We’ve all heard the saying: numbers don’t lie.

When it comes to digital marketing, this is a golden rule successful digital marketers and companies live by!

This means that analyzing website data is an essential task in keeping track of visitors’ on-page behaviors, goal conversion, and path flows. When data is properly communicated and analyzed, it is the key to identifying opportunities that will increase website performance, and user experience. Data helps recognize and celebrate wins by tracking data and reporting on the successes, and learning what needs to be improved. With data, you quickly see which initiatives improved user experience and how to move forward in achieving company goals. So when asking a data question, using CloudApp can make this process infinitely easier. 

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Numbers don’t lie

The place to start is to define what data needs to be tracked to ensure optimal insight into your initiatives. The best place to start is by identifying low hanging fruits and tackling that first. Start with a hypothesis of what can be further improved, then move onto less obvious initiatives. Prove the hypothesis with a successful test and it’s easy to see how empowering data can be. Constantly collecting the right data that provides visibility into users’ experience will help hone your strategies. Start by asking yourself, Who are your customers and target audience? Then,  focus on what users want.

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Focus on What Users Want

Data provides the best insights into what’s going on with a service or product. Data is best analyzed over a longer time period to show a clear picture of what’s happening. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• It’s essential that your team is on board, and understands the benefits of tracking data. 
• As you set up a more comprehensive tracking system, present your hypotheses and tests for the initiatives currently being tracked.
• Carefully review what you need, how much time, and the necessary resources needed to properly integrate and implement your strategy.
• Don’t distract or overwhelm yourself with too much data. Instead, track what you need.
• Survey and speak with your customers to gather qualitative data.

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Survey your customers to gain insight into how they feel about your service or product. With that information, you can build a quantitative and qualitative picture of your user base. The important thing to remember is that when asking a data question or collecting data over a short period of time it might appear that something isn’t working, or could be broken. Keep in mind that it takes time and users might tell us what they think we want to hear without realizing it. Alternatively, they may struggle with pinpointing exactly what they want or need.

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Tips and tricks for asking unbiased questions:

• Ask your users to externalize thoughts and feelings while they interact with the prototype
• Create a realistic environment where distractions are not eliminated
• Takes structured and unstructured notes including what you see, hear, and the time they spend on a task
• Make sure you record the session
• Don’t explain or name specific buttons, elements or concepts
• Don’t guide or help the participant perform the task
• Remain objective throughout and avoid jumping to conclusions
• Avoid leading words
• Ask about one thing at a time
• Ask fact-based questions

Consider CloudApp’s screen recording feature, which can be supported by various platforms, including Mac, Windows, Chrome, and more. As the screen recording feature is tweaked, certain platforms will get more attention and improvements than others. Overall, the NPS scores paint a picture that customers are generally happy with it, and that CloudApp is moving in the right direction. With quantitative and qualitative data provided by Delighted, it is easier to be reflective, open, and focused.

Combining customer feedback and data is great, but ultimately questions should start and conclude with data. Data will tell us where to focus our resources for maximum impact on our users. When using data or asking a data questioning using CloudApp, first decide which key indicators or most useful numbers should be tracked. With endless analytics tools and data to track, it’s essential not to lose focus by measuring everything. Get clear on what you need to measure.

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Consider the following

• What worked? What didn’t work?
• If it didn’t work, why?
• Present hypotheses of what we should test next
• Clarify how you will measure the success of a test.
• How will the data be tracked?
• Start the test.
• Start with small tests, and consider the minimum viable test. If the test results are good, then it’s safe to fully implement it.
• Look at the data collected, remain objective, and create a hypothesis. 

It’s important that when asking a data question, that you ask about specifics and examine specific actions that your users take. For example, how many users use the app on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis? What features, campaigns, or pages are they utilizing, searching, clicking through, or staying on the longest?

Whenever you create a new page, campaign, or feature, track its usage. This will help you gauge what is working and what needs tweaking. Once you’ve chosen the data you want to view, take it step further and really nail down the details that you need.

