Transform Your Small Business with Analytics Insights from Expert Philippa Gamse

In this episode of the Talk About Digital Podcast, host Mark A Preston is joined by analytics expert Philippa Gamse to demystify the world of website analytics for small business owners. Philippa, an experienced digital strategist, shares her insights on how to make analytics work for you—no tech jargon, no complicated graphs, just actionable advice that helps you make smarter business decisions.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by analytics dashboards or unsure of where to begin, this episode is tailored to give you clarity. Philippa explains how small businesses can use analytics to understand customer behaviour, improve their website’s effectiveness, and ultimately, grow their customer base.

Key Insights for Small Business Owners:

• Focus on What Matters: Philippa breaks down the overwhelming world of analytics into manageable steps. She explains how to identify the metrics that actually matter to your business goals, so you’re not wasting time on irrelevant data.
• Finding Your Ideal Customers: Discover how to use analytics to pinpoint where your best leads are coming from, ensuring your marketing budget goes towards attracting customers who are genuinely interested in your services.
• Make Data-Driven Decisions: Philippa reveals how data can reveal hidden opportunities for growth. From understanding the search terms customers use to find your products, to recognising patterns in customer behaviour, this episode shows you how to use analytics as a powerful market research tool.
• Avoid Common Pitfalls: Analytics can be overwhelming, but Philippa offers practical advice on avoiding common mistakes. Learn how to make informed choices without getting lost in endless charts and reports.

What Will You Gain by Listening?

This episode provides clear, jargon-free guidance on how to use analytics to inform your business strategy. Philippa’s approach makes it easy for any small business owner to understand and use data effectively, helping you make confident decisions that drive growth. Whether you’re new to analytics or looking to make better use of your data, Philippa’s insights will empower you to run your business more efficiently.

TAD Takeaway: Philippa’s golden advice is simple—know what you want to achieve. Start by mapping out your business goals, then use analytics to track progress and adapt as needed. This clarity ensures that every marketing action is meaningful and customer-focused.

If you’re ready to take control of your business analytics and turn data into growth, this episode is a must-listen!

Connect with Philippa Gamse:

Website: https://websitesthatwin.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philippagamse/

Connect with the Host - Mark A Preston:

Website: https://www.markapreston.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markprestonseo/
X: https://x.com/MarkPreston1969
Mark's Latest Book: Customer Growth Unlocked

This podcast is produced by Voice It Podcast Agency
https://voiceitpodcastagency.co.uk

Transcript

[00:00:00] Mark A Preston: Welcome to Talk About Digital, the podcast for small and medium sized businesses looking to grow new customers through impactful, low cost digital marketing strategies. Have you invested in digital marketing with zero positive impact? If this sounds like you, then this is the place for you. Each week we provide actionable steps to move your business forward with our TAD takeaway, helping you to harness your biggest asset yourself to achieve big impact with minimal investment.

[00:00:36] Stay tuned as we dive into the world of digital marketing, offering insights and advice that will transform your business. Let's get started. Welcome to this week's episode of the Talk About Digital podcast. And today we have a fantastic guest. She has helped over 5, 000 businesses unlock hidden profits and save costs and without major website overhauls.

[00:01:01] Her expertise in digital marketing strategy and analytics has led to simple, actionable insights to drive real results. Known for her clear, Jargon free advice. Her approach helps businesses stop wasting resources and make smarter decisions. She's a published author, certified management consultant, and the business school faculty member across three continents.

[00:01:30] Please welcome Philippa Games. Thank you, Mark. Wow. That was my version. So for the audience, could you give us a bit of a whirlwind tour of how you become what you're known for now? 

[00:01:45] Philippa Gamse: Well, so, uh, I guess I would have to admit I've been doing this for a while. Um, and I was one of the first people to say that I thought analytics was absolutely important.

[00:01:55] Um, and especially as a woman, um, so I don't know how many of your listeners are women, but you know, we, in my field, it's still quite a male dominated world. And, um, I'm really excited to be doing this, uh, and to bring more women into the conversation. 

[00:02:12] Mark A Preston: Um, all for diversity and, you know, why not, you know, because it is.

