The use of data and analytics has become de rigueur in the world of business strategy, business intelligence and marketing. It’s moved from being a specialist skill used by analysts to advise managers and key decision makers, to an essential component of the professional’s toolkit.

The importance of data can’t be ignored — there are TED talks (which aren't very good), countless publications and industry giants earn billions from it.

Yup — it’s important! As a result of all this, there has been a rush to gather and report on data. I get why: it’s a straightforward way to stay ahead and to stay relevant. It’s an easy upskill.

As with most rushed approaches, the quality of execution is often compromised.

My big whinge: analytics being done for the sake of it.

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You’ve made a chart to show a 20% increase in traffic? The average user session is 12% better than last month? Yeah, that’s pretty much useless.

In the context of driving growth, the study of analytics has no worth when your measurements and reports are gathered without meaning.

Analytics should not be treated as a discrete subject — it is a tool. It’s a tool to find meaningful stories about our audience, customers and businesses.

Data isn't a set of numbers to make choices from — data are people too! They’re people with motivations, trying to achieve goals, each of unique experiences. The analytics we gather need to reflect this reality, and not be isolated as single pieces of information.

By doing so, we are always learning about our audience and customers. We learn about how we reach them, how we talk to them, what we’re doing right for them and what we are doing wrong.

That 20% increase in traffic — who are these new people? How old are they? Where do they live? What’s their job? Where did they see you? Why are they interested in you? What goal are they trying achieve? Do you actually have 4 new types of people looking at you? Did only 2 of these types sign up? Did any of them come back after 1 month? Why didn't they?

These are ~1% of the questions you need to know the answers to. We use analytics as a tool to find out each customer’s story.

With these insights, we are able to build a growth engine into our businesses. Businesses we can be proud of, because we resonate with our customers on a truly meaningful level.