There are an eye-glazing number of options available in digital marketing and website architecture. Our team conversations about platforms, tech stacks, integrations, and campaigns have become a patter song of alphabet soup. They all share one common, business-critical, language regardless of the mix: metrics. In other words, the numbers that provide evidence and drive decisions.
Digits and Dashboards
Numbers are meaningless unless they’re actionable. It doesn’t matter if you can record and measure the movement of every atom if you have no way of consuming or understanding that data. Every marketing platform provides its own view into the numbers of your website and campaigns in the form of charts, graphs, and tables. There’s a great deal of shared terminology, and some platforms play nice together, but often it still feels like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with pieces in different rooms.
Friction
Where do you begin? What really matters? At the end of the day, the problem is friction. With every platform you have a different login, a unique brand and theme, nuances in measurement, and the dreaded nested menu dance. Our team of digital marketing veterans lives in these dashboards, and they’re incredible when it’s time to do a deep dive. Throw us in the briar patch. We needed something better for team collaborations, strategy sessions with clients, and quick check-ins.
Datalyst™
Our team created Datalyst™. We pull the numbers that move the needle from key platforms under one login, one UI, one page per service, and a dramatically simplified menu. Conversations can stay focused on strategy, and our team is able to devote their time to improving performance instead of curating data.
Behind the scenes, Datalyst™ communicates with multiple platforms in near real time. Our custom-built system filters and consolidates data into meaningful visualizations honed by decades of client conversations.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Our web traffic dashboard provides a quick picture of overall traffic trends. You can see total numbers for new and returning users, sessions, conversions, and page views on top of a daily line graph for more granular activity. We also break down key information by channel, region, and device.
SEO
The SEO dashboard provides much of the same information as the web traffic dashboard, but dialed into organic traffic. We’re able to view these metrics alongside key information from the Google Search Console, rankings for tracked keywords, and where our clients’ sites stand versus their competitors.
SEM
SEM is where it all started for Datalyst™. Between Google Ads and SaaS platforms for broader insights, we have excellent tools at our disposal. Each has its own strength and solves a different part of the puzzle. Our digital strategists teamed up with our interactive team to design this dashboard with the goals of transparency and efficient presentations. Datalyst™ provides a cohesive, single view into search and display ad performance, cost breakdown, and the impact on website engagement and conversions.
SMM
The SMM dashboard is great for quickly checking the most important performance information. You can see everything from ad reach to creative previews, platform spend, social attributed website engagement, and more. Every dashboard includes a glossary widget that explains the terminology and how the measurement might differ for the associated service.
One of the key benefits of Datalyst™ is that it will never be “finished.” Platforms will inevitably change, and experience will reshape the needs of our teams and clients. Our dashboards are custom built not just for efficiency in communicating data, but also for a seamless rollout of future additions and improvements. We hold Datalyst™ to our gold standard, particularly thriving relationships, professional communication, and strategic marketing. Retrospectives are built into our schedules, and knowledge sharing is built into our culture. We will continue to shape Datalyst™ to be a powerful sidekick.