Highlights from Lynchpin & Econsultancy's 2016 Measurement and Analytics Report

The Lynchpin Measurement and Analytics Report has reached a milestone birthday of a whole decade, collecting and sharing industry insights as the evolution of analytics has progressed, to rule supreme as one of the most comprehensive, valued and accurate reports in the community.

Every year the quantity of participants increases as the arena grows, from professionals across a wide variety of sectors and at different levels in their career. Contributing to the documentation of these trends is ultimately elevating the awareness of the importance of analytics.

With questions catered to analysts from both company and agency environments, the core focus seems to be how fundamental a formally documented but equally flexible data strategy is to a business, and promoting this across the board.

To mark the occasion and to prepare you for answering this years’ survey (which hopes to reach 1,000+ analysts), we thought we’d summarise last years’ report so you can compare how much the space has changed. Has anything remained static?

Highlights from the 2016 Measurement and Analytics Report

Size Matters

Companies with over at least £50m turnover and executive sponsorship support are more likely to have a formally documented data analytics strategy, regardless of whether this is digital only or not than those who don’t. This goes for team size as well – companies with more than five people dedicated to analytics in a data team are able to commit time and effort to framing an analytics roadmap in order to achieve their goals.

Test and Learn

Analytics teams who work in/for companies have more active digital test and learn strategies with more attention toward running multivariate or split tests across all their digital properties than those who work in agencies. This could be because those who work in companies have more time to devote to longer term projects, the results of which they will see actually making an impact rather than the tough deadlines in agencies

Data Architecture

Analysts across the board failed to see how effective data architecture was in relation their understanding of customer behaviour, and therefore their ability to implement personalisation. Without proper structure in the storage of data, companies are losing the opportunity to deliver significant customer experiences.

Attribution models

Just over half of companies lack confidence that their attribution models are based on facts about data and the business, despite a rise in the amount of marketers using them. This ambivalence could be related to increasingly fragmented customer journeys, or unpredictable results where gaps have been formed in offline efforts such as purchases in store for multi-channel businesses and external advertising exposure.

Tag Management

Two thirds of respondents are realising the value of implementing tag management systems and maturing their data layer mapping. Hypothesised as the gateway to a fully integrated marketing solution, tag management permits marketers to combine data and technology to champion relevant cross-channel interactions in real time and at phenomenal scale, standardising customer data.

Big Data

More companies were at a stage of merely considering implementing a big data solution rather than having one already in place, which marks the start of the era for companies beginning to take advantage of the benefits that cloud computing offers, moving beyond hype and into practise. Hadoop and Google Big Query surface as being the most popular big data solutions being used by companies.

Skill Gaps

Statistical modelling, ability to use business intelligence tools and conversion rate optimisation skills are the three biggest skills gaps in in-house company analytics teams, which have remained the most common since 2013. This indicates a lack of training and professional development in these types of environment, which could mean not only the companies’, but also the employees’, future is regressive.

Customer Lifetime Value

Just under a third of companies use customer lifetime value understanding to influence their customer retention and customer acquisition strategies. As some of the top three growth/profit related requirements for analytics in around half of companies, along with optimising conversion rates, this seems to be a consistent resolution to the most important goals for a business.

Which of these main points do you feel have changed dramatically since then? How are your company making use of results from surveys like these to improve the environment in which you work, and what aspects do you feel could benefit you if they were implemented?

In addition to using the comments box below to express your thoughts, why not share them in the Measurement and Analytics Survey so they can be measured with the rest of the data? With so much having changed in the last ten years within analytics, it would be amazing to have such a rich amount of data to evaluate and reflect upon!

If collaborating to the industry with your experience isn’t rewarding enough, you’ll also be able to receive a complimentary copy of the report, which is usually only available with a subscription to Econsultancy.

You’ll be able to have access to this in advance of the big reveal party in partnership with Web Analytics Wednesday on July 12th, which will feature a legendary panel of analytics experts to present the findings and discuss the main trends with the audience. It only takes 10 minutes of your time to complete and will influence the next 10 years of your career.