When making the decision to hire an analytics agency, there’s many questions you need to ask yourself and any potential agency to determine if you have a good fit. Here’s 5 things to consider about your own company, and 5 things to consider about the agency you’re talking to before you decide.
Is your company ready for an agency?
As a rule of thumb, at least 5% and as much as 10% of your marketing budget should be invested in analytics tools, internal team, and agencies or consultants.
At around 5-10% your analytics investment is around the right level to have a positive impact on your overall marketing budget helping to reduce wasteful spend and improve current efforts.
A company that values data and its role in making business decisions will always get more value out of their analytics investment than one that does not.
While an agency can help build trust overtime, data-driven culture is something that also requires internal advocates working with the agency. If data isn’t valued, analysis may fall on deaf ears and resources to implement data tracking will be deprioritized, meaning your agency won’t be able to provide real value.
You probably have someone, even if it’s only part of their job or unofficial, who at a minimum pulls reports. Or, maybe you have a full-time analyst who digs into great analysis for your company regularly.
Either way, an agency can augment the work they’re doing flexing to pick up the areas of a comprehensive analytics plan the in-house resource hasn’t had the time or expertise to dig into.
20 departments that all need reports? 3 VPs with different questions about their site to analyze? 8 different sub-brands and websites with combined and separate reporting needs?
An agency can help you wrangle these differing needs across stakeholders, while helping keep an overall measurement strategy moving forward.
Not only do you need to go through a reseller if you purchase a tool such as GA360, if you’re investing in a paid tool, it’s worth the investment to make sure it’s set up in a way to provide you the best value, and with an agency that will continue to act on new features as they become available.
Is the agency a right fit for your needs?
Data analysis requires context. A good agency will start off their process getting to understand your business, customers, and industry. This isn’t just at the start but an ongoing process.
It’s not about what they know about your industry before they start, it’s how they continuously learn more about your business – through conversations and data.
Most agencies, Seer included, will start out with an audit and setup phase, ensuring data tracking accuracy. But your agency should be providing benefits beyond tracking setup such as:
- Measurement strategy
- Data analysis
- Remarketing support
- A/B testing
- And more!
While most agencies will start with auditing and setting up a primary digital analytics source, such as Google Analytics, does their long-term strategy consider other data sources?
A good agency will expand with as many data sources as they can over time such as qualitative data from heatmapping or survey tools, your internal sales/CRM data, paid platforms, social media data, and others.
Your analytics agency is unique as they are supporting and reporting on data that impacts everyone. Other agencies or internal teams may be responsible for a single marketing channel or website UX, and will focus on their specific data points.
Your analytics agency needs to collaborate with all of them in putting together a complete data picture.
Anyone can claim to help you with your analytics, but Google Analytics Certified Partners (GACPs) have gone through rigorous testing, regularly report to Google, and can provide Google-backed support.
Selecting an agency that is a Google Analytics Certified Partner (which Seer is) provides greater assurance you have an expert team helping you.
BONUS – Yes, hire an Analytics agency if you are planning to go through a redesign.
If you’re going through a website redesign you almost certainly want an analytics agency to at a minimum help you through that, most web design firms will offer minimal tracking support.
Don’t wait until after the site is launched. An analytics agency can help from the beginning with analysis about your current site to inform the redesign, and work throughout the redesign to ensure the site is set up in a way that from launch date you’re collect all the data you need.
So, should your company hire an Analytics agency?
Complete the interest form below to talk to a Seer Analytics manager for more info, or just head straight to our contact form to get going on a partnership.