If you logged into Universal Analytics today you were likely greeted by this message:On July 1, 2023, this property will stop processing data. Starting in March 2023, for continued website measurement, migrate your original property settings to a Google Analytics 4 (GA4) property, or they'll be copied for you to an existing GA4 property, reusing existing site tags.If you haven't yet read anything about GA4, that message might have scared the tuna salad out of you. Universal Analytics is going away forever. It's a big deal. If you haven't made the switch yet, it's time.   This blog post is a great place to start: "What Marketers Need To Know About Switching to GA4 [Google Analytics 4]" blog post. It will walk you through what GA4 is, what happens to your old data, and what you need to do to get started with GA4.  If you have any questions about setting up your new account, drop me and the team a comment! We've been setting up GA4 accounts left and right and will be able to point you in the right direction. 

Mary Brown

February 3 at 09:51pm

Hi. I wasn't sure where to post this and share the link because it touches on so many things. I was working on a white paper about the buying journey to make a case for what I call pre-selling. (This is why I'm so in love with TAYA....it fits perfectly with my approach)I was doing some research looking for things to back up some of my claims and came across this article by Gartner (a big consulting company). They study trends of course and in this article from September 2020, they make the argument that because we've all embraced the internet, traditional sales models are going to be completely upended. They predict "that by 2025, 80% of sales interactions will occur in digital channels."There's an image in this article that I've seen in other Gartner articles that illustrates that (in 2017!) 45% of buyer activities are spent "researching" both online and off. I'm guessing that percentage HAS to have grown by now.Key takeaways for me include...Is HR/OD aware of this and are they supporting the skill growth of their organizations -- tech training, social media as a sales channel, working to address compensation strategy changes as marketing's role rises and traditional sales evolves into more of a solution advisor role...Gartner's forecast should help us make our own cases for a digital first, content-based marketing and sales strategy. User Experience will only become more important and websites need to be developed in alignment with a focus on pre-selling and TAYA...AND aligned with a philosophy of providing solutions, not selling.Here's the article:  Why B2B Sales Needs a Digital-First Approach (gartner.com)

Winnie Anderson

January 30 at 01:56pm

The cover story in a recent issue of Buffalo Business First was "Buffalo's Real Gen Z Problem". Inside there are a series of articles discussing the wants of Gen Z and the challenges of recruiting and retaining them. One important point is that surveys show pay is their prime motivator -- by 20 percentage points over the next important factor. And this generation is smart enough to understand that compensation is more than just money in their paychecks (although it's always the most important element). Other benefits are important to them (especially mental health support), but they're most concerned about balance. They're driven to work to live not live to work so they'll leave a company who's espoused values don't translate into action.I have a subscription to the Buffalo edition of Business First. Business First is a business-centric newspaper that comes out once a week in major metro areas. If you're interested in finding the one for your city or metro area try googling the city + "business journal" and you should find something. I live just north of Niagara Falls and 30 minutes north of Buffalo.

Winnie Anderson

January 19 at 02:16pm

I stumbled on this article and wanted to share it in case others are interested in focusing TAYA on the candidate/employee experience. The survey was conducted by the Ken Blanchard organization.The top 4 challenges are:1. Capacity and Resources - specifically the challenge to continue to learn while struggling to get stuff done2. Retention and Attrition -- 75% believe it will be harder to hire great people and 79% believe they're going to lose their best people (yikes!).3. Improving Engagement and Experience -- specifically connecting leadership with the employee experience.4. Adapting to a Hybrid Culture -- helping everyone feel connected to each other and to the organizationThese are all issues that can be addressed with great content. And of course any organization that embraces the transparency required to address the Big 5 as they relate to the candidate and the employee experience is at least moving in the right direction. Culture is more than just communicating clearly and sharing information honestly but it's an important start. Here's the full article if you want to check it out:  https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2022/12/20/top-challenges-for-ld-leaders-in-2023/

Winnie Anderson

January 17 at 02:23pm

I came across an interesting stat when doing some UX research recently: 35% of SaaS sites fail to make the service’s UI sufficiently prominent to prospects.If people are researching a SaaS or digital subscription service that is going to be part of their regular routine, they'll want to get an idea of what it would be like to actually use it. Seems like a no brainer, right?Yet, according to Baymard's research, 35% of SaaS and digital subscription sites fail to provide sufficient visual information. Failing to provide visual depictions of the service UI, whether via videos, demos, or GIFs, can hurt your bottom line. The study found that users who lack sufficient visual information for one service are likely to explore alternative services. Said differently, those users might end up on your competitor's website. So let us know in the comments—how do you showcase your SaaS UI on your website? What has been effective for your company? 

Mary Brown

December 13 at 03:48pm

This is a question my team was asking this week. Since we were wondering about it, we figured some of you might be, too! Let's dive in.Cookie scanning is a new beta offered by HubSpot. Reminder: Super admins can join betas by navigating to your portal dropdown > selecting Product Updates and > clicking Betas under Early Access.Here are the descriptions offered by HubSpot:  What is it?HubSpot’s cookie scanner detects and categorizes all the cookies on your website and can block them until visitors have given their consent. Use it to prevent cookies from dropping on website visitors’ browsers before they accept your cookie banner. This feature allows the HubSpot cookie banner to manage all external and third-party cookies (and not only those belonging to HubSpot).Prefer a guided walkthrough? Check out this 4-minute video!Why does it matter?As global data privacy laws continue to evolve, businesses need to be increasingly careful about how they track website visitors. Many laws (most popularly, GDPR) require all non-essential cookies to be blocked prior to a visitor’s consent.Without cookie scanning, HubSpot’s cookie banner can only manage HubSpot cookies and cookies dropped by native integrations (like social pixels and Google Analytics). Use this cookie scanner to block all of the cookies on your website prior to consent to align with data privacy best practices.You've seen us write about the increasing concern for user privacy before, like here, where it relates to Google Analytics 4, and you will see it come up again. As HubSpot noted, data privacy is going to continue changing and every business must be vigilant.How is your business staying on top of data privacy changes? Do you have any user privacy concerns? 

Mary Brown

November 23 at 03:58pm