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April 7, 2025 52 mins

Welcome to Season Three of Digital Marketing Victories Podcast. In this first episode, we’re joined by Dana DiTomaso, Founder & Lead Instructor at KP Playbook and President & Partner at Kick Point, where she helps people and teams do better marketing.

This episode is for you if you’re curious about the following:

  1. You want to develop your analytic thinking. 
  2. You want to be comfortable analyzing data and using it to persuade others.
  3. You need tips around selecting and presenting data when you're persuading others to change their behavior.
  4. You want to use data to guide a ruthless prioritization process to streamline your marketing requests.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Katherine Watier Ong (00:00):
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Victories
podcast, a monthly show wherewe celebrate and learn from the
changemakers in digitalmarketing.
Great digital marketersunderstand that people are the
most challenging part of doingtheir jobs, and this show
focuses on the people part ofdigital marketing wins what
tactics or skills the guests useto align people with their
marketing strategy.

(00:21):
I'm your host, catherineWatsier Ong, the owner of WO
Strategies LLC.
We focus on increasing organicdiscovery for enterprise-sized,
science-focused clients.
Thank you for joining me.
Let's get into it and celebrateour victories.
Today we're joined by DanaDiTomaso.
She's the Founder and LeadInstructor at KP Playbook,

(00:42):
President and Partner at KickPoint, where she helps people
and teams do better marketing.
Alongside the team at KickPoint, she teaches people and
teams how to set goals and trackresults so that they understand
what strategies and tacticsbring real value.
In addition to speaking atconferences about reporting and
analytics, SEO and brandbuilding, she's a weekly
columnist on CBC Edmonton AM andshe teaches analytics at the

(01:05):
University of Alberta and foreveryone listening, this episode
is going to be perfect for youIf you're curious about how to
develop your analytic thinking,become comfortable analyzing
data and using it to persuadeothers.
If you need some tips aroundselecting and presenting data
when you're persuading others tochange their behavior, using
data to guide a ruthlessprioritization process to

(01:27):
streamline your marketingrequests.
I know that's a challenge withtechnical SEO figuring out what
to prioritize and how topersuade others when the data is
missing or unreliable.
Particularly Dana's beentalking a lot about that this
year and that's why I broughther on the show, but I know that
some people also.
I've had challenges in the pastabout building an analytics
culture.
If you happen to be anorganization, that's kind of new
to SEO, and then how to dealwith pushback from stakeholders

(01:50):
or clients if they maybedisagree with your data analysis
.
Cool.
So, Dana, welcome to the show.
Can you just tell folks alittle bit more about you?
I think most people listeningknow who you are, but give us a
little bit of your background,how you got into the analytics
piece.

Dana DiTomaso (02:04):
Yeah for sure.
So my original, my origin storyis I went to school for
geography, which I use every dayin my current career.
But what happened was is when Igraduated at the late 90s, I
ended up working in software andthen from there I started
tinkering with websites.
I started freelancing in 2000.
So I've been doing this a reallong time now and my first

(02:25):
website client said to me hey,how do I get in Google?
And I said I don't know, I'llget back to you.
And that's when I discoveredRand Fishkin's blog before SEO
Moz, like back in the early,early days.
Oh yeah, and like Jill Whalen,for example, is now retired from
the field.
She gave me a ticket to SESToronto 2004.
That was my first searchconference.

Katherine Watier Ong (02:43):
So yeah.

Dana DiTomaso (02:44):
I'm doing this a real long time.
And then I mean, I did SEO fora long time, love SEO, still do
it a little bit, but whatstarted happening around I would
say like 2017 ish is we startedto get more into Google Tag
Manager.
Version two of Google TagManager came out.
Like okay, I got to learn thisthing.
Clients are asking about data.
We have analytics, but like itprobably could be better, and so

(03:05):
that ended up completelyoccupying my brain.
And when the GA4 launch cameout, it's just I ended up diving
so deeply into it that that isnow my my main area of expertise
.

Katherine Watier Ong (03:16):
We are so glad you did.
Somebody had to get over.

Dana DiTomaso (03:22):
I was talking to my wife and I was like what a
weird thing to be suddenly be anexpert in like, like.
Who saw this coming?
And she's like yeah, you, youknow you get super into stuff.
I'm like, yeah, but GA4, wasthat really like a good choice?

Katherine Watier Ong (03:34):
So there's like two of you that folks
follow that and it really knowhow it works.
The rest of us, no matter howmany trainings I go through,
we're still like, where do I gofor this?

Dana DiTomaso (03:41):
At least that's my story.
Well, and every time I go onvacation, something changes.
This is the joke is like everytime I go on vacation, there's a
major feature announcement.
So my next vacation will be thefirst week of April.
We'll find out.

Katherine Watier Ong (03:53):
We'll find out.
Everybody put that on yourcalendar.
There's gonna be some majorchange, Exactly.
So let's start off by thinkingabout analytical thinking.
So what if a digital marketeris kind of new to having an
analytical thinking kind ofprocess?
What strategies do yourecommend that they take, or
tips for them to get thoseskills?

Dana DiTomaso (04:14):
I mean I.
It's funny because people arelike oh, I don't really like
math, you don't have to likemath I.
I mean, the reason why I have ageography degree is because I
failed calculus so many times.
I decided a science degree wasnot, so I left biology and went
to geography.
I didn't need calculus tograduate from that.
And yeah, I mean, we took onestats class that was called
stats for geographers and it wasjust like real basic statistics

(04:37):
, but I don't necessarily usethat.
I think the biggest thing whenyou're thinking about it from an
analytical perspective is whatis realistically something we
can measure, but then alsounderstanding the limitations of
that measurement.
And so you know you mentionedI've been speaking a lot about
analytics, data isn't perfect,et cetera.
There's a blog post which wecan link to in the show notes
about you know, your marketingdata isn't right.
Can it be fixed?

(04:58):
Spoiler alert.
No, it can't be fixed, andthat's okay.
So I think it's important justto understand the limitations of
the product, more so than youknow.
Oh, I need to figure out thecosine or whatever of this thing
, and I don't don't worry aboutthat Like right now, if you're
just getting into it.
Just learn how the data gets inand how you get the data out,
and what are the limitations ofthat process.

Katherine Watier Ong (05:26):
Yeah, I actually what I saw, or read and
listened to your whiteboardfriday article um, and, mind you
, I also saw the presentationyou had at moscon.
But between the two, honestly,I felt better about my own skill
set because I'm also not reallybig on the math piece, but I
feel like I can talk abouttrending stuff I can talk about
how to make this.
I can definitely talk aboutlimitations.
I've got this blog post on mywebsite about the limitations of
google search console becauseit feels like every week there's
like a new insight.
Somebody has this like oh, youcan't track that or that's

(05:48):
buried under here.
Right and I never remember allof them because there's so many
like caveats with Google searchconsole, so I just keep updating
the blog post for my ownreference, but I feel like I can
talk people through that.
Similarly, once I saw yourpresentation I was like, oh, I
can totally talk people throughhow we shouldn't obsess because
we've lost so much tracking.

