tosino creations
Before I started studying Digital Analytics, I thought I knew the direction that I was headed in my career. I'd settled into a pattern of education and design, and had been riding the wave of my Master's Program until I "figured it out." I've been doing AI LLM system creation, graphic design, social media marketing... and assumed I would just follow the natural progression of an entrepreneur or an agency worker.
Then, I discovered Digital Analytics. Suddenly, it all made sense. Linking cause and effect, studying numbers, tracking statistics... it was like everything clicked. In a class that could be seen as overwhelming, I found direction. See, I'm one of those people that want everything to have a purpose, and every decision needs to be made with every piece of information possible. In an almost counter-intuitive way, having more information makes me overthink less. I've always found peace in finding information in the little details, so being introduced to Digital Analytics has helped me find focus in this new venture after school.
With regard to the ever-developing world of AI and its influence on digital marketing, I have been independently working on LLM systems that can recognize deep levels of economic and societal analysis based on a 95-point persona template. There are also other behavioral analysis systems that I am working on that I believe could change the way aging systems prospect and support organic and PPC campaigns. I bring that up to say that learning more about Digital Analytics has offered an avenue for me to utilize my developing systems in order to benefit organizations.
In these seemingly-hopeless times of employment uncertainty and AI advancement, focusing on how to learn and implement AI should be on the forefront of any digital marketer. I'm not going to say that what's happening is right, I'm just going to say that its a new wave of technology that we can't stop - our only option is to learn to adapt.
Man, that seems depressing, right?
Not neccesarily. That's where learning the importance of Digital Analytics comes in. When using systems like GA4 and BigQuery, those systems don't create themselves. When creating individualized campaigns and creative directions, AI can't speak to genuine human emotions. A team of marketers aren't going to strictly rely on numbers on a screen to tell them their mission, they're going to need a leader who understands and can teach what it all means.
A calculator didn't make math irrelevant any more than AI can make human understanding outdated. That's the biggest takeaway I have from this course. Sure, people can use AI to have discussions, and anyone can prompt an AI system. Does the person typing it know what all of the results mean? When it comes time to translate how a 7% increase in web traffic at 120% closing quota results in a specific number of sales, can they capitalize on the trend? If a company's target demographic is most active during a specific time of day, will they know how to divide budgets between messages during the same timeframe? If indirect web traffic was due to an increase of internal key search phrases, would they know how to translate that to social media content?
As far as how learning these lessons have influenced my overall direction, it has helped me see where I was shortsighted in my previous analysis of my case study company's actual needs. I will need to apply a more individualized approach to their needs specifically. Before, I was looking at generalized metrics, and not diving deeper into the information available. Learning the depth of Digital Analytics has opened my eyes to how much more specific and individualized I can approach some of my suggested campaigns.
As mentioned in the previous paragraphs, I have found that there were many areas I only looked at from a surface level without a deeper understanding of how the numbers interacted with each other. I've found areas where my projected sales amounts were inaccurate, web traffic unrealistic, etc. Learning Digital Analytics has helped me not only as a student, but how I will approach my career moving forward. Learning this month has only strengthened my resolve to continue to adapt to the growing and ever-changing market.
To close, Digital Analytics separates the wheat from the chaff. Knowing the numbers is one thing. Knowing what to do with them is another.
