Dana DiTomaso embarked on her digital marketing journey over 20 years ago, initially working in tech support for a CRM before founding a web design company in 2002. In 2000, clients sought her expertise in increasing website traffic, propelling her into the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). By 2012, Dana became an active participant in the SEO community, sharing insights on technical and local SEO topics.
Dana, having typed her first line of code in 1982, consistently demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit and started delivering talks and presentations since 1998. Recognizing the potential of digital-first marketing, she founded three businesses that educate entrepreneurs and organizations. As the founder and lead instructor of KP Playbook, Dana teaches the “Analytics for Agencies” course and manages a thriving learner community, emphasizing proven principles over quick tips. Notably, none of her clients have faced Google penalties to date.
Dana lives in an old growth forest near Victoria BC.
Chapter Timestamps
00:00:00 – Intro
00:03:01 – Welcome Dana
00:08:18 – The unvarnished view of data given by GA4
00:16:33 – Using custom reports and exploration tab
00:22:41 – Giving other users access to Reports
00:26:39 – PSA
00:27:25 – Reporting through Looker Studio
00:35:08 – Why knowing some UX helps
00:38:54 – Pulling other data sources together with GA data
As a Disclaimer, note that there’s no sponsor or affiliate relationship with the vendor interviewed here. They’re simply on the show to give their perspective on our topic.
As trite as it sounds, the way that we look at the world affects our understanding of it. Let me tell you about a time I noticed this. When I was a kid, I would go to school, walk into my classroom, and see my teacher there. She was such a constant there, I imagined that she never left the classroom, she was a fixture of the room, part of the furniture. It’s like the teacher didn’t persist as a person who had a life outside of the classroom. So when I was out at the grocery store with my parents and I saw my teacher, not dressed in their teacher clothes, not ensconced in their teacher setting, my brain just melted.
While this might be laughable, those of us using marketing analytics tools could be guilty of falling into the same trap. Credit for making this concept clear in not 1 but 2 great books must go to Avinash Kaushik. Think about it. According to Classic web analytics, visitors who hit our website had started an imaginary timer that we called a web session. We imagined in this race against the clock, they were viewing a sequence of pages which ferried them to forms we used as gates. We told ourselves that the gate-crossers had completed a successful session, converting from visitors into leads or customers.
Stepping back, there are a few things wrong with this picture. Users don’t only exist inside of a session, just like the teacher didn’t only exist in the classroom—they roam about as they please.
Today’s users aren’t confined to marketing content. The experience they have straddles our marketing sites, to sites and apps where their identity persists through being logged-in, where the interactions even span multiple devices – as we see on Slack and Discord for messages we’ve already read.
The user’s state changes – sometimes they complete a purchase, or become a paid subscriber, but at other times they may opt for a free plan or abandon their cart.
We need analytics for all of these actions. We need to step back and view the entire experience that people have with us over time. This is something that classic web analytics just can’t measure.
This is why the new generation of tools allows us to analyze complex trends and behavior of our users. They are collectively known as event-based analytics tools, and they excel in portraying the way that users experience a product. The foremost product-oriented analytics tool out there is called Amplitude, and today, we are speaking with its product evangelist.
Since 2021, Adam Greco has been Amplitude’s Product Evangelist, guiding clients in understanding their tool through workshops, blogs, and videos.
He got into this field in 2005 when he joined analytics platform Omniture where he was a customer advocate for four years until Adobe acquired them and rechristened them Adobe Analytics. He then worked at consultancies for 15 years, showing people how to get the most out of Adobe’s tool, authoring over 200 blog posts along the way.
Lately Adam’s speaking and advising on analytics has had him splitting his time between Chicago and Amsterdam (where he was when this was recorded). When he’s in the states and not working, he enjoys restoring and going for drives in his 62 convertible corvette.
Timestamps/Chapters
0:00 – Intro
5:00 – Meet Adam; why event-based method works better than session-based method
24:00 – PSA
24:45 – how to get value out of recent analytics tools, including warehouse-native apps
When a person interacts with their device or goes online, who owns their data? Today’s guest says they do, and marketers should be paying them for the privilege. Right now, you might think this person wears hats made out of tinfoil. It may surprise you to learn they are the Global Head of AI at (EY) Ernst & Young, having also been an analytics executive at Gartner and CSL Behring and graduating from DePaul with an MBA.
John Thompson has written four books. I found out about him through his 2020 book Building Analytics Teams, which led to him being a guest on this show back in 2023. He recently released his book “Data for All” which spurred this repeat appearance – which has only happened with a handful of people.
For links to all persons and concepts mentioned, go to Ep 181’s notes page on the Funnel Reboot site.
‘1 to 1 Marketing,’ sounds wonderful. Don Peppers & Martha Rogers wrote a series of books in the 1990s called this. We have thrown all kinds of technology, content, and persona construction at it over the last 25 years. But it still eludes us. Architecting communications that converses with each person, at their own point in a conversation with our brand is hard. Is it marketing’s job to actually have 1:1 conversations? And with what’s at stake if we screw up personalization, can we implement or maintain it without losing our jobs?
Today’s guest is here to help answer that.
Since getting his M.A. in Information Studies from Aarhus University, our guest has lived at the intersection of data and communications.
Since 2020 he has been the Chief Experience Officer at Agillic, an omnichannel marketing software, where he works primarily with large companies involved in omnichannel marketing, customer experience management, and customer lifecycle projects.
He’s on a mission to ensure that the end user gets consistent, timely and relevant communications across channels – be it web, email, app, text, social – or even in-store. He often presents keynotes on Omnichannel Personalization and sits on the jury for that at the Danish eCommerce Awards.
His first book, written together with Colin Shearer, was a bestseller on Omnichannel Marketing. We’re talking with him about his book “Hello $Firstname,” which came out in 2023. Joining me from Copenhagen, let’s welcome Rasmus Houlind.
This is the second of two shows on doing data-driven marketing, in a way that respects user privacy. No matter how much we crave, there will be fewer ways to capture it. At time of recording, Google says Chrome will stop supporting 3rd party cookies in 2024. Our choice should not be to switch to other forms of tracking, but whether we’ll go into this privacy-centric era voluntarily, or out of necessity.
Having less data on our customers may sound like it’s bad for business, but a recent book argues that it’s actually necessary to maximize your long-term ROI. The book, “Becoming a Privacy-Centric Marketing Organization,” was a co-written by a group who work together at InfoTrust. One of those co-authors is today’s guest.
Lucas holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina and is currently at the forefront of delivering tag architecture solutions for major corporations. Specializing in sales and business development, he leads the implementation of tag governance processes through his role in managing InfoTrust’s Tag Inspector product. His expertise spans sales and marketing strategy, web analytics, and tag management. With a focus on educating clients about the critical aspects of proper tagging and user behavior analysis, Lucas collaborates with some of the largest agencies and enterprises globally.
