New charity case study: Scottish Book Trust

Charities are undergoing digital and data transformations with increasing pace.

My new case study, courtesy of Scottish Book Trust, explores some of the data analytics work we did following the launch of their new website. We worked with Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Firebase, BigQuery, and Google Data Studio to structure and improve their insight.

Our work together encapsulates web and mobile app analytics, as well as looking at the wider measurement and optimisation strategy for Scottish Book Trust as an organisation.

Find the analytics case study here!

Visualising open source data with Google Data Studio & data.world

Google Data Studio is becoming the go-to reporting tool for data analysts in many sectors. In this article I take a look beyond the typical marketing data connectors like Google Analytics and delve into open source data from a wealth of freely-available sources, courtesy of data.world.

No need for complex engineering or data pipelines – with just a little bit of SQL and using Data Studio’s native connector, a whole new world of data can be delivered right to your dashboards!

Data visualisation with Google Data Studio

Data visualisation is all the rage. Some day in the near future, we will be done with spending endless amounts of time producing static reports in Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, instead working with eye-candy dynamic reports such as those provided by Google Data Studio, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, and many others. These platforms allow diverse data sources to be linked in near real-time to a single report or dashboard, from where users can interact with the data.

A simple guide to ecommerce tracking in Google Analytics

Demand for ecommerce reports in Google Analytics seems to be on the rise. Having recently consulted on a full Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce implementation, I thought I would share some straightforward, limited-jargon insights into how to best set up Google Analytics ecommerce tracking.

Digital & web analytics

A snapshot of a web analytics data report from Google Analytics

Robust, comprehensive digital and web analytics is now business-critical for any organisation with an online presence. Whether you want to evaluate your marketing and advertising efforts, see how people are using your website, or improve the layout or design of your online materials, digital data analysis is a must.

I am a web analytics expert with many years of experience working with tools such as Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics to derive a deep understanding of online users. I have done this for numerous commercial organisations, large and small, in sectors from retail and publishing to insurance and sports, as well as spending four years in the charity sector as a senior web analytics specialist. As a freelancer, digital and web is a core area of my services to charities and non-profits.

I can provide insights about who your users are, what they are interested in, how they behave on your website or app, what content they are engaging with, through which marketing channels they reach your website, how they behave on different devices, and much, much more. I work with a full suite of Google products – Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Data Studio, Google Sheets, Google Optimize, and Google Search Console – as well as a wide range of other digital analysis tools with aims like web analytics, CRO/AB testing, session recordings, and surveys. With Google Analytics, I like to push the tool to its limits with custom event tracking, goals, and Enhanced Ecommerce tracking closely aligned to your website’s customer experience and purpose.

In our transition to a new website, Daniel’s experience and insight in Google Analytics has helped us anticipate issues, resolve unexpected roadblocks and quickly understand technical challenges.

Daniel’s expert knowledge also meant he was able to deliver a flexible solution – ready for our transition to Google Analytics 4.

Danny Plunkett

Among my digital analytics success stories comes from my time at the charity WaterAid.  As the global lead web analyst, I was a core part of the project team to deliver a complete website rebuild and redesign, on an entirely new platform. My role was three-fold: strategic project adviser, provider of web insights, and implementation lead for Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics.

As part of this, I produced and implemented an analytics framework across various products and territories, culminating in reporting views of varying levels of detail in Google Analytics, Google Sheets, and Google Data Studio - for stakeholders at all levels. I captured the key tracking requirements in-line with a measurement framework and the needs of various teams across WaterAid globally, translating this into a GTM/GA tagging architecture that could be replicated across each territory's website.

To inform the content, design, and UX of the new website, we also brought in insight from AB and multivariate testing, Hotjar session recordings, and live user testing of user journey prototypes.

This project spanned the entire web analytics lifecycle, from tracking tag configuration and analytics architecture, to dashboarding, visualisation, insight, and training, thus providing substantial ongoing value across WaterAid.

Digital data can be almost limitless. However, I believe in simplicity and focus, and my digital and web analysis can be tailored to your specific business questions or organisational needs, selecting the right tools and data from those available. My iterative approach can identify some initial questions and, through data reviews, audits, and analysis, raise more questions or improvements to your data analytics strategy. Working together and through data-driven iterations, we can reach the insight that you need to understand, improve, and optimise all aspects of your digital and web presence.

You can find me on LinkedIn, or email me at [email protected]

I look forward to hearing about your exciting digital and web analytics projects!