(06:08):
This is sort of the trendthat's happening.
You know, I was right therewith you.

Dana DiTomaso (06:12):
Good good.

Katherine Watier Ong (06:13):
Yeah, so do you recommend that data
marketers, or marketers ingeneral, balance datadriven as
well as creative ideas andqualitative?
Do you encourage them to thinkabout all three?

Dana DiTomaso (06:28):
Yeah, I do, and I actually don't like the phrase
data-driven.
I know a lot of people use that.
It's more we're starting to usethe phrase data-informed, as in
, you're not solely going tomake decisions based on the data
, but you should look at it andhelp it inform, have it inform
what you're going to do.
You know, right, and becausethere's lots of stuff again, if
we're accepting that we can'tmeasure everything, then there's

(06:48):
going to be some stuff that wecan't measure, and as a marketer
, you're not, you know, a robottaking an input and putting out
output.
That's what the AI tools arefor.
Instead, you're applying yourmarketing brain and saying, okay
, so I know this, this, this,this is true, and I'm seeing
this trend.
Now, what do we do?

Katherine Watier Ong (07:04):
And I think that's really the critical
part that a marketer brings andthat's what makes you better
than, say, an AI bot when itcomes to marketing Right, and I
mean I remember the days becauseI've been in the business about
as long as you have been likedoing it for 20 years and I
remember when we had keywords,for instance.
So there was this moment wherewe were really detail oriented
or trying to be with the data.
But on the flip side, I spentfive years working at a PR firm

(07:27):
and I will reassure all of youthat they kind of measure very
little, yes, and they definitelyget paid.
Oh, yeah, for sure they getpaid well.

Dana DiTomaso (07:36):
Yeah, and same thing with, like PPC people.
Like, talk to a PPC personsometime, if you don't know any,
and talk to them about resultsreporting, because it's so
interesting when I see resultsfrom PPC people and I'm not
saying this to shade PPC peopleyou're great, love talking to
you.
But sometimes those reports arebased on entirely impressions,
not even clicks, not even youknow conversions, God forbid and

(07:57):
so I think just impressions,especially for things like
connected TV, like that's allwe're seeing in those reports.
Right, Nothing about followthrough, but that's okay too,
because brand building is alsoan important marketing strategy,
and I literally just hosted apodcast with Leda Solis where we
talked about the importance ofbrand building when it comes to
SEO.
So there's that part of it, sodon't be so obsessed with like

(08:20):
that, that end part of it.
And I think that that's whereSEOs really can fault themselves
, because they're like well, Icouldn't track it, so it doesn't
count.
It's like if you go for a walkand you're not wearing your
Apple watch, you didn't closethe rings, Did it actually count
?
Yeah, you still went for a walk.
You know, some people are goingto have ad blockers.
Some people, especially when itcomes to local SEO, for example
, is really where I started.

(08:40):
Like, started, Like I don'treally care how they get in
touch with my client, I justwant them to do it.
If they look up the client onMaps and then drive to the store
, am I going to know?
No, but it happened.
Cool, Like no one's going towalk in the store and be like
I'm here today because I happento see you come up on Maps, Like
it's not going to happen.
So there has to be that part ofit too where you know things
are growing and you know thework you're doing is important

(09:01):
and it's helping, but thereisn't necessarily that direct
benefit.
And so that's why in that talkat MozCon, I talked a lot about
that effectiveness metric whereyou take all the impressions of
all the metrics connected TVbillboards, search console, ads,
all of it, add it all up,divide it by the number of
transactions or conversions orwhatever.
That bottom line metric is thatyou can track.

(09:21):
Look at that percentage If youdo new things.
Did it go up or did it go down?
So, thinking about you know,for example, technical SEO, if
you make the site faster, did itmake the conversion rate go up
or did people just have a bettertime on the site and then
they're more likely to get intouch with that particular
client.
Right, you wouldn't necessarilybe able to measure the
conversion rate improvements.
Maybe you can, maybe you can't,but if it's, for example,

(09:42):
people walking into a store,then maybe you won't know, but
you'll know that generally, youknow the number of transactions
for that client has gone up, asyou did this TechnoGlassio work.
Therefore, your work isprobably having an impact Like
well, probably isn't good enough.
Well, guess what?
It's 2025 and probably has tobe good enough sometimes.

Katherine Watier Ong (10:00):
So sorry Once you watch her presentation.
If you are a marketer, I nowhear you in my head every time I
strip a UTM.
I know which I do all the time.

Dana DiTomaso (10:10):
Everybody does it all the time.
I do it.
Sometimes it's yeah, andactually that presentation I
recorded.
It's on YouTube now, so if yougo to the Kickpoint Playbook
YouTube channel you can watch.
It's a presentation I gave tomembers of my analytics for
agencies and practical GA4courses before MozCon and then
we just released it.
So it is on YouTube now so youcan check it out.

Katherine Watier Ong (10:29):
Great, yeah, definitely check it out.
Okay, so we've talked a lotabout misleading data.
Now, if you're going to selectdata to present to somebody,
what's the key factors you thinkabout?
If you're going to be puttingtogether a persuasive
presentation to pivot somebodyelse's actions or for them to
come on board with yourmarketing campaign.

Dana DiTomaso (10:48):
I want to know what they care about and what
are the terms that they use,because there's really nothing
worse than someone feeling likethey're being talked over,
especially if they're alreadysuspicious of you.
So sometimes, for example, I'llcome in to do, say, a training
or an audit, and the person whoset up GA4 originally is like,
oh, this consultant is going tocome in and they're just going
to tell everybody how bad I am.

(11:08):
And I'm like, hey, this is notmy goal here.
I want to make you look good.
So really establishing thatrapport is really important.
But then also, you know, whatdoes your boss say?
Do they say I want the phone toring?
Okay, great, then that's whatwe're going to talk about.
I'm not going to say phone callconversions from you know,
organic search.
I'm going to talk about numberof people who Googled you and
then called you Right.
So really making sure thatyou're reframing your language

(11:31):
and even if it's not terms younecessarily always use, don't
force them to come to you.
You should go to them.
And this is especiallyimportant.
Agency side In-house, you'rekind of like a little agency
sometimes, because it's not likeeverybody at that workplace
does what you do.
You're like your own littleagency inside the larger
organization.
So really thinking aboutchanging your language to meet
them where they are, so theydon't feel like they're being

(11:51):
talked down to and you reallywant to try to break down that
wall for sure.
So it's not us versus them, orlike my data is better than your
data, it's all right.
You know, this is interesting.
Let's take a look at this.
How about we take a look atthis too, and then we're going
to come together and make somedecisions, and I think it's more
going for that sort ofconsensus situation is really
critical.
So you know and again, reallydial it back on what you present

(12:16):
.
Nobody likes a table, except foryou, and this is something I
hammer home with marketers allthe time, especially SEOs.
We love Excel, we love GoogleSheets.
We use them all the time.
Normal human beings don't liketables.
Normal human beings don't useExcel unless they're like
economists, and that's notusually who we're presenting to.
We're not talking to theaccountants.
We aren't accountants.
So stop showing tables.

