Courtnie Ridgway, Digital Media Strategist – Tarleton State University, is one of the 12 presenters of the 2019 Higher Ed Analytics Conference.
In this 3-question interview, Courtnie shares with us thoughts on what’s next for higher ed analytics in 2019, advice to get more strategic with measurement and tips to make analytics reports more efficient
1) What will make a big difference for higher ed analytics and measurement in 2019? Where do you plan to focus your analytics efforts?
Privacy concerns are still trending upward following the Facebook incident and others like it. I think how we collect, store and use data is going to need to be more scrutinized and strategic; policies need to be created to protect data professionals and institutions from making the mistakes we’ve seen this year. With GDPR and similar policies, many businesses were proactive in amending their practices and policies. According to several surveys, Higher Ed didn’t take it as seriously. Based on the nature and volume of the data we collect, it is crucial that we not wait for these laws to be put into place in the US before taking them seriously. Especially when international recruiting, Study Abroad and other programs are already placing our audience under protection by GDPR.
We are working to integrate our social media data with Data Studio. Doing so will allow us to present uniform reports to senior leadership. They will receive templates reports that cover web traffic, social media and email marketing. The best part is the reports are real time. With the link they can check them as often as they like and get updated information. We are also working to create policies to run all advertising through one office. As a centralized marketing team serving the whole university, this will allow us to better monitor the collection of data among other things.
2) What’s your advice to adopt a more strategic approach to analytics and performance measurement?
The time it takes to get started with a strategic approach up front will save you far more time in the future. Make the initial investment, you won’t be sorry. You can get lost in data, spend days and days looking at metrics, paths, sources, behaviors, etc. I think it’s important to have defined goals for the medium. Find the metrics that will help you analyze the progress of accomplishing those goals, and develops a sheet or chart that will allow you to track that progress over time.
I like to block out at least an hour a week to look at what is trending. What degree pages are most popular? What were our top social media posts for the previous week? I compile these to identify trends and inspire content strategy when planning our content calendar. The first Friday (less demand for meetings than any other day) of each month is blocked for analyzing the data from the previous month.
3) Analyzing the data and unearthing analytics insights is half the battle. What are your top tips to present/share analytics reports that drive action?
I think it is important to identify what the goals are. Take the time to educate stakeholders, but not just on terminology. Find out what matters most to them and show them how they can utilize data to measure that specific thing. Don’t overwhelm them with pages and pages of insights or analytics, but break it down into charts and tables that are easily digestible and tell them what they need to know. I’ve found that 3-4 measurements work best for presentations, and I’ll provide a link to a more detailed report (Data Studio/Google Sheet) for those who are interested.
Thank to UTMs parameters, I know the individuals who are interested in the larger report. When I see someone has accessed it, I will often reach out to ask if they found everything they were looking for. If I notice a trend in what they are looking for, I will add that metric to my next presentation. When they are armed with goal-oriented data, they are better informed to make decisions. We are able to show them what approaches worked and which did not. It saves time and money to do the research and perform some A/B testing in the beginning.
A conference focusing on higher ed analytics?
The 2019 Higher Ed Analytics Conference (#HEA19) is a must-attend event for higher ed marketing professionals and teams looking for inspiration, ideas and best practices to step up their analytics and measurement game in 2019..
Read below what your higher ed colleagues who attended the past editions of the Higher Ed Analytics Conference said about their experience.
Tags: HEA19, Higher Ed Marketing, Higher Ed News