From Numbers to Narratives
While exploring the Google
Analytics Technology Partners Gallery, two services caught my eye: Wordsmith for Marketing
and Quill
Engage. Both of these services fall into the Solution category of Reporting
Tools (with Wordsmith for Marketing also in the Data/Visualization Category and
Quill Engage in the Business Intelligence one).
The reason both Wordsmith
for Marketing and Quill Engage stood out to me is, as I’ve alluded to before,
I’m more of a word person than a number person. Consequently, nothing says
“solution” to me (particularly in that analytics realm) like the ability to
convert numbers to narratives. Both Wordsmith for Marketing and Quill Engage
claim to do just that!
For this post, I will focus
on Quill Engage for two reasons:
1. “
2. There is a free option for Quill Engage, not Wordsmith for Marketing.
What is Quill Engage?
On their website, Quill
Engage claims to “explain Google Analytics data in plain English and deliver
custom reports to you and your clients.” Other claims include:
1.
“Insightful
website reports delivered right to your inbox.” (“Insightful” seems to mean
that Quill Engage not only gathers data, but also understand it and presents it
in a way that even a non-analytic can also understand.
2.
“Customizing your
reports is simple.” (KPIs appear to be segmented into dropdown menus
3.
“Setup is
painless.” (There doesn’t seem to be much more to in than authenticating your
Google Analytics Account.)
The website
also offers a sample
report of what the tool is capable of generating. What we see is an already
digested version of Google Analytics Data—i.e. the report speculates why in addition to presenting what.
Here are a couple
examples from the Quill Engage sample report:
1.
Rather than simply saying, “new users
spent 16 fewer seconds on your site than returning users did last month,” Quill
Engage adds, “this could indicate that
your new users didn't find the information they needed or came to the site
expecting something else*.”
2.
Instead of only offering numerical data such as, “average
users spent 18.0 minutes longer on your solutions page,” Quill Engage also adds
like, “Users seemed to be more engaged
with your Solutions page last month, making it the most improved among all
pages on your site*.”
As
is also evidenced in the above sample report, Quill Engage also aims to connect
the dots in rationalizing particular data. For example:
“Last month, your total cost per
click dropped 13% to $2.44. The decline,
driven by higher clicks, was ledby the ad group Ad Group #1*, as clicks increased 47% to 121.Your
paid search costs rose to $361 from $297 one month before. Additional spending on the Marketing Software keyword drove the
increase.*”
*Italics
are mine.
Why Use Quill Engage?
Kaleigh Moore calls the above examples (particularly
the parts I italicized) “instant insights.” Moore also advises Google Analytics
users (and Kissmetrics users—as mentioned in my last post, they are often one
in the same!) to use Quill Engage if “You don’t have time
to write up detailed reports of Google Analytics data,” because it “makes it
look like you broke down all of the detailed statistics into simple, actionable
information” (2018).
My first instinct upon reading this is that Moore is
suggesting that Quill Engage is a sort of “cop out” tool for analysts, leading
me to wonder—would a true analyst frown on someone like me using it? Am I an
analytic fraud if I do?
However, the more I think about it, I do not believe Moore
meant anything critical of those using Quill Engage to simplify their analytics
process. She simply meant what she said: some folk do not have time to perform
in depth speculations and insights on their own nor do they have the resources
to pay someone else to take the time to do so.
Even the priciest Quill Engage plan (Quill Engage Premium) is only
$49.99/month (there is also a “basic” plan for $19.99/month as well as a free
plan). For a smaller business, with a lower marketing budget, and/or marketing
personal with limited analytic experience, a tool like Quill Engage might save
the company time, resources, and money while offering actionably insights at a
quicker rate.
A tool like Quill Engage wouldn’t replace the human thought necessary
to complete a qualitative analysis and it definitely wouldn’t replace the
creative thought or processes involved in strategizing a solution in response—it
could however make it so that marketers can get to these next steps clearer and
quicker.
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