(12:37):
Show graphs, show things thatpeople can look at and
understand immediately what itis that they're looking at,
without having to really thinkabout it a lot, because you
don't want the friction to bethe chart you present.
You want the friction to bespent in changing their thinking
about data and how much iscoming in and what they can
measure and what they can'tmeasure.
So I think it's just a matterof really thinking about how can
you make this as accessible aspossible.

(12:57):
You know, have someone in yourlife who you can go over the
stuff with, who doesn't actuallyreally know what's going on,
but knows enough.
You know, like sometimes I'llshow things to my wife and I'm
like do you know what's going on?
She works in a museum, likeshe's.
She probably knows more aboutGA4 just existing in this house
than most people say work inmuseums.

Katherine Watier Ong (13:15):
That's my husband.
He's a musician, but I'm like,could you read this for me?
Same thing, yeah.

Dana DiTomaso (13:19):
Right, but I'll show her charts and be like does
this make sense, you know?
And then she's like, oh, Idon't get this part.
Ok, great, that's reallyhelpful, right?
So show it to somebody else whoisn't a marketer and get their
feedback, and also be open tofeedback too.
You know none of us is perfect.

Katherine Watier Ong (13:34):
Yeah, yeah , yeah.
So what about if you arepresent?
So you talked about likestreamlining it.
Oh, I know what my additionalthought was.
So do you have any tips?
That isn't Tufty Cause.
I'm going to bring up EdwardTufty, which I covered in
graduate school because of thestory about the challenger
explosion being driven by a badgraph is burned into my memory,

(13:58):
but I don't know if there's aneasy way for anybody to pick
that up with, like an onlinearticle at the moment, other
than buying his book and diggingthrough the book.
Do you have something similarwhere people have some awareness
of how important it is to makesure that the graph is sort of
accurate so that people don'tmisinterpret the data when it's
in a graph?

Dana DiTomaso (14:15):
Yeah, so often.
There's some examples in theblog post about the marketing
data being correct or incorrect,and can we fix it?
No, so it's.
I think one of the things thatI've been doing a lot of is,
instead of showing, for example,you've got like landing pages
and sessions and conversionrates, slash key event rates.
No one says key events, butlet's pretend that Google
actually is making this happen.

(14:35):
It's like fetch, it's not goingto happen, google.
So you know, instead of showinglanding pages and then a number
of sessions and a number of keyevents or whatever it might be,
show them as percentages of thetotal.
You know, 49% of the visitscame to this landing page and
23% of the conversions from thislanding page.
Okay, well, those numbers don'tappear to line up what's going

(14:56):
on.
Why isn't this page doing asgood of a job as it could?
Be right?
That's an immediate way to showif a page is, say, hitting
above or below its weight interms of conversions and are the
right pages bringing peoplethrough in terms of conversions
as well?
And so that's something where,if you just show the percentage
of the total and don't includethe decimal points, you know I
do this in Looker Studio.
I have a video on that blogpost on exactly how to do this.

(15:18):
But by default Looker Studiothey'll say 49.26.
I do not care, 49.50.
That's just show the numbers.
Don't show the decimals.
Like, the less numbers you canshow the better.
But again, it's really easy tolook at the colored bars and see
do the colored bars match right?
And so anyone can grasp thatchart.
Even if you don't read at all,you can still see the colored

(15:39):
bars.
There's some charts I presentthat don't have any numbers on
them at all and they're justlayered pie charts a donut
wrapped around a pie chart.
I also have an example of thaton the website too, so you can
have a report that can show thatyour mobile website sucks
without ever actually having topresent a single number at all.
And there's ways to do this andit's just so visual and so easy

(15:59):
for anyone to understand and Ithink that that's truly like one
of the strongest reports youcould present to people.

Katherine Watier Ong (16:05):
Oh, and it definitely sounds like a skill
people have to work on Not onlyabsorb the information, but then
, you know, make sure that'swhat they're cranking out.

Dana DiTomaso (16:10):
And I think there's a bit of insecurity too,
like especially if you're justgetting started and you're like,
oh, this person is, you know,agency side, you know what and
and and there is certainly someconfidence that has to go behind
showing a client who's payingyou a lot of money a one or two
page report with the resultsRight, but really thinking about

(16:31):
it like nobody is excited abouta 50 page report review.
You know no one wants this.
So if they want more details,you can dig into it, bring the
supplemental pieces, but realityis like you're just showing
these top level metrics and thenyou can dig in if you need to.
So really err on the side oflike not making, picking the
metrics that are going to be themost impactful for that

(16:53):
situation and have supportingdata, of course, but don't try
to show everything becausenobody, nobody cares.
They just want to know am Imaking money?
Am I making money by hiring you?
Am I making money by continuingto pay your salary?
That's the real question.

Katherine Watier Ong (17:07):
Oh, I mean also it's attention span.
I mean I always I do a trainingon online writing, of course,
as most SEOs do, and you knowwe've lost attention, attention
span over the years.
You know we've got lessattention than a goldfish.
And I think it also parlaysover to other parts of our life.
It's not just interactingonline.
I just think that most of usdon't have a lot of attention
span, unfortunately.

(17:28):
The internet's changed ourbrains a bit, I think.

Dana DiTomaso (17:30):
Oh yeah, for sure .
And I think it's just likepresenting reports is never a
thrill ride, like, try to makeit as interesting as possible,
but also accept the reality that, like this, is not exactly an
exciting part of your day.

Katherine Watier Ong (17:39):
Right, and exactly an exciting part of
your day Right, and not anexciting part of their day.
So that's the reason not to do.
You know, a bounce of reportingOne of the first jobs I had
after university.

Dana DiTomaso (17:47):
So when I worked in software was I was doing a
training for CRM software andthis is this will date me how
old I am it was for Lotus NotesCRM software.
Oh yeah.
So I flew all over the Statesdoing training to salespeople
who didn't want to be therebecause they're salespeople and
they, you know, are movementoriented, action oriented,
making phone calls kind ofpeople.
I was wasting a whole day oftheir time when they could have
been making commissions and, uh,they didn't have any input in

(18:10):
the software.
A lot of the time they werejust like handed this and said
here you have to use it.
One time I showed up at atraining I think it was in san
antonio and the sales team hadjust decided to go golfing, and
so the the client's like yeah,none of them are.
I guess we're going to have to.
I don't know, you want to go tothe Alamo?
Like, yeah, okay, cool, sure,that was what we ended up doing.
So I think it's a matter oflike really accepting that your
audience may not want to bethere and just trying to make it

(18:31):
as entertaining as possible,like not, you know, show and
dance, but that's part of whatgoes into my speaking now.
Is that experience?

