoften see when folks are coming to us with
(09:54):
analytics questions for the first time?
I think that some organizationsare getting it right as far as data
collection,
but I think the big opportunityis moving beyond that to data
integration. Now that wehave this awesome data,
how do we incorporateit into our processes?
Sometimes I worry that people think ofanalytics as a one-time checkbox to cross
(10:18):
off the list when what you really shouldbe signing up for is a changed approach
where data becomes part ofyour process and culture.
Instead of maybe coming to us andsaying, here's what we had in the past,
can you fix it?
Or is there an improved versionof this thing we've been doing
to instead really think bigger and askhow can analytics help us shift the
(10:42):
way we do things? How can datatransform our digital work?
I can definitely understand thatcheckbox aspect to analytics.
I work mostly with SEO as you know,
and that can often be asort of checkbox as well,
whereas the real strengthfrom these channels,
which do require a little bitmore [of an] in-the-weeds,
(11:04):
technical look at our website, comesfrom over time, constantly updating,
constantly making changes,
having those incremental changes thatI know especially for analytics are so
important.
Yes,
it's not a one-time thing where youcheck a box and "we did SEO this
quarter" or "we did analytics," butwe built the foundation and now we
(11:25):
are leveraging it on an ongoing basis,
and that can be at differentrates and different paces,
but the important thing isthat it's not a one-time thing.
It's an ongoing thingthat you're buying into.
It's not that we did analytics,it's that we do analytics.
Exactly.
What do you find high levelfolks-talking like executive directors,
(11:46):
board members-are most focused onwhen it comes to website analytics and
what should they be focused on instead?
I think there's still a focus on highlevel data and those numbers being big
numbers. On seeing the trendthat points up and to the right.
On variance numbers beinggreen instead of red.
(12:07):
I've always been less focusedon high level numbers,
like total users or totalpage views. Instead,
I've been focused on the user story anduser engagement once people arrive at
the website.
The two types of questions that I wouldrecommend focusing on instead: one,
what are people doing when they come tothe website? Are we meeting their needs?
(12:31):
And then number two,
how are we doing internally atintegrating data into our team's work?
And both of these are processes thatwill take some time to get good at,
but these are the questions that I thinkare far more interesting and important
than the high level 'how muchtraffic is the site getting'?
I think a lot of the usability comes frombeing able to create a narrative from
(12:52):
the data as well.
To tell a story with the data so it'snot just a sort of wall of numbers.
Do you think that can make it easierwhen talking to high level folks about
analytics, people like executivedirectors, board members?
I think that's such an interestingpoint, Dan, and it's something that...
I used to use this quote a lot,
which is "The plural formof anecdote is data." If we
(13:16):
want to talk to someone and ask them,
what was your experience when youwent to the theater last night?
They're going to answer thatto us in the form of a story.
The challenge is how many ofthose people can we talk to?
And once we get many of them, and that'swhat the website and your analytics is,
it's thousands of sessionsand thousands of people,
then you are basicallygetting a lot of data points,
(13:37):
which are a collectionof various anecdotes,
and that's the job of an analystis not to just report on numbers
and to say, here's how much traffic wegot and here's what the top 10 pages are.
But to start framing it morearound the user and the user story.
Can you give us a couple of examples ofanalytics projects that you considered
(13:58):
to be really successful?
Sure. The first is one of myfavorite types of projects,
and that's a website redesign.There's so much excitement about redesigns
and I have a passion for great websitesand that's what my background is in,
but there's something that no one talksabout with redesigns and that's that
they contain a lot ofunknowns and a lot of risk.
(14:21):
What happens when you spend ayear plus of your time and tens
or hundreds of thousands of dollarson a project that not only doesn't
move the needle up, it actuallymoves it down? The question is,
how can we mitigate risk and how canwe best set ourselves up for success?
And the answer is by being asuser-centric as possible in the
(14:44):
process, and that's goingto mean being data-driven.
So our part in this equationhas been partnering with
dozens of organizations heading intoredesigns where we're just looking to
learn.