[00:02:19] It's an industry where we are all different, you know, we are all changeable and, you know, we can move forward, but I want to start off by talking about an elephant in the room type of scenario that, well, I'm not sure what you found, but over the years, when I've worked with small business owners, they just see analytics.

[00:02:43] As a graph, so let's start the conversation by talking about, well, the value of what analytics and how it helps their businesses. 

[00:02:54] Philippa Gamse: Yeah, and I know you're absolutely right. And one of the big problems with analytics is there's so much data that can be totally overwhelming and you know, the, you log in and you see all these charts and graphs and things and you glaze over and you get out as quickly as possible.

[00:03:08] Um, and I totally appreciate that. And so, um, as we talked about before we started the recording, one of my goals is to help business owners understand this from a non techie perspective. business perspective. And the point of that is, look, you can get somebody to read those charts and graphs for you. But as a business owner, um, if you've got a website and you're not having either yourself or anybody looking at your analytics, you're, you, you're pretty much shooting in the dark with what you've invested into that website.

[00:03:38] Cause you honestly don't know what's going on. You can look at it and you can say, Oh, that looks pretty. And I don't like that anymore or whatever, but it doesn't mean anything in terms of understanding how your visitors are responding to your site. What's working, what's not working, you know, and the truth is you could be losing opportunities to grow your business.

[00:03:57] Because you're not aware of that. Or, and you could be spending money on stuff that isn't working, like ad campaigns or whatever that, or social media, you know, that aren't working. And again, not really understand why. Um, so I'd, I'd really encourage you. I mean, like I say, you don't have to do it yourself.

[00:04:16] If you can get somebody who can at least set you up some reports that will, you know, You know, you nowadays, you can make reports that will automatically refresh themselves so you can see what's going on. And, and you can also, we've, we're hearing about a lot, a lot about ai, but you know, you can, you can connect your, your analytics to, or, or send it to AI and say, just, just make me, tell me what this means, , right Now, I'm not saying that that replaces me, so that.

[00:04:40] It will tell you at a basic level what it means. Obviously, somebody who's more of an expert will be able to put it into specific context of your business. But, um, yeah, it's, if you haven't dived into analytics yet, I, I would really encourage your listeners to think about 

[00:04:55] Mark A Preston: it. So as an analytics pro, as you are, just so the audience understands, where do you fit into analytics?

[00:05:05] So 

[00:05:06] Philippa Gamse: I'm, I'm a digital marketing strategist as, as, or even a digital business strategist as well as an analyst. So, you know, I use the data from analysis to, to inform me, but you know, I'm not somebody that's just going to tell you how many visitors you got and whether that was more than last time. Right.

[00:05:24] Because the value that somebody like me can bring is, is the so what, and that's where I, as I say, I think the AI maybe isn't there yet. But cause you know, you can, you can get all sorts of nice numbers and make you feel good or maybe make you feel bad. Um, but the point is, what do I do about it? Does it matter?

[00:05:41] Right. And specifically in my business with the kind of audience or target market or products that I have, what do I do? Not just generic advice. But, you know, what does that mean for me? 

[00:05:54] Mark A Preston: Yeah, I want to share a very quick story here. A while ago, I was hosting a training event with a room full of small businesses.

[00:06:03] And we went over analytics, nothing in big detail, but we touched upon it. And somebody just turned around to me and said, Oh my goodness, I've been targeting the wrong people for the past 12 And that, they didn't realize that until somebody showed them what to look for. And I think with analytics, what sort of things should small businesses be looking for in their analytics?

[00:06:33] Philippa Gamse: So, you know, the key to this, and this is why business owners need to be in the conversation and not just leave it to your, your agency or whatever, the point is what's your business about and what's it trying to do? Cause that's where you've got to start. Okay. So with your website. What is it that you want the website to do for you?

[00:06:51] What is it you want visitors to do as a result of seeing your content or hopefully your calls to action or whatever it might be, that's the key. Because what the analytics needs to do is to tell you whether that's happening. Um, and if it is happening, where is it happening and can you do more of it? And if it's not happening, you know, can you start figuring out why not?