Katherine Watier Ong (18:41):
experience , that early experience trying
to get board salespeople excitedabout CRM software.
Yep, yep.

Dana DiTomaso (18:50):
I've had similar kind of experiences.

Katherine Watier Ong (18:51):
I turned my.
My first trainees weregrandmothers when I was training
folks about SEO, so kind ofsimilar Um.
So I do have um one episode ofthe show where we talk about
delivering negative news.
But I am kind of curiouswhether you have your own um
opinions about how you go aboutstructuring your communication
style, what you actually present, and it's negative stuff that
you need to convey.

Dana DiTomaso (19:12):
Yeah, I usually try to just not beat around the
bush like, just get into itimmediately.
Probably the worst piece ofnegative news recently that
comes to mind that I had todeliver was one client we're
helping with the GA4 transition.
This is pre sunset of UA and weput the GA4 code on the site
and suddenly they're like what,something's wrong.
Our traffic has been cut in in.

(19:33):
Like we got 25% of our trafficin GA4 and 100% of it in UA.
I'm like, oh, I've donesomething horribly wrong.
What's going on?
And I go and look and it turnsout that they had their UA code
four times on the site.
So it was recording four pagevisits for every single visit
because UA would allow thatduplication.
And in GA4, there's a settingwhich some people have turned
off if you have a really old GA4, but usually it's turned on.

(19:54):
That stops duplicate trafficfrom being recorded.
And so I did a crawl of thesite with Screaming Frog and I
pulled all the pages and somepages had it on there six times.
Some pages had it on there twotimes.
It was just like completelyinconsistent.
But some of it is that, liketheir traffic reports that
they've been providing for yearswere basically fairy tales

(20:21):
every month.
But somehow we're going to haveto come up with a way to like
figure out how to be like oh,this is wrong.
And so I think, trying to getthem on your side immediately
and be like it's not me dataversus you data, it's it's.
You know, this horrible thinghas happened and now we're going
to fix it together, you know,and and just really trying to be
like look, this is whathappened.
We don't know how it happened.
It turns out the developers werejust like adding the code in
random places for no good reason.

(20:42):
So we got everything in tagmanager, which settled sort of
the problem, and you know, it'sbetter in GA for now, but it's
still like a horrible thing tohave to realize that that things
have been wrong for years andso like that's the kind of thing
that people think, oh God, I'mgoing to get fired, and it's
like that's where you have toreally figure out.
Don't lie about it, be honest,be upfront and just be like look

(21:04):
, this is what happened.
And if you screwed up, then youknow, say I screwed up.
This is what I did Explain howyou're going to fix it, and then
explain how you're not going tolet that happen again.
So that's, that's the other partof it too.
You know, and and sometimescertainly you know, I've screwed
up in my career and we've losta client because of it Happens
to everybody and I think it'sjust like accepting, it's part

(21:25):
of accepting that you're human,you know, and we all do stupid
things at least once, like I'msure everyone has sent an email
accidentally to the wrong personat some point in their careers,
and this is before Gmail hadthe no, I want that back button.
Right, yeah, Right.
Like everybody has screwed upat some point, and just remember

(21:47):
that some scripts are morepublic than others and really
it's just an opportunity tolearn from stuff.
No one, no one, hits it 100% ofthe time and that's.

Katherine Watier Ong (21:50):
that's okay.
Yeah, I actually had a client,was relatively short term
because I was just helping witha migration.
And then it sort of petered out.
They didn't want additionalhelp, but and maybe I doomed
myself, but I did get into theanalytics and they were
publisher and I discovered thatthey were perpetually refreshing
their homepage and sellingadvertising.

Dana DiTomaso (22:11):
And when I pointed it out to them.

Katherine Watier Ong (22:12):
they knew what they were doing and they
did not want any advice from me.
Okay, yeah.

Dana DiTomaso (22:18):
And at that point you're like you know what I've
done, my due diligence, I'm justgoing to walk away now.
Yep, yeah, I remember one, oneclient to they had.
They had a refresh on theirhomepage and their bounce rate
this is UA land was like point06% and I was like, hey, when we
do these changes for youranalytics, this is gonna impact
your bounce rate.
They're like but our bouncerate is so good.
I'm like but it's a lie, it'snot a real metric, you know.

(22:39):
And their web developer knewthat what was going on and
fought me so hard on makingthose changes and I don't know
if they we ended up juststopping working with them
because it was just like I can'thelp you.
If you're not going to, let mehelp you.

Katherine Watier Ong (22:51):
Help me, help you, I know.
I mean, I was the point personfor analytics for at least a
year at Ketchum before I startedhiring my team, and somebody
came up to me with this website.
That was well before I evenstarted.
They're like can you tell ushow much traffic it's gotten?
I'm like and it was built byKetchum and I was like well, it
has no analytics on it.
They're like well, you can'ttell us anything.
Yeah, I can't tell you anything.

Dana DiTomaso (23:12):
It's just all fairy tales at this point.
Yeah, it's totally fair.

Katherine Watier Ong (23:18):
Okay, so let's pivot a little bit to like
the technical SEO side.
What if you've got all thesedata points and you have to sort
through the actions and startprioritizing them based on what
could be taken and, ultimately,what are your takeaways there?
What kind of tips do you havefor people there?

Dana DiTomaso (23:34):
impact and so, as a real broad triage is just
like, one through three foreffort, one through three for
impact, start there and then goback and be like, okay, these
things are really critical, isit actually going to happen?
Who's responsible for this?
Does that mean it's actuallygoing to happen?
And, I think, a big mistakethat people make again just

(23:57):
thinking you're being paid bythe pound and you present this
enormous audit and sometimes Ihave done that at the request of
the client when they're workingwith an external vendor who's
refusing to accept anything iswrong with their beautiful,
perfect website, when things arehorribly wrong with it?
I think the worst one I sawrecently I posted about this in
the Women in Tech SEO was whenyou went to a 404 URL, it showed

(24:17):
the homepage and it presented a200 code Like how do you even
do that?
That's very creative and theclient asked me, though, like
how are they doing this?
Like I don't know anymore.
I don't know right it was acustom built cms too, on top of
everything else like it's 2025.
There's lots of options outthere.
Don't build your own cmsanymore.
Yeah right, maybe in like 96you could do that, but anyway,

(24:38):
so I think it's um, I think thatthat's really important to is
just realize, like, what'sactually going to get
implemented and also go throughit with you know the client be
like hey look, these are the top10 things that I've pulled out
of this list.
Here's some things that we cando and here's some things that I
think your team should do, oror your team has to do.
What's their availability?