We're part of the discovery phase andwe're just trying to learn as much as we
can about existing user behavior.So we're looking to answer
(15:05):
questions like, how arepeople using the current site?
And based on those results,trying to determine:
how can we incorporate those behaviorsand those learnings about user needs
into the new website?
It's not me telling a designer 'move thisfive pixels to the right' or 'make it
a slightly different version of red,'but it's about 'here's what people are
(15:27):
trying to do when they come to thewebsite and here's what they're currently
doing,
and now you as a designer take thisinformation and design a great solution
based on that context.'.
Things like if people are alwaysnavigating towards one page and it's
five clicks away, like knowing thatand knowing how important that page is,
(15:47):
moving that to the front of thetop nav for a website redesign.
Is that the kind of thingsyou're talking about?
Exactly like that.
So it's about learning about existingbehavior and then building solutions
around that. And it's funnyyou give that example.
That's one of the first examples thatI got introduced to with web analytics.
We were doing a redesign forJetBlue and we looked at the
(16:10):
data and everyone was on the homepageand clicking on one thing every single
time, and that was,
"I want to book a flight."And the simple solution was,
let's move the little mini booker,
let's create a mini bookerand move that to the homepage.
And it's such an obviousno-duh kind of thing,
but literally JetBlue wasthe first airline to do that.
(16:32):
It's become ubiquitous. Every singleairline, every single car rental,
every single hotel has a mini booker onthe homepage because that's what users
want. Someone had to be the first.
And that happened to be us with JetBlue.
And that was purely based on lookingat behavioral data and trying to
say, how can I save theuser even just one click,
(16:53):
and that was the solution.
What goes into a particularlymeaningful analytics partnership?
[With] all of your experience of workingwith hundreds of clients over the last
few years, when does thatpartnership really excel?
I think like most things,the key is communication.
One of the things that I've worked veryhard on throughout my career is using
(17:16):
data to invite people in.
I try to convey excitementat what's possible,
and I like to show howto make things happen.
I want to get rid of thisconcept of analytics being this quote "black box" that
only people who specialize in it canaccess. I think on the receiving end,
for us as consultants,
(17:37):
I think that we provide the most valueand we do the best work when we're able
to hear directly from our clients andour stakeholders about their goals and
challenges, about theirlearning styles and preferences,
about their workloads and priorities.
That's when it helps ushave a great partnership.
I never want analytics tofeel like an awful chore.
(17:59):
I want it to represent informationthat you get to access.
I want to help generate that thirst andshow you the tools of how to get there.
So the more context that we have aroundwhat's going on outside of analytics,
I think the better we can be at findingways to help you incorporate that data
into your work.
Yeah.
(18:19):
What does an executive director or boardmember need to understand about the
importance of investing in strongdata collection and the use of website
analytics?
We don't need to be web analysts torecognize how important the website is to
our success. It's obvious that ifthe website went away tomorrow,
we'd be in trouble. We are relianton the website as an organization.
(18:42):
All of our marketing and advertisingpushes people to the website.
We sell most of our tickets online. Weshowcase our exhibitions and productions.
We get people to make a purchasedecision with the user experience that we
control.
So having a great websiteisn't just a want,
it's an imperative.
(19:02):
I think one of the most common andsubconscious mistakes that we can make is
that we assume people use thewebsite the same way we do,
so we don't need to usedata. We know about behavior,
but we are far from the typical user.
We've been to the websitehundreds of times already.
(19:22):
We know our organization inside out.
We already have a deep knowledgeand love for our art form.
That is not the user thatis quickly arriving at the website from a Facebook ad.
That's not someone who we're hopingwill be a first time attendee or tourist
planning a trip to town oreven a renewing subscriber.
(19:44):
So we need to let go of this bias-it'salmost like a certain level of
humility-and accept that thewebsite is built for the people,
and that's why I keep sayingwe have to be user-centric.
I feel like digital marketing changesevery month or every week sometimes.
