As a Computer Science graduate turned Software Engineer, my first foray into Data Analytics was implementing Google Analytics for the websites I developed and managed. Tracking their data to monitor performance helped answer the following questions...
- How many people visited my sites?
- Where were they coming from?
- Which pages were visited?
- How much time was spent on the site?
- and much more...
Having this data at my fingertips allowed me to keep a pulse on the effectiveness of my sites. The news wasn't always great, but at least I "knew" where I stood. From websites, I broke into Email. Another data rich medium. I could see:
- Who opened my emails?
- Which links were clicked on?
- Who shared my emails?
- Which emails were no longer active...
This information allowed me to manage my lists, tweak my calls to action, understand my audience, and send more effective emails. Again the information I got wasn't always positive, but at least I knew where I stood. It was a similar story for Social Media, knowing the number of impressions, engagements, and so on, allowed me to gauge my reach and my audience's interest in my content...
This is how I progressively fell in love with data. After websites, emails, and social media, I started looking for tools that would give me the same types of insights in other areas of business. Accounting, Operations, etc. It became obvious that having this "pulse" from my organisation's data wasn't just nice to have, it was a competitive edge. Because it allowed me to adapt in real time to what the market was telling me.
So I signed up for courses to learn more, and got certified to validate my knowledge. Now I run this company, where we provide the same level of insight to our customers on all of our services. Because when you know what your data is telling you, you can make the moves to improve your circumstances.
Do you know where you stand?
TMC insight Labs: We exist to propel your digital transformation journey so that you can unlock the data insights that technology brings.