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Modern business decision-making depends largely on data, but inaccurate data can make you lose everything or stall your growth. Today, businesses have to deal with different online and offline channels to gather information on a wide range of issues like market trends, customer behavior, competitors’ strategies, and more. As businesses grow, many new sources of data get added constantly and this data is handled by many different teams and resources. Over a period of time, lack of effective data governance and management results in loss of quality, consistency, and accuracy of the data gathered. And so, businesses end up making decisions that rely on faulty data.
Data-driven decision-making cannot work if the data is flawed – Web analytics audit is here to help you
Data audit involves verifying the accuracy and consistency of your digital analytics implementations. The analytics audit report also suggests what data is relevant to your line of business, so you can track such data for future use. Analytics audit ensures access to accurate data that you can trust for business decision-making.
A comprehensive web analytics data audit will help you understand:
- Sources of the data – Including all online channels and the data coming from offline sources.
- Security of the data – Is the data captured and stored as per company’s policy on data privacy?
- Data integrity management – Are your data governance policies in place so that the data is managed effectively in future?
- Data adoption and acceptance – Do the business users have access to relevant analytics reports and are they utilizing the insights for further improvement? Is the analytics data easy to understand by all interested parties?
- Tracking the metrics that matter – Identifying and monitoring the right Key Performance Indicators specific to your business goals and industry vertical.
The audit will increase your confidence in the data that you have gathered in a bid to improve the performance. Some factors that a web analytics data audit will examine include:
Is your data collection process accurate?
Impactful business decisions require high-quality data. According to a Gartner study, Measuring the Business Value of Data Quality report, “poor data quality is a primary reason for 40% of all business initiatives failing to achieve their targeted benefits”. On the other hand, quality data can enhance the productivity by up to 20%. Collecting complete data with high levels of accuracy is crucial for proper analysis. According to the same study, 20% of the web analytics data collected is wrong due to inaccurate tagging. Correct tagging is the foundation of effective analytics. With web analytics data auditing, you can rest assured that you are basing your decisions on accurate information and not junk data.
Is your company leveraging the data to the optimum level?
Once you have collected all the data and made sure that the data is accurate and consistent, you need to share it with the stakeholders and decision-makers. Different functional groups require different sets of data. It is important that right data is shared with the right ‘Profiles’ so that users can effectively track and measure the metrics that matter to them and not be muddled by a pile of information that might make them frustrated. With the help of data auditing, you can fill such gaps and make sure that right information is made available to the right people in your organization. No need to waste more time on unwanted tasks and inaccurate reports.
Is your analytics set-up effective and offers maximum benefits?
Businesses invest heavily in digital data collection and analytics tools. There are many features and capabilities that today’s data analytics tools offer and often companies fail to utilize them for their own benefit. A data auditor can point out such areas that can be transformed or customized to get the best insights out of the available data using the tools that you have already implemented. The auditor can also suggest some customizations or upgrades that might make your analytics process faster and smoother in the future.
Are your external campaigns accurately tracked and integrated with the web data?
When an organization and its marketing efforts grow, a lot of data sources come into the picture. There are many applications, tools, and offline sources that contribute to the growing data pool. To get practical insights, it is essential for businesses to look at this data in a coherent and integrated fashion so that new correlations can be found and utilized. With data auditing, you can ensure that all the sources of data are accurately integrated and that they speak the same language.
To conclude
It is important that organizations conduct a comprehensive web analytics data audit at least once a year. Some competitive businesses conduct it at regular intervals of two to three months. A web analytics auditor will check if the data is accurate and if it is free from inconsistencies so that you get error-free data. Apart from the areas mentioned above, you can also ask your specific questions and issues and get clarifications from the data auditor. Moreover, the data auditor will also help you implement a solid data governance and management practice to ensure that the integrity of data does not get hampered in the future.
Are you making the mistake of not getting your data and insights double-checked? It’s time you gave data audit a serious thought. Nabler offers two types of data auditing services – automated simulation based audit and manual scenario based audit. Learn More.