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Asking a data question using CloudApp

A lot of CloudApp clients, customers, and team members use CloudApp to quickly review data and gain valuable insights. At CloudApp there are a variety of tools used to build our product, measure it, and scale our community, including Mixpanel, Woopra, and Google Analytics. Rather than composing a long email or slack message asking a data question about something in Google Analytics, simply send a quick CloudApp drop. 

Here is how to use CloudApp to create a quick video to ask about a question you have in Google Analytics. 

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Annotations

One of the biggest challenges in sharing data across teams or companies is clear communication. How often have you tried explaining a complex idea only to end up a confusing, lengthy, and seemingly never-ending string of text? This is bound to be frustrating on both ends, not to mention the amount of time and energy it requires writing them or decoding them! 

If you’ve got a great deal of data, and you want to focus on a few specific things, writing a message about it is often ineffective. The last thing you want is for your user to become bored, disinterested, or frustrated because they can’t quickly grasp the results of the data provided. 

Complex explanations can be quickly simplified with CloudApp's image annotation capability. For instance, annotating an arrow will direct the user directly to what you’re referring to or what’s they should be viewing. Image annotation can be used to clarify your data findings, or you may find asking a data question using CloudApp helps you communicate better with your analyst. 

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For example, use CloudApp to take a screenshot of data collected from Google Analytics. From there, annotate it with arrows and circles to draw attention to specific areas of the image. In the example above, an arrow is pointing to a spike in sessions. For further explanation, you could add text boxes to explain details or explicit directions asking for a deeper analysis or explaining this spike. You can even include emojis for a special effect and break up too much text. 

This process also eliminates several steps it typically takes to achieve the same thing, including taking a screenshot, locating the screenshot in their file folder, uploading it elsewhere, and keeping track of those links. CloudApp makes it way simpler by combining the file sharing and links all in one. The annotation feature is a straightforward way to direct your user’s attention to a specific part of the data. This is  In the case of the spike in sessions mentioned above, this data can be used to help optimize campaigns that are performing well, and use that data as a jumping to point to find alternative ways to improve marketing tactics, user experience, ect.

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GIF screen recording

After you’ve captured and annotated your data, simply add it to your CloudApp drop. With your screenshot, GIF, or video of the data, you can send a personalized video or screenshot to your analyst, team, or client. The visual communication eliminates lengthy back and forth of emails, or phone calls. 

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7 steps to record your screen 

1. Download CloudApp for Windows or Mac.
2. Click on the CloudApp.msi file in the downloads folder.
3. CloudApp should immediately open.
4. Register for a free CloudApp screen recording account when prompted.
5. To record your screen, click on your CloudApp icon. Select the TV recording image. Prefer hotkeys? Use this combination for Mac :Cmd+Shift+6, Windows: Alt+Shift+6
6. Use your mouse to select the area on your screen you wish to record and click the green “Start” button to begin recording. 
7. Click the red “Finish” button when you are done your video.

To create your video, open CloudApp, walk the user or marketer through your Google Analytics questions or findings while capturing it in a GIF, and then share it. If other team members or the marketers you’re working with are on CloudApp, they can use it cross-functionally. 

Communicate ideas effectively by stringing clips together with the CloudApp GIF feature. With CloudApp's GIF screen recording, simply share your screen recording, and . Once you complete your video capture or webcam recording, a link is automatically copied to your clipboard. Depending on the application, you can password protect it and even set to expire after any desired length of time. If you’re answering or asking a data question using CloudApp for client, or within your workplace, this added level of security will enhance your professionalism. 

By asking a data question using CloudApp, users can quickly send a screenshot, GIF, or video to an analyst on their team to take a look at specific information. This helps us ensure you provide a good customer experience on your website, optimize customer journeys, and operate with clear data. 

At the end of the day, this improves productivity and communication across teams, and eliminates long meetings to review data. Screen recording and sharing is the quickest and most effective way to communicate between team members or clients. Large file sizes are difficult and time consuming to share. Streamline the design process by using CloudApp to record your screen and share directly with collaborators in near real-time. 

Sometimes understanding or relaying data findings can be long and frustrating for both parties involved. Even with all the tools and communication platforms available, poor communication is often the key reason data is misinterpreted. Next time instead of back and forth emails, send over a video explanation using CloudApp.