[00:07:11] And so, you know, the story you just told where your audience member had the wrong target audience. You know, so for example, I guess that person looked at the report that tells you, uh, geographically where visitors come from. And so, you know, if your business targets a specific geographic area, uh, like you're a local business, you're really local and you don't have any needs or ambition to, to Increase that.

[00:07:37] Then you only want to market to that small area as far as possible, right? You don't want to be spending a ton of money on, on a leads or, or visitors that, that absolutely can't do business with you unless there may be a source of referral for somebody that's in your target area. So, so even basic stuff, like where do your visitors come from?

[00:07:54] So which ad campaigns are bringing you the most people if, if, uh, if you're running ads? And not only the most people, but the people, the most people who turn out to be good visitors, i. e. more likely to convert. Right. And, and you can, you can find these things out. And, uh, as I say, if it's a little difficult to get started with it, you can get somebody to help you get started.

[00:08:15] But these are the kinds of insights that you can get. And then obviously you can start getting a whole lot deeper than that. Um, but even at a, a, a very basic level, you can start getting useful information. 

[00:08:26] Mark A Preston: Yeah, I describe it as, well, your analytics allows you to make informed business decisions moving forward.

[00:08:36] Are you in that sort of mindset as well? 

[00:08:38] Philippa Gamse: Yes, absolutely. And, and, you know, as I said, if, if you are a little more, um, advanced, um, you know, I have all sorts of stories about things that we've discovered just like you had, you know, that allowed us People to make a difference. So, um, for example, if you've, if you've actually got a site that has products on it or content, and you've got a lot of products or a lot of content, you probably want to have a search engine on your site so that people can find specific stuff.

[00:09:05] And once you've got that search engine, you've got an amazing market research tool, um, because you can see what people put into that search engine. So this isn't Google. This is your website. A search engine on your website about your content and products only. And now you can see what kind of words people use to describe what they're looking, what, what they think you have.

[00:09:27] Right. Which might be completely different from the words you're using. And especially if your industry is full of jargon, um, well, obviously technology is a big example, but there are plenty of other healthcare, you know, but there were plenty of other areas where people Even maybe you haven't even realized what kind of words you use are just not the words I would use.

[00:09:47] Cause I don't know your industry or your, your area of expertise. Right. Um, and so right there, that gives you insight into how to tailor your content, the way that you talk to your customers and so on. And sometimes you can also find things that they're searching for that you don't currently offer. And again, I've got stories from clients that I've worked with where sometimes we say, you know what, we could offer that.

[00:10:12] Never thought about it. Never thought that the people that we sell to would be interested in that kind of thing. And sometimes that's an information product. Um, but sometimes it is a physical product, right? Um, and Hey, look, we've got interest. Let's do it. 

[00:10:26] Mark A Preston: Yes. I was going to say. You mentioned health industry, then I was mentoring, um, a business in America, in the health industry.

[00:10:37] And they said, Oh, well, you know, the people that's coming to us, we want more. And I said, talk to me, not as a consultant, just talk to me as one of your potential patients. Talk to me. And the words that was coming out was totally different from the conversation. I had them with them before. And I said, Whoa, you mentioned that thing.

[00:11:03] And it's nowhere in your marketing, nowhere on your website and nowhere in your analytics. Oh, well, that's what the audience refers to it as. Yeah. You know, and it's exactly what you're saying there. It's so true. And I think sometimes, especially if you are in a more technical industry, that the analytics can get a little bit.

[00:11:30] Mixed up because you're thinking too much as a technician rather than a customer. 

[00:11:38] Philippa Gamse: Right. But you know, that's also true just about your personality and, and what you like to do business with. Um, for example, an accountant, right. Accountants, uh, you know, I have no idea what accounting is about. I, I, I hate doing my own, my numbers and everything, but you know, obviously I have an accountant, but I've, I've, I've talked with a number of accountants and their websites.

[00:11:59] Um, and so I want my accountants to be approachable. I want to know that they're going to explain it to me in ways that I understand. And I want them to be kind of friendly and easygoing because otherwise it's just going to make my head spin. Right. And so let that come across on your site as well. You know, you want to give people an idea of who, especially if I'm somebody that you're you're trying You're somebody that I'm going to be working with directly as a customer.

