The Consequences of "Free" Marketing Data The State of Analytics

Your marketing data isn't free! It's time to start treating it like it's valuable again. In this episode, we explore the "Free Fallacy," the idea that when something has been free for an extended period of time, the perceived value of that thing goes down.
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How we value web analyticsThe true value of something is only what we perceive it to be. Web analytics and marketing data are extremely valuable, yet we now treat them as commonplace because our perceived value has declined. Why has this happened? Because Google Analytics has made marketing data "free" for nearly 15 years! - but it's not actually free, a you should stop treating it that way.
The Value of Free + NoveltyWhen something is free and a novelty, the perceived value will go up, at least in the short term.
The Value of Free + Prolific (commonplace) When something is free, readily available, and common for an extended period of time, the perceived value will go down.
Your Web Analytics & Marketing Data is NOT FreeBusinesses and organizations invest significant resources into their product development and go-to-market strategies. The fruition of these things is you marketing strategy and tactics. The data that this generates is extremely valuable to your feedback loop and it's NOT free for you to generate. Google, and other tools, give you these insights for "free" because they profit from your use of their platforms (and their use of the data) in other ways. You pay for your data, one way or another.
The Outcome of "Free" AnalyticsMarketers across all organizations and seniority levels suffer form the free fallacy. Marketing data and web analytics has become a complete afterthought with no budget allocated, no planning in place, and now clear accountability.
Three Ways to Combat the "Free Fallacy"Accountability - Put together an initiative inside your organization called the "analytics accountability initiative" with the goal of establishing true accountability around the quality and integrity of your data. Establish Novelty - Combat the "free fallacy" by finding small ways you a push the envelope and implement novel things within your marketing data strategy. Stop simply doing what everyone does and work to implement something unique and useful to your business. Alternatives - Increase the importance of your alternative marketing data platforms. For example, improve your conversion tracking across other marketing platforms you might be using (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Linkedin Ads).
Join us for the next episode: Should Marketing Data Really be “Set It and Forget It?”