Here are 20 things I've found broken with analysing and optimising for growth.

Jan 15, 2021

We’ve been working on this problem for 10 years now. Granted, the methods, processes and frameworks utilised to optimise a funnel have evolved, though the objectives have remained largely consistent. Generate more leads or sales, and reduce the cost of acquisition where feasible. It’s worth acknowledging that there are now ~10,000 tools available to Marketers to make things exciting and overwhelming simultaneously.

For the most part, we believe these are fun problems to solve, though the harsh reality is that for some marketers, these problems often cause distressing conversations, resignations or even terminations.

In our own case, we naturally discuss these problems daily within the agency. The theme of most conversations is lively and centred around customers grappling (pulling their hair out) with their tool or data set. By doing so, I’ve learned significant lessons through helping teams solve these problems, though we wanted to go further with our understanding of the problem/s. Further motivated by the fact that the problem is actually getting worse, not better. How? Data is becoming more complex, tools are getting more involved, more content is being produced, sites are getting larger and more channels are being activated. Marketers are being asked to become more technical, though that’s not easy for all.

With that in mind, I’ve set myself a goal to carry out 100 interviews by the end of 2020. Here’s where we’ve landed after 40 interviews:

20 things broken with growth analysis and optimisation ‘WIP’ 😱

Crossover or overlap, and difference in data/reporting
Misconfigured tracking or tagging happens too often
Data integrity is often unreliable
Too many dashboards to review
Attribution is often mismatched and inaccessible
Historical activity is lost or murky to locate
Surfacing insights is time-consuming
Collating and deciding on what to prioritise can be hard
Collaborating with team members is often removed from data
Presenting to seniors often requires another document
Site pages can easily become lost or forgotten
Activity across a site can be missed or lost
Awareness of specific team member actions is often out of sight
When team members leave, so does preventable knowledge
Without strong data, maintaining focus can be difficult (SLTs can over influence decisions with opinion)
Teams often operate without clear or considered goals
Marketing assets are often cobbled together or without future consideration/need
Knowing what was attempted or succeeded before your tenure
Ability to identify real friction or opportunity
Feel their tech isn’t properly configured

Where to from here? 🗺

I plan to keep researching! I’m looking for marketers all over the world to participate and offer insight into their process (frustrations) in optimising a funnel. Reach me on LinkedIn or Twitter. It’s not much though there’s a small incentive for anyone able to offer their time.

Beware of making design decisions aimed solely at chasing that second click – instead, focus on optimising for the long term by providing quality content that convinces people to return in the future.
Nielsen Norman Group