[00:12:28] Um, what's that experience 

[00:12:30] Mark A Preston: going to be like? Yeah. So moving the conversation back on to analytics, why do you personally think that many small business owners find analytics so confusing? It is . 

[00:12:46] Philippa Gamse: Sure. You know, um, okay. So, you know, the most, well-known analytics program for small business is obviously Google Analytics, um, which has a, a reasonably new version of it.

[00:12:57] And it can be daunting when you log in. I mean, that's not, let's not, uh, pretend it isn't. Right. There's, at least, I think it's a, at least something like 140 default reports or something. I mean, it's, it's, uh, it can be a little tricky to set up the power of it though. is that you can customize it to do, to really look at your business and your website.

[00:13:19] Um, so, you know, yesterday I, I, uh, have somebody who, who called me and, and they've got a site that sells tickets for shows for their, they do a comedy show and, um, you know, it's got these buttons on that, uh, change. They, it constantly changes the name of the button because it's the name of the next show.

[00:13:41] And they couldn't figure out a way to, um, To track that. And I, I can hopefully help them with that. Right. Um, and that's a completely piece of custom code. Hopefully it's not going to be too expensive cause it's just one, one thing to do, um, but you can get to that level of detail so you can know how much interest there was in this case in each show, um, with a little custom coding and, and, and, and Google Analytics makes that possible.

[00:14:07] So, so, you know, what you might want to do, as I say, is, is get somebody to help you set your. Set it up in the first place, get you familiar with some, some of the reporting, but the power of it that makes it worth your while is that customization where you say, this is what my website is supposed to do.

[00:14:25] This is the audience I want. These are my calls to action because that's what you want to evaluate. You know, how are all those performing? Because what you don't want to be doing is just looking at generic numbers and going, Oh, I really don't know if this is, it looks better. I don't really know if it is just because it's a higher number doesn't mean it's better.

[00:14:43] Right. 

[00:14:44] Mark A Preston: Definitely. I'm all for that. Now let's say they've, they've got the help and the analytics has all set up how it should be. Now, when they log in, what do they want to be looking at? You know, obviously, how do they know that, you know, These numbers relate to the numbers that actually are the target audience or they're not, I mean, just, just an overview explanation very simply of well, how can a non technical person understand what they're looking at.

[00:15:23] Philippa Gamse: So, um, again, you know, I don't want to give a generic answer here because, because what I'm trying What I want to get across is you don't need to look at every single report and you shouldn't because that will completely overwhelm me, right? You shouldn't look at every single metric you can look at. And, and the thing that I really want to get across to people is, you know, think about what you really want to know about your business.

[00:15:46] Think about what you're trying to achieve with that site and, um, what the outcomes that you're looking for are, because that would allow you to formulate some questions that you can then look at the analytics for the, for the answer. So for example, Let's say, well, you know, you're a podcast host, right? So you have a podcast website.

[00:16:07] So a question for you might be, um, how many people look at each podcast? Are there some podcasts or some topics among my podcast content that are more interesting to my audience than others? Uh, and you can do that by looking at. Reports of pages that are viewed or podcasts. And you can even tell for each podcast that you put up on that website, how many people listen to the whole thing?

[00:16:34] How many people listen to the first 10 seconds and give up, you know, because again, that's helpful information to you in terms of what kind of content you want, how you want to structure the content. That, that, that 30 minute segment and so on. So the most important thing that a business owner can do is to, is to know what questions you want to ask.

[00:16:53] What you expect to be or want to be happening on the site. And if it isn't, so people don't go to the key page where you sell your stuff. If it's, you know, it's not the homepage, right? Why not now we're into the, why not? What do I do about it? Um, but unless you, you, you can't just. Log into the tool and expect it to jump out at you with a load of really helpful information.

[00:17:14] Firstly, you've got to think about what, what am I trying to do and what do I need to know? 

[00:17:18] Mark A Preston: Yeah. So, so in the new version of analytics, GA4 as it's named, could a small business owner log in and think, well, there's a search feature there. You know, could they theoretically put in what they're trying to achieve and it will give them some sort of answer?

