Service: Analytics Engineering

Introduction

World Animal Protection (WAP) is a global charity with the mission to end the needless suffering of animals and inspire people, including world leaders, to change animals’ lives for the better. 

Station10 is WAP’s data partner of choice and we’ve been working with them for 3 years. 

WAP’s digital operations span across 15 different sites globally where a range of communication campaigns are run, including 2-3 milestone campaigns each year. Historically, this created a challenge, because each country office had different analytics requirements, skill and knowledge levels for data, and indeed different data implementations. However, the central analytics team in London’s HQ were responsible for managing, maintaining and supporting all 15 environments and offices.

The central analytics team realised this created both additional strain and pressure on them, and an ultimately unsustainable situation in terms of data management, accuracy and governance, especially in light of laws, such as GDPR and CCPA requiring the organization to have clear controls over its data usage. 

Furthermore, WAP’s Google Analytics tracking was captured through manual tagging, scraping elements of the page. WAP wanted to obtain a better understanding of their websites’ performance and their supporters’ online behaviour, including online donations, by ensuring that the analytics data captured was accurate and consistent across the different countries. 

With limited bandwidth, especially during busy global campaign periods, WAP required strategic advice on how to manage this.

The Station10 team focused to start with on the data accuracy and management challenge, and so began by designing a data layer, implementing tags and setting up Data Studio dashboards to enable robust reporting on the website performance. 

Why did they choose Station10?

Station10 have a wealth of experience in decoding society, customers and the environment. This includes helping organisations make the most of their data, and to ensure the data they have on donors and supporters. We have set up and managed multiple implementations, so that was a given, but we also have shared values about how data can improve society and the environment.

What did we do?

Station10 worked alongside World Animal Protection (WAP) to identify the needs of users within the business to understand how their supporters used digital channels. We made recommendations about how this could be set up, and then designed a data layer to deliver this vision.  Working alongside WAP’s technical teams, we then implemented the required tags, and set up a series of customized dashboards, using Google Data Studio, to ensure business teams could access, analyse and understand the more accurate digital customer data.

What was our process? 

As with all our clients, we identify the key overall objectives of the business first to ensure the metrics and subsequent data fits with the wider strategy.  This defined the implementation approach and we delivered the project while providing ongoing support for the team.

Business Benefits

In partnership with WAP and their team, Station10 have delivered a robust, futureproofed data implementation that is consistent across 15 territories. We’ve provided tailored Google Analytics/Google Tag Manager training and Data Studio dashboards.

WAP are now able to report on the performance of their digital platforms in a consistent way, in a centralised manner, using Google Analytics. 

This standardised approach used across all markets means that trust and confidence can be built in the data for global reporting.  

The implementation of Google Analytics allows the team to be able to derive actionable insights from their data regarding their customer’s online web behaviour. 

The next step is to bring the new feature of Google “GA4”, to enable better Insights of customer interactions. 

As WAP move forward with the GA4 updated, we will also be assisting with the creating of vital reports and dashboard to inform their data-driven decision-making.

In the digitalised and fast evolving world in which we work, businesses must constantly improve their digital channels to deliver the intuitive online experience that customers have come to expect.

But in order to better the user experience, and shape it to consumer needs, businesses need access to the right tools to gather the intelligence needed to make the most valuable improvements.   

If you collect data in the right way, you can better understand your consumer and use that knowledge to make informed decisions about how you interact with them.

Station10 and Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts

Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts recently re-platformed its website. This is a hugely important moment in any business’ lifecycle, and one in which data becomes critical for two reasons: 

1. You need data to measure the performance of your new site to judge the project’s effectiveness.
2. You need to ensure that your new site is collecting the right data so that you can make informed business decisions moving forward.

Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts engaged Station10 to make sure they were using the right data analytics tools to access the right information. The business already had an Adobe Analytics implementation, but needed to ensure that it was using the tool to its fullest advantage. Since it was in the process of re-platforming, the opportunity arose to improve businesses processes by completely redefining how tracking on the site worked.

Station10 worked with Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts to make sure it was tracking effectively, so it could:

1. Measure the performance of the new site to see how the improvements helped support their business goals.
2. Monitor and record consumer behaviour more meticulously understand, and therefore respond to, their different customer requirements.
3. Look for efficiencies in implementation to collect this more valuable data, without increasing the spend on the analytics tool.

Align data analytics with business goals 

To kick things off we engaged the key stakeholders within the business –  responsible for chief disciplines Such as UX, Marketing and Trading – to understand what was important to each of them and their departments.  

This way we could make sure that the data being collected would best serve the business as a whole. From this, we structured a value map to align the possible measures to the wider businesses goals.

We worked closely with Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts to prioritise specific measures, which would be key to launch. Having confirmed priorities and objectives, we helped to choose the most effective tool to collect the required data. We decided that Adobe Analytics would be the best option for the company’s specific objectives.

Work in partnership 

Next we built a ‘solution design document’ to reflect the business’ requirements (identified in the earlier phase), and ratified this data by working closely with the key players at Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts during the project. This highlighted potential changes that could be made so that the business could use its data to better understand its global footprint. It also showed how to improve behaviours with learnings from each geography. 

This document underpinned the entire project. It enabled Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts’ systems integration partner, Javelin, and its tag management partner, Tealium, to create and implement the code needed to successfully measure site performance going forward.

Take time to look back

During any re-platforming project, a view of the sites’ historical performance is key. You can only make improvements if you understand the status quo. To this end, Station10 analysed the data that had previously been collected from the existing implementation.

This way we could give a view of the new site’s success and flag if there were any issues on the site when it went live. Sometimes you have to look back to move forward. 

Go-live is just the start 

Post-go-live, we worked with Robyn Doyle, Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts’ Director of eCommerce to create key business dashboards, using Adobe Analytics, that would make the data accessible to all senior decision-makers in the company. 

This helped embed the new data analysis tools, techniques and insights within the organisation to ensure company-wide adoption of (even enthusiasm for!) the data.

To further aid in the embedding process, we provided those that would be regularly working with the tools with structured training courses on Adobe Analytics. These sessions were aimed at their specific implementation to ensure that any questions were addressed and that the business was equipped to use the tools most effectively going forward.

Business benefits 

Having re-platformed its website, Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts not only have an intuitive new platform, delivering a unified customer experience – but they also have the tools in place to track site performance and consumer behaviour going forward.

Having worked with Station10 to optimise their Adobe Analytics capabilities, Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts now benefit from:

• Data that is more accurate, robust and efficiently captured
• Improved tracking for a better understanding of its consumers
• The ability to segment and understand the global business quickly and effectively
• Further Insight into conversions and how best to interact with consumers online
• An understanding of the new site’s performance (and the old site’s pitfalls!)
• Greater knowledge of how to use Adobe Analytics to meet its business goals

When engaging in any re-platforming program, data plays a crucial role. You need to make sure you have the right tools in place to give you the right information. This will help to ensure you make the right decisions moving forward.