Data is fundamental to our mission at GANDT. It tells us what we need to do next and allows us to feel confident in the actions we take. Data exposes inefficiencies and disadvantages while revealing the truth about our habits and highlighting windows of opportunity. As a team, we constantly endeavor to stay one step ahead of the game and find ways to steal a glimpse into the future. Data shines a light on what’s possible and can provide the tools needed to make it a reality. But, of course, it only has this magic power if you use it in the right way.
This month, we are taking a deep dive into data and exploring all the ways it impacts what we do. The truth is, data touches all our lives in one way or another, and we’re eager to understand how. To further unpack how data informs what we accomplish at GANDT, we asked the team for input. Let’s dig into the fascinating ways data helps us do what we love.
Data provides concrete evidence
Bonny Kanjirathumoottil, Digital Marketing Expert
“From my point of view, data is critical because it allows us to estimate how well something is performing and then decide how we want to proceed with the various campaigns. Data also allows us to tell the client what’s going on and helps us explain why. There are times, for example, when they expect something to be great, but our experience tells us otherwise. In this case, we can say: look, this is the data, and it’s proving you wrong. And these are facts, and it makes it easier for us to make them understand why and when something works or doesn’t work.”
Data delivers broad visibility and yields answers through interpretation
Jesus Blazquez, Senior Digital Marketing Expert
“Data needs to be approached with curiosity and expertise. When you’re trying to understand why a campaign is not working, you have questions like, ‘am I targeting the wrong people?’ Data does not answer that question right away. It doesn’t tell you: yes, you’re targeting the wrong people. It gives you visibility over a huge range of facts like how people are reacting, whether they are looking at the ad or clicking on it, and whether they stay on the landing page or bounce. And all these other indicators do ultimately allow you to infer what’s happening with the audience, but actually, it’s not really answering many of our questions right away. It always needs to be interpreted.”
Data serves as a starting point to bring our ideas to life
Remco Livain, GANDT Founder & CEO
“We work with so many amazing companies, entrepreneurs, and people that have great product ideas and really know their product and their customer base. They have an intuitive sense of their customer persona. And what we try to do is find out if those hypotheses are true. We can take away some of the doubt around a gut feeling.
Sometimes, it’s true that people are willing and able to pay a little bit more for your product than the client initially thought, or that it is not the one user group who would be a perfect fit, but actually a different one. What I think is also really exciting about data is that we can take away a lot of the risk. So if someone is more risk-averse or doesn’t know what the biggest investment would bring them, we could try to make that tangible with numbers. Data gives us the confidence to try new things. For us, it’s more a starting point and a confirmation that our hypothesis might be true or not.”
Infographic courtesy of TechVidvan.
Data give us what we need to dive into a new project quickly
Dario Stock, Performance Marketing Manager
“What keeps things so interesting and is critical in our daily jobs is that we are always diving into new projects and new clients, and we have to work quite fast to try to understand the company. The best way to access knowledge within each of the projects and clients we’re working with is a look into their data. By analyzing what they’ve done in the past and the implication it has, we are able to access a completely different level of knowledge. And this way, I see a huge lever for us in working with data and being able to excel at our jobs.”
Data allows us to remain flexible
Christopher Smid, Project Manager
“Working with data is a process of constant learning. When it comes to which KPIs are most important, for example, there is no one correct answer. Our job is to educate on what is important and what isn’t based on the business plan and business objectives.
With one partner of ours, we fell in discussions about the bounce rate not falling, and we had to be diligent in reminding them: it’s not our focus at the moment. The bounce rate is not falling due to more awareness traffic coming in and we are trying to get more awareness for the brand.
The partner was always focused on the wrong KPIs and we tried to show them a new perspective by looking at the incoming new customers, the products being sold, and how our new campaigns are starting to run. I think that’s also a big part of working with data—not giving in to the KPIs that they want to see but focusing on education around what is important right now based on the business objectives and the media plan that we have created together.”
Data powers our decision making
Mona Altheimer, Junior Project Manager
“Data is fascinating because you can find out a lot of information about behavior, purchases, and performance that, without proof from data, would just remain guesses. We are a performance marketing agency, and I think our team works based on data because everything can and needs to be tracked to measure our success. I decide based on data what campaigns, settings, design, etc., so everything is included. For example, through experience, I assume header A resonates better with users than B, but to be sure, you could do an A/B test to prove with data which one resonates better.”
Data tells us when it’s time to take action
Tobias Lorentzen, Senior Project Manager
“Data, as long as it is valid, is the most powerful argument. Of course, you need a basic understanding of the relationships on a website, for example. But then the data can be used to explain things clearly, either at a point in time or in the long run.
I monitor the performance data of my online marketing activities daily and use it to make decisions about appropriate measures. For this purpose, I have defined KPIs that correspond to the campaign objective, which I use to derive the need for action. It is essential to define data or KPI precisely in order to make reporting clear and meaningful, for example. A simple metric like clicks can vary significantly for a website from different data sources. This is because, for example, filters have been set differently. A precise definition of the metric facilitates the understanding and interpretation of the data.”
Broadly speaking, data is a powerful communication tool, and there are limitless possibilities if it is utilized in a meaningful way. Data truly does possess the potential to show us the way to make anything and everything happen. From unlocking competitive advantages to anticipating future trends, data really is a business’s most valuable asset.