(24:59):
Like, can we get some points?
Or, however, like, find out howthey work.
Are they working on a pointsystem?
Are they working on time?
Are they you know how can youget on one of their sprints or
whatever it is that they'reworking on, and sometimes pick
something first that you thinkis going to be a big win,
because that can really get themon board for future stuff.
So one client we were workingwith they had they were a home
builder and they had this wildcanonicalization situation where

(25:21):
they had homes that werealready built quick possession
homes and then they had homeswhere it was like here's the
show home.
And so each of the quickpossession homes rel canonicaled
to the show home, even thoughthe pages were completely
different.
And I was like, and they'relike, yeah, I don't know why,
these pages just aren't, youknow, being picked up and the
show home pages were actuallyfeeling the impact of that and

(25:44):
they weren't really coming up insearch results.
And it's like, well, let's fixall these canonicals.
They were so skeptical.
I'm like let's just try it andif it doesn't work we can switch
it back.
You know like let's just seewhat happens, Because the
internet it's all aboutexperimentation, right, little
jazz hands there and I havenever seen that happen before.
I was like I did not see thiscoming and I told them too.

(26:07):
I was like I was expectingmaybe like 10%, 20%, maybe if I
had a good day 70%, and thenafter that, every single
recommendation we made wasimplemented immediately, right?
And so, like I can't guaranteeyou're going to get that kind of
halo, but go through and belike what is the easiest thing
that we think can be implementedwithout a ton of effort, even
if it isn't necessarily thething that is the most on fire,
what feels quickest to be ableto see some impact as soon as

(26:30):
possible, because that canreally help you get buy-in.
And yeah, of course you want tostart with the things that are
absolutely the most on fire.
But is there something that'ssuper fast?
So maybe it's like the robotsfile is restricting image, the
image folder, and you know that,like every time you Google
search a really important phrasefor this particular website,
like an image search, is shown.
Maybe you just need to allowthe images to be indexed.

(26:51):
Maybe that's all you have to doat that point, right, just do
that and then see what happens,right?
So maybe that's one of thequick ones.
I think the thing that I getmost frustrated, especially with
WordPress websites and wedevelop WordPress websites we
run into WordPress devs all thetime and, like there's a real
difference in a WordPressdeveloper and someone who has a
theme and clicks buttons in thetheme yes, you know, and it's
it's.
People are like, oh well, I'musing Oxygen to build my

(27:14):
websites.
Like, oh great, that's reallyexcited to take a look at this
thing.
Like I think that that's whereit's.
Don't call yourself a WordPressdeveloper.
I'm sorry, I hate being agatekeeper, but like, please,
it's not WordPress development.
You're basically building atheme on top of the platform at
that point and you're going tohave technical SEO issues as a

(27:35):
result.
So, if you're okay with that,like, except there's going to be
technical SEO issues and maybeyou're going to have to spend
more on paid as a result, You'regoing to have to invest more in
content as a result, orwhatever it might be, maybe do
more connected TV ads orwhatever it's going to be, but
you're going to have to investmore elsewhere because you have
these technical limitationsabout whether or not you've

(28:03):
pivoted the conversation whenyou get a little stuck
persuading somebody and talkedabout what would happen if you
took no action.

Katherine Watier Ong (28:06):
And I forget who shared this it might
be search pilot about what theum, what the impact would be if
you did no SEO for three years.

Dana DiTomaso (28:13):
Yeah, yeah, and I think actually there's some
people are about to find out,because there's a lot of like
economy wise.
One of the first things to gowhen the economy is potentially
in a downturn, where there'suncertainty in the market, is
people ditch spending onmarketing Right.

Katherine Watier Ong (28:26):
Yeah.

Dana DiTomaso (28:26):
And you know, we've had situations where you
always end up with a great casestudy where, like, a client's
credit card gets compromised andthen their Google ads get shut
off and you're like, great, Iguess for the next two weeks
we're going to find out whathappens if they have no Google
ads, yeah, you know, and it'slike, yeah, that's a great case
study, unfortunately.
But yeah, same thing with SEO.
I think that there is some oneof the things that I usually say

(28:46):
is like, if you don't do anySEO, your competitors are going
to keep doing SEO.
So when you do finally turn itback, it's not ads, you can't
just turn it back on again, it'snot a tap.
So you're going to have tocatch up with not only where the
competitors were, but then alsoyou know where you're going
with that as well.
So your competitor starts hereand you decide you know, I'm

(29:06):
just going to sit here at thestart line, I'm not going to
actually going to do anything,but the competitors are running
ahead and you're like, okay,well, great, now I have one year
to catch up with their threeyears of effort.
It's not physically possible,you know, right, and I think
that that's's where.
And you're going to lose allthat institutional knowledge of
well, like, if you get rid ofyour SEO team internally, you're
going to lose all thatinstitutional knowledge of well,
of what SEO is doing.

(29:27):
And right now, seo is in one ofthose periods where it's going
through a massive amount ofchange, like I think about the
Florida update and how thatchanged SEO and for people who
are too young to know what I'mtalking about, google it.
But that was the first majorshakeup in terms of SEO and that
felt like a huge difference forSEO and I feel like this AI
stuff and everything else we'regoing through quality content

(29:50):
and overviews and everythingelse is another massive shakeup
in SEO.
So if you lose that knowledge,you have to start over again,
Like that's, that's rough.
So maybe pull back and don't doas much if you you know, but
you got to keep an eye on yourcompetitors and if they're
doubling down and honestly, Ithink that if I was advising a
company on this and they're likeI don't know what we're going
to do, you know, maybe now's thetime to invest, because if your

(30:11):
competitors are going to stopinvesting, this is your chance
but he also did some researchabout what happens when you stop
doing social, which I thoughtwas very interesting, cause it's
just new research that I haveseen.

Katherine Watier Ong (30:25):
Same thing you stop doing it, you're going
to see a decrease in trafficand engagement and brand
awareness and all the rest.
Unfortunately, it's anall-in-one thing.

Dana DiTomaso (30:32):
Unless it's a social channel you weren't
seeing anything from.
So, for example, like I'vestopped posting on, like you
know, twitter, slash X and youknow, but picked up on LinkedIn
and blue sky, and I think too,for companies like you don't
have to be everywhere, that'sokay.
Just make sure to say likewe're over here now, and so that
people don't come to youlooking for customer service,
support or something.

