Overview of our Partnership
Cats Protection is the UK’s largest feline welfare charity, helping approximately 200,000 cats and kittens every year thanks to their network of >230 volunteer-run branches and >30 centres.
They sought our expertise because they didn’t trust their data, which was due to a lack of data governance processes and measurement plans. Our Analytics Audit increased the accuracy and usefulness of their data, which enabled them to make effective strategic decisions about tactics, budgets and resources.
Results included:
- More effective resourcing and budgeting
- Easier and quicker surfacing of insights
- Adoption of data governance processes
Read on to find out exactly how we achieved these results, or get in touch here, if you'd like to find out how we can help you to trust your data and make better business decisions.
Our Approach: The Analytics Audit
The audit assessed the three fundamental components of what constitutes robust and meaningful data:
- Integrity
- Organisation
- Insight
Our recommendations were documented in a measurement plan that had assigned and prioritised responsibilities and deadlines. These were shared amongst the three key stakeholders to ensure the best outcome: Cats Protection, their development agency, and us.
Integrity
We identified how trustworthy Analytics’ data was, based on the hardcoded tracking, tags, and the traffic sources the data originated from.
A key outcome was the identification that 24% of revenue was being attributed to the source ‘paypal.com’, which Analytics considered to be a third-party referral website. PayPal is used by Cats Protection as a payment gateway, as opposed to PayPal being a promotional partner of Cats Protection. This meant PayPal should not constitute a third-party referral source and therefore, it needed to be excluded from the Referral channel sources to prevent it being credited with the revenue the origin channel (e.g. Organic Search) generated. PayPal had already been excluded in the settings, which meant we recommended a development fix to address this issue.
Organisation
We identified how easily information could be found in Analytics and whether its configuration was compliant with GDPR and Analytics’ terms of service.
An important outcome was the identification that no data governance processes or measurement plans existed. We recommended a centralised measurement plan to ensure data with long-term value was being recorded and that tracking was future-proofed to create budget and resource efficiencies. We also provided comprehensive guidelines and a governance process that would help ensure the organisation was compliant. The guidelines included advice on how to:
- Assign clear responsibilities to data owners, data experts, and data executives
- Future-proof data collection
- Implement tag and event naming conventions
Through gap analysis of the user interactions that were recorded vs what wasn’t (but would be valuable) to record, we identified tracking reconfigurations and new tracking were needed to allow optimal insight into user behaviour.
Insight
Important interactions, e.g. contact page form submissions, feedback surveys and petition sign-ups, weren’t being recorded or recorded in enough detail. Therefore, Cats Protection couldn’t understand how valuable these interactions were and whether the functionality that enabled them on the site was something budget should continue to be allocated to. In addition to the new user interactions we recommended were measured, our solutions included best practice tracking guidelines like:
- Using consistent event category/action/label casing to avoid data fragmentation
- Utilising the categories, actions, and labels to record as much information as possible, e.g. through avoiding redundant information collection like ‘click’ for calls-to-action
Results
Once implemented, our solutions enabled Cats Protection to have:
- More effective resourcing and budgeting
- Confidence in using their data to base decisions on
- New and robust data governance practises
- Development budget efficiencies
- New insight into how their supporters are behaving
- An understanding of which user interactions are valuable and therefore, which supporting site functionality should be maintained
A thorough Google Analytics audit has resulted in our account looking much healthier than it has in ages, so we’ll be able to adequately track our activity. Nay and Ana’s expertise when it comes to measurement and reporting is unparalleled and we were really impressed.
What do you think of our results?
We’d say they are very paw-sitive. If you want to know more about how we can help you improve the value of your data, find out more about our Analytics services here, leave a message via the contact form below, or call us on 01273733433.