So viewing it over 10 plus years,
(20:05):
20 years of seeing how websiteshave changed since then,
it's always really interesting.Whenever I talk to you,
I'm always really inspired by how muchof the world you've seen on the digital
marketing side.
Thank you.
It's interesting how in many waysthings do change very quickly,
and then in many ways the underlyingroot and the principles stay exactly
(20:26):
the same.
What we do today is very similarto what we've been doing for years.
I think that behind thescenes a lot has changed.
The platforms-of course everyone'sheard about migration to the new
GA4-but also I would say theway we go about collecting data,
the richness of what we can collect,
(20:46):
the accuracy of some ofthe data that we collect,
increasingly the incorporation ofmachine learning into the data...
But conceptually,
web analytics today is the same aswhat it's been for the past 10 and
15 years at its core.
And really the simplest way toexplain what it is is that it's a
(21:06):
tool that gives voice to your users.
People are telling us about how theylike our websites and how we're meeting
their needs, only they'retelling us with their clicks.
They're constantly voting just bythe way they're using it. So really,
web analytics is a choice.
Do we pay attention andlisten and optimize or not?
(21:29):
And that's been a constant in thepractice of web analytics and why I
personally love doing this workbecause I want to understand what users
want and I want to help solve forthose user needs because I know,
and I've seen, that this leads to betteruser experiences and to better results.
If you could broadcast one message toexecutive directors, leadership teams,
(21:53):
staff, and boards of thousandsof arts organizations,
what would that message be?
Well, first off,
I just want to say thank you to everyonefor the work you do and for taking the
time to listen to me talk about data.
I will continually advocatefor investing in your website,
investing in the datarevolving around the website,
(22:16):
and investing in your people andprocesses that revolve around the data.
By doing so,
you're really investing both in yourusers and in your organization's success.
I think that being great atdata and UX can seem very
daunting, and maybe the perceptionis that it's only for the Amazons and
(22:37):
Netflixes and tech startups, and yes,
there are going to be some advancedthings that they do that we cannot,
but there is so muchopportunity in front of us,
and with the proper focus and approach,
it is certainly an achievable and Ithink very rewarding journey to take.
Awesome. I'll pass thaton to all of those people.
(22:59):
Thank you so much for joiningus on the podcast, Yosaif.
It's always an absolutepleasure to speak to you.
Thank you so much, Dan.
All right, analytics aficionados.Before we say goodbye,
here's an extra dose of inspirationfrom arts organizations in the news.
(23:22):
First up,
the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra wasfeatured in the New York Times article,
"What if orchestras were morelike Netflix?" Their CEO,
Christina Littlejohn,
shared the positive impacts of theirunique membership program saying,
"Our halls look fuller andour orchestra is happier.
It's just been a gamechanger." Kudos ASO! Next,
(23:43):
the Charlotte Observer reported thatCharlotte Ballet was awarded $5 million
from the Knight Foundationfor its facility expansion,
which will include housing forartists-in-residence, new dance studios,
and an outdoor event space.Incredible news, Charlotte Ballet.
We're so proud of these CI clientsfor expertly evolving along with their
communities. Got a story thatdeserves a shout out? Well,
(24:04):
tag us on social and let us know.
Thank you for listening to CI to Eye.
This episode was edited and produced byKaren McConarty and co-written by Karen
McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss.
Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CIto Eye's designers and video editors,
(24:28):
and all work together tocreate CI's digital content.
Our music is by whoisuzo. Ifyou enjoyed today's episode,
please take a moment torate us or leave a review.
A nice comment goes a long way in helpingother people discover CI to Eye and
hear from experts in the arts and beyond.If you didn't enjoy today's episode,
pass it on to all of your enemies.Don't forget to follow us on Facebook,
(24:50):
Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube,
and TikTok for regular contentto help you market smarter.
You can also sign up for our newsletterat capacity interactive dot com so you
never miss an update. Andif you haven't already,
please click the subscribe buttonwherever you get your podcasts.
Until next time, stay nerdy.
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