Katherine Watier Ong (30:50):
Right yeah , and then when I started to
catch them, they had a set ofsocial accounts that they gave
to every single client and I waslike, um why?
They're very different brandsand their audience is not
particularly on all of theseplatforms and we should never
launch with four all at once alot you know, unless you've got
a ton of budget, you know, crankit back to ones where you could
actually be successful.

Dana DiTomaso (31:10):
You just toss the intern on that right.
They can just crank out socialmedia content or that or that,
If you do have lower levelpeople.

Katherine Watier Ong (31:17):
I'm going to plug this.
Actually, I actually have aguide on my website about how to
codify your brand voice andactually train all of your lower
level employees to make surethey're consistently answering
in your brand voice and stayingwithin guidelines, Cause I
actually had to do that once.
So, if if that's, you feel freeto grab the guide it's free.
So how do you here?
We get to the part where I wastalking about in relation to the

(31:39):
most recent speakingengagements you've had.
But so what do you do when thestuff is missing and how do you
coach people to make confidentdecisions when the data does not
provide a clear answer or it'smissing?

Dana DiTomaso (31:50):
Yeah, I'm working on a post right now about the
analytics hierarchy.

Katherine Watier Ong (31:55):
Yeah.

Dana DiTomaso (31:55):
And, like you know, some people like level
zero is we have no analytics.
Because that still happensPeople don't have analytics, or
they don't know where it is,maybe, or they lost the login.
Well, the agency is like oh,you're not working with us
anymore, we're taking ouranalytics with us Like first off
agency.
People don't do that.
It's not a good way to keepclients.
It's never worked.
It's not going to work, justgoing to piss people off.

(32:15):
And then a five is like you know, basically are like that, that
meme of you know the galaxybrain analytics right, like
nobody's ever there.
So really thinking about whereyou at on that stages and then
what's the appropriate decisionfor this?
So if you are literally likeyou're working with a client or
somewhere and they have noanalytics at all, then get some
first step, just add it to thesite and then you might have to

(32:38):
make some judgment calls basedon what third-party tools are
telling you in terms of volumeor audience size, or looking at
your competitors and seeing whatthey're doing.
I think at that point youreally are just going off of
what competitors are doing.
And if you do use tools likeSEMrush or similar web that give
you estimates of traffic, putyour own site in in addition to

(32:59):
those competitors.
And if your own site, once youdo have some data, is somewhat
close to what it says in there,great, maybe your competitors
are also somewhat close to whattheir reality is.
But if you go into a similarweb and they're like you have 1
million visitors a month whenyou know you have like 20,000,
then it's probably off by thatdegree as well.

Katherine Watier Ong (33:17):
And especially for people in smaller
industries.

Dana DiTomaso (33:19):
Those tools aren't going to do anything for
you.
If you are a small, you knowseveral location business in one
geography.
Those kinds of competitiveresearch tools unfortunately
aren't really going to help.
So you do have to have likesome data to go off of for sure.

Katherine Watier Ong (33:33):
Since this podcast is all about soft
skills.
So what are the soft skillsthat you think analytic people
need, particularly when you'rereceiving pushback or resistance
?

Dana DiTomaso (33:44):
Uh, you definitely have to be very
pleasant, Pleasant, Okay, Ithink pleasant, like and get a
good poker face for sure.
I say this as someone whodoesn't always necessarily have
a great poker face, but I don't.
My father-in-law used to be inthe Navy.
He's very good at poker andsince I live out here now and he
plays against me, I finallybeat him once.

(34:05):
Oh, there, know right, Likethat's never gonna happen again,
but once I did, I finally gotgood at a poker face.
But I think for sure, likebeing able to take in
information and just beingcomfortable being like I don't
know, I'll get back to you.
Like that is.
That is a really importantskill as well, to just be honest
and unfortunately, sometimessome people are gonna lie and

(34:26):
you just have to not necessarilypoop on them too much about it,
because nobody likes someonewho's there just smack talking a
competitor either.
So I think it's that balance oflike being honest, being
pleasant and cheerful, charmingmaybe you know and also, but
also not like in a slimy snakeoil salesman kind of way,
because what you're presentingfrom an analytics perspective is

(34:48):
not exactly exciting to peopleor they already might be coming
into it with their backupbecause they feel like they're
going to get talked over ifthat's been their previous
experience with an analyticsperson.
So, being able to ensure thatyou're watching what people are,
how people are responding toyou, that body language, if it's
on Zoom, like, are theyengaging with the camera?
Are they looking down or off tothe side?

(35:09):
Are they, you know, fiddlingwith stuff?
Are they actually payingattention?
Or there's some people who justlike, have to draw or write
while they talk to you, andthat's something that you'll
learn about them over time.
But really watching people'sbody language and seeing how
they're responding to you isreally critical.
And when I'm doing training,I'm definitely like looking
around, seeing how people areresponding and then really

(35:29):
thinking about you know, thisperson seems like they're
disengaging a little bit, but Idon't want to call them out in
front of everyone else becausethat's embarrassing.
But, like, take a break, goover and be like, hey, you know
how are you enjoying it.
Don't be like, hey, I noticedyou weren't paying attention.
Are you hating this thing?
Maybe they had an emergencycome up or something and be like
hey, how's it going?
Is there anything else I cancover?
And sometimes people arecomfortable telling you in a

(35:50):
one-on-one situation whenthey're not comfortable telling
you in front of a crowd.
So just really like trying toget honestly people to like you
is almost as important aspresenting good data.
No, it's huge.

Katherine Watier Ong (36:02):
It's huge on the sales end.
I mean, I actually had a job insales once in my life and it
would.
It floored me how many people Iwas able to sell the product to
that.
Frankly, it was the onlineinternet product and sometimes I
presented it without internet.
I still sold it, oh sure, andwe talk about it.
And in one instance it wasbecause all the friends bought

(36:23):
it.
Like I would strategically gointo a state and like sell to
all the other, likeorganizations, and then circle
back to the one that was 80 andhad no internet.
Hey, your friends have boughtit and she would buy it.
It was all about likebefriending their friends and
being liked.
It's kind of amazing how muchsales is part of that.

Dana DiTomaso (36:42):
I also think there's two great books by April
Dunford that I recommend peopleread, and they're actually on
the shelf behind me right now.
So the first one is obviouslyawesome and that talks about
brand positioning for products,but it also can.
I really took it as like abrand positioning for yourself
and how you're talking to people.
And then the second one issales pitch and that's
definitely more sales oriented.
Both books are super quick.

(37:03):
I read them both.
I read one flying fromVancouver to Toronto and the
other one flying from Toronto toVancouver.
So it is, it's a quick four anda half hour read and, yeah,
fantastic.
And April as well.
She has a podcast.
She's probably one of my topspeakers to watch of all time.
If you're looking for tips onhow to be a better speaker,
watch some of April's talk.
She's just at the top of hergame.

