Data without the Trauma

In The Paradox of Choice, Psychologist Barry Schwartz’s describes a phenomenon well-known to many consumers. Put two or three options in front of me, for just about anything (clothes, cars, movies), and I can pick an item I might like. Put too many choices in front of me and suddenly I’m paralyzed. It’s why I sometimes scroll through the channel guide for 5 minutes, before turning the TV off in frustration. It’s why I shop at my neighborhood hardware store whenever possible, even if it costs more. If I go to one of the big box stores, I could be lost for days.
I thought of this the other day when I heard one of Claravine’s clients say of using Adobe Analytics vs Google, “Maybe the reason people like Google so much is not that it’s free, but that it’s simple. People just get overwhelmed by too many choices.”
But here’s the problem with eliminating choices: sometimes you pay more for an inferior product. Or you get the thing you don’t need. Because we’re human, we sometimes willingly make the choice to forego our best option in the service of psychological ease. In the perennial discussion around Adobe/Google, we know some advertisers are shortchanging themselves on the data they really need, in service of having something simple that doesn’t break — and that doesn’t break their employees.
It’s not that Google Analytics doesn’t present challenges for tracking. It certainly can, especially if you need a sophisticated level of granularity for campaign tracking. But it’s the Adobe crowd that feels the pain of this the most. With no need to create custom dimensions, Google’s system is a lot simpler to set up and maintain. I get it.
Except, custom dimensions are great. Like, really great — if your organization can create the processes to utilize them. Year after year, internal data at Adobe shows that data classifications are the most used and most popular aspect of their entire suite of creative and advertising technology. Using custom dimensions or not is akin to the difference between wearing a bespoke suit vs one off the rack. When you see someone rocking a tailored suit, you want one! People love the idea of having things customized. “These are the things we want to know because they are unique to our business.” When it comes to data, though, once teams realize how hard it is to maintain, they often back away from their original implementation. You start out with big dreams of matching user response to ad type, size, message, medium, source, and region, with every intention of slicing those demographics…and you end with, “If it starts with EM, it’s an email.”
It’s the choice paradox again. People want the deep dive analytics, but they back off when they realize how hard that is to get.
What if I told you we’ve created a tool that will let you have the data you want, without the psychological trauma you’ve experienced in the past? What if you could have the deep-dive data you’re looking for, without the constant tracking code triage? One of our clients, a large financial services firm, recently went from measuring a handful of dimensions (all they could handle, and it was a lot of work), to tracking 97 custom dimensions. Yes, they are now regularly maintaining 97 distinct measurements, for 97 campaign parameters. And we saved them time! They still use Google, but this team is now also deriving the full value of Adobe’s custom dimensions.
Can we help your team fulfill the promise of its analytics? We’d love to hear from you at info@claravine.com!