(37:24):
At the top of her game, but Ireally like what she has to say
about positioning and as youread it and you're thinking
about yourself and how youposition yourself and how you
bring your product which isreporting or discussions or
consulting or whatever it mightbe to clients or internally
think about how you can positionthose.

Katherine Watier Ong (37:44):
Yeah, that's a great tip.
So let's talk a little bitabout an analytics culture.
So if you're helping, I meanyou run an agency, so in this
instance it would be helping aclient brand new to SEO sort of
look at the data on a regularbasis and build that cadence,
particularly in my case.
I'm also talking to peopleabout the next step after that,
which is maybe rework some jobdescriptions.
So it's a little bit tied tohow things perform.

(38:05):
So there's a carrot and a stick, because otherwise you're never
going to.
Some people are going toinstantly be interested in what
you're doing and pick it upbecause they just happen to be
dorky and they're excited aboutit.
But the vast majority of peopleneed some sort of push or pull
to align with this internetculture thing.
That was not part of theculture before.
So what kind of tips do youhave about how to engineer that

(38:27):
or help the client engineer it?

Dana DiTomaso (38:28):
Yeah, I typically like to have some sort of
recurring meetings with clientsand that's just like, can be
like a check in, Becausesometimes too, you're pretty low
on their priority list from anagency perspective, Like you are
not, sadly, top of mind for theclient most of the time, unless
things are going wrong.
So the important thing is tokeep that conversation going,

(38:48):
even when things are going well.
And so set up regular callswith them, especially if you
have to do items for them,because that will remind them to
do the thing before the call.
Otherwise it may not everactually get done.
And this is important as wellfor, like, technical SEO, for
really anything Like you got toschedule those regular checkups
or else it'll never happen,It'll get put off until everyone
dies, Heat death of theuniverse.
Those technical SEO pieces arestill not, you know, implemented

(39:10):
.
So I think it's important tohave those regular calls and
then also on those calls, youknow, really thinking about what
do I want to review with them.
So sometimes I'll start offwith just like, hey, let's take
a look and see how things aregoing, and then be like, hey, I
noticed this.
And then having discussionsabout those pieces, and that can
go in all sorts of reallyinteresting directions.
Usually, you know, I'll have mymain screen, my zoom, and then

(39:30):
I have my second screen.
I'll have some notes I'vewritten for myself in advance.
I'll have the reports.
I'll have like some stuff readyfor screen sharing.
But also just thinking and alsohaving their website open and
being like all right, let's walkthrough this, you know, let's
do this Google search and seewhat comes up and let's talk
about how this, you know, howthis path would go for a
potential user who's thinkingabout this.
And sometimes, you know, alsoshow the client mobile.

(39:52):
Don't always show them desktop,especially if mobile is more
than like half of their traffic,which in B2C industries it
generally is.
In B2B it's more hit or miss,for sure, you know for sure,
just have it up in mobile,because sometimes the client
doesn't look at their own siteon mobile ever.
You know for sure, just to haveit up in mobile, because
sometimes the client doesn'tlook at their own site on mobile
ever and we all use these big,beautiful desktops with these
giant monitors all day and it'snot a mobile device.

(40:13):
So definitely make sure to havethat mobile up there and really
thinking about that experienceand then just note down things
and be talking about analyticsor just talking about content or
whatever.
Note that Because you know ifyou see something, say something
.
I think that's really criticaland also shows the client that

(40:34):
you've got their back and you'rehelping them in more than just
this particular.
You know whatever lane thatclient has put you in.

Katherine Watier Ong (40:42):
So it sounds like you're really trying
to sort of have them watch youwalk through your data analysis
and being curious about what'sgoing on.
Oh yeah, and I tell them tooit's like.

Dana DiTomaso (40:51):
It's like being a detective.
I think that that's the mostexciting part of this job is
just being that detective anddigging through stuff and being
like why is this happening orwhy is that happened?
Or look at this.
You know, one of my favoritethings to do with clients is
actually go into Google SearchConsole and look at a page and
look at the keywords for thatpage and then look at a find
queries that aren't a hundredpercent related to that page but

(41:12):
it's still coming up for anyway, even if there's no clicks.
Um, maybe there's not even thatmany impressions, but being
like, look at this topic groupthat is coming up Like this is
really interesting.
Tell me, do you haveconversations about this
internally?
Should?
This is something we should betalking about and really
thinking about, like we alreadysee this in the data.
Let's do something about it.

Katherine Watier Ong (41:30):
Yeah, I love the mobile tip.
I particularly because all myclients are here in the DC area
and we were sitting on top ofwhere the Internet was created,
so the speed here is not likeeverywhere else.
And I was working with thefisheries division of NOAA and
they actually had functionality.
They wanted people to usefishermen on boats.
Oh, good luck, Exactly.

(41:52):
So one of the first things Idid was thank you.
Gt metrics.
You can like pivot to alocation.
I can't put them out into sea,but I can get sort of close in
relation to ruralness and thenflip to mobile and force them to
.
I always do this.

Dana DiTomaso (42:22):
I actually record the dang video and I've forced
everybody to sit through thevideo that tells the story
better than anything else.
A great you know thing for thattoo.
And as someone who lives in arural area, boy do I get excited
about.
You know.
Like sometimes where I live isvery close to the US border, and
so we actually see, we can seeAmerica from our house.
And sometimes I'll just besitting in my living room, my
phone's, like Welcome to USA,like I did nothing, I didn't

(42:44):
even move, and now I'm in theStates and so we have like a I
always have to.
We have a thing with the cellphone company where we're in
America for less than fiveminutes they don't actually
charge us for it.
And then we go back to Canadaagain later on like welcome back
to Canada, did nothing, stillwatching TV, but you know,
thinking about it like in thatperiod.
I have bad internet prettyrarely, unless I'm on Wi Fi, and

(43:04):
so trying to do literallyanything is so frustrating.
I also, you know, if you have aretail location too.
One of the things that I alwaysdo and I'm sure I can't be
alone in this is sometimes thisis particularly bad for Home
Depot.
I'll be standing in Home Depotand I want to, you know, look up
a product and I'm in your storeand I go to your website and
the back of the store sucks formobile, you know and you don't

(43:26):
have free internet or whateverit might be you know,
just like make that easier forpeople.
I think it'd be reallyinteresting if your retail
location to try to see thenumber of people who are
probably like accessing yourwebsite from your actual retail
location, which not only tellsyou that, like maybe your
signage sucks or you need kiosksor you need people are actually
going to make sure that peopleare.
You know, I mean, home Depot isgenerally pretty good.
If you look slightly confused,they'll come up to you and ask

(43:48):
you if you need help withsomething, but, like, other
stores, are not so much for that, and I think that that's where
it's, you know, important tolook at that data too.

Katherine Watier Ong (43:55):
I think that depends on where you live
in the US.
I always get floored with howgood customer service is.
Definitely like more aggressivethan Canadian customer service.

Dana DiTomaso (44:08):
Canadian customer service is like.
I don't feel like talking toanybody unless you ask you know.

Katherine Watier Ong (44:14):
Well, DC is fully like non-trained
customer service.
I'm going to be aggressive.
Why are you bothering me?

Dana DiTomaso (44:21):
It's like this whole other culture, and I
always forget that other placesare nice.

Katherine Watier Ong (44:26):
I traveled to Seattle because my family my
husband's family isn't fromSeattle and every single time
I'm floored by how nice peopleare, because it's just very
different here.
So I'm kind of curious what doyou think this is like?
The 10,000 question what do youthink about the future of data
analytics?
Like the next five, 10 years,with all this AI stuff and
machine learning and the deathof data?

Dana DiTomaso (44:49):
what are we doing ?
I think, I think that's reallymore so than the AI machine
learning thing.
I think, actually, the death oftrackable data is really going
to be.
What does this in?
But I think it's going to varywildly based on location, you
know it's uh, you know the EU isclamping down more and more.
I mean, I think the EU reallywants to have it, so that you
have to opt in.

Katherine Watier Ong (45:09):
You know it's like everybody.
How many people are going to dothat too?
No, they're not.

Dana DiTomaso (45:14):
They're going to click it accidentally and be
like oh no, this is.

Katherine Watier Ong (45:16):
Yeah, exactly.

Dana DiTomaso (45:17):
You know the EU would really want to go to an
opt-in model.
The US probably, if you know,federally would probably want to
have no tracking restrictionsat all.
You can track whatever you wantopen season and I think it's
just like a philosophy to howthat particular area has towards
tracking.
And so I think it's going toreally depend on where you are
in terms of the clients that youservice what you can and can't

(45:39):
track.
But I think one of the thingsthat people really need to be
more aware of is if you'reactually following the rules.
Just having a consent banner onyour website doesn't actually
stop tracking.
You have to actually attach itso that choices are made on the
backend based on what people say.
Yeah, I think one of the moreegregious ones I saw was this
very large housewares brand thatyou would absolutely recognize,

(46:01):
as in every store in NorthAmerica probably, and in Europe,
and they, when you went ontheir website and you said no,
don't track me, it sent off aconversion event to Facebook
Like cool, yep, that's a bigfine, yeah, it was a very large
and I was, and I had my VPN setto Copenhagen, so that was what
it wasdoing for a European visitor.

(46:21):
So it was like you are screwed.
And they're like, yeah, ourGoogle ads got shut off because
they said we weren't we weren't,uh, respecting consent choices.
Like no, you definitely are not.
Uh, and yeah, it's just likejust having the banner does
nothing.
So I think it is important toeducate yourself on like is this
actually being tracked properly?
But then also explaining toleadership like this is why this

(46:43):
is going down.
There's so many threads I seeall the time on, like all the
different slacks I belong to inthe Google, on Reddit, the GA4
forums on Reddit and the Googleforums for GA4.
And they're like we put inconsent management.
Now we see 50% of our traffic.
What have we done wrong?
Like that's literally whatconsent management is.
That's what's supposed tohappen.

Katherine Watier Ong (47:01):
You've got to write yes, good job, you did
it correctly.

Dana DiTomaso (47:05):
And I think that that's where it's just like this
huge uh education gap, whichyou know like I'm trying to fill
, but I'm just one person.
It needs to be out there in theworld too.
That, like this, is what'sgoing to happen.
So, depending upon where youare, you're either going to have
lots of data, you're going tohave very little data at all,
and based on that, you're goingto have to make some choices.
And sitting around saying oh Iwish I could track everyone is

(47:25):
not actually going to solve theproblem.
You just have to think of otherways that you can get the data
that you need without actuallyviolating things that cost your
company a lot of money, right,right?

Katherine Watier Ong (47:36):
So this has been amazing.
Tons of helpful tips, I think,and there's going to be a ton of
stuff on the landing page, sofeel free to check all of that
out.
But what kind of other if youhad any other resources or wins
that you want to share withlisteners?

Dana DiTomaso (47:51):
Yeah, I would say my two courses are particularly
something that I talk a lotabout.
So my first course is calledanalytics for agencies, and it
is analytics for agencies,although we have some in house
people in there too.
It is exactly what we do atkickpoint when I am setting up
analytics for our clients.
It is all of my plans, it is mytemplates, is my Google tag
manager containers, it is mylooker studio templates, my

(48:13):
documents, the sales process,everything else.
There's something like sevenand a half hours of videos.
Uh, so, yeah, there's available.
And then there's also apractical GA for which is
practical application of GA forstart to finish.
Um, so it doesn't just walk youthrough, and I think one of the
things that I, as a formertrainer and I think generally,
like, I think that courses don'tdo well as they're like click

(48:34):
on this, you know, click save tosave.
Well, yeah, we all, we all knowthat the button's called save.
We can figure that out.
That's not the point of thiscourse.
The point is, when would I needto do this?
What are the common use casesthat you see for GA4.
So I have lots of how-tos basedon questions that we've been
asked from clients and then alsopeople in the course.
There's a community that comesalong with it, and people in
Analytics for Agencies have abi-weekly office hours.

(48:56):
They can attend on Zoom with meas well, and the questions that
people ask end up becoming partof the course as well, and I'm
updating it as often as I can,because GA4 changes
approximately every 10 minutes,right?
So definitely check those out.
And if buying a course not inyour budget right now, I have
the Playbook Huddle, which is atkpplaybookcom slash newsletter.
That's a biweekly newsletterand we have exclusive tips that
are just in the newsletter andnowhere else, right?

Katherine Watier Ong (49:19):
Yeah, this has been awesome.
So how can people learn moreabout you?

Dana DiTomaso (49:22):
I would say LinkedIn is probably the place
that I'm the most active and ifyou Google Dana D Tomaso and
really any variation of how youthink my last name should be
spelled, I should come up.
So it's a.
When I check Google searchconsole, I'm like wow, that's a
way to spell my last name.
So yeah, there you go.

Katherine Watier Ong (49:38):
So this has been fabulous.
Thanks again for coming on theshow.
Definitely check out theresources and watch some of her
other whiteboard Fridays.
They're really enlightening.
Yeah, thanks again.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Thanks so much for listening.
To find out more about thepodcast and what we're up to, go
to digitalmarketingvictoriescomand, if you like what you heard
, subscribe to us on iTunes orwherever you get your podcasts.

(50:00):
Rate us, comment and share thepodcast, please.
I'm always looking for newideas, topics and guests.
Email us atdigitalmarketingvictories at
gmailcom or DM us on Twitter atDM victories.
Thanks for listening.
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