[00:17:40] Possibly. 

[00:17:40] Philippa Gamse: So that, you know, and yeah, and a good point. And you can actually set up alerts to tell you when some things happen. Um, so you need, you can say, are my sales trending upwards or downwards? And obviously that, that if you're selling directly on the site, are my, one of the things that we measure is how long people spend on the website, which means, you know, That they're engaged by your content.

[00:18:01] So, and, and that's a good sign because one thing we need to remember is that very few people come to a website that sells stuff and immediately buy stuff. First of all, they want to know who you are, what you do. Can you solve my problems? Can I relate to you? Right. So, um, are they spending, if you've got a lot of content, uh, are they spending time looking at my content?

[00:18:22] If you've got a lot of products, are they looking at products? Which products do they look at? Um, if they look at products, do, and I'm, for example, have an e commerce site, do they then put some of those products in the shopping cart? If not, can I figure out why not? And, and by the way, we're talking about a tool like Google Analytics 4?

[00:18:40] That question that I just came to is not one that it can necessarily answer. The why question. So it can tell you how many people did this and where did they go and where did they come from and where do they live and all that good stuff. But, It can't answer that ultimate question of why. So one thing to say is, I just spoke to somebody kind of horrified by this thought, but, you know, at the end of the day, if you think you might know where some of the problem areas are from the data, at some point, you probably actually have to go back to your customers or, or create, you know, a focus group or even ask family and friends who don't know your website very well to, to do things on it or what's going on, what did you like, what's got in your way and actually try to tease out what those problems might be.

[00:19:28] Mark A Preston: Yeah. Wonderful. Well, you've shared so much information so far, but I can't let you go without sharing a tab takeaway. It's one single piece of information. actionable value the small business owners can implement into their business now to help them grow new customers. Now, my question to you is what is your TAD takeaway?

[00:19:56] Philippa Gamse: Um, you know, I think it might be understand your business and I know that sounds crazy. Um, but honestly, when people first come to me and I ask them those questions, you know, what is it you're trying to do? It's amazing that some people really still can't articulate that. So, you know, sit down, get a piece of paper, um, and, and even if, well, whether or not you have analytics or you need to dive into it, just look at your website again, try and look at it with fresh eyes and write down.

[00:20:23] Where are the calls to action? Right? What is it you're asking? In fact, are there calls to action, which is an even better question? You know, what is it you're asking people to do? Where are you asking them to do that? Because that, as we've been talking about, will give you the questions to ask when you actually go to the data.

[00:20:43] And, um, that you need to understand what you're trying to achieve. Otherwise, you just sort of stop. looking at a batch of stuff for no reason. So, you know, just try to do that for a start. So you've really got that down because then if you, if you come, if you hire somebody to help you get it going, and you've got that really clearly delineated, you're going to make their life a whole lot easier.

[00:21:05] Mark A Preston: Fantastic. And yeah, I mean, we all want to make life easier. You know, 

[00:21:11] Philippa Gamse: well, I'm more profitable, more worthwhile for you, obviously. 

[00:21:14] Mark A Preston: Now, my final question to you is what conversations would you like to have with the small business audience and where can they find you? 

[00:21:25] Philippa Gamse: Yes. I mean, I, I'm hoping that I'm not talking too techie and I can do the techie stuff, but what I'm really trying to help people with.

[00:21:33] Small business owners to understand is, is that, you know, this just needn't be really scary. Uh, we can hopefully find some insights for you pretty quickly. And, uh, whether it's me or somebody else, you know, um, I like to have conversations, you know, my favorite question from a business owner. Is Philippa, what do I need to know to run my business better?

[00:21:55] Right. And I'm sure they come to you with that question too, but you're answering it from a slightly different perspective, but from my perspective, what is it I need to know to run my business better? And you know, the word analytics isn't in there. But it's a really great business question. So those are the conversations that I, that I like to have and being able to help people understand how the analytics can then help them to answer that question.

[00:22:18] Mark A Preston: And where can people find you? 

[00:22:20] Philippa Gamse: Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn and I, that's the best place to, uh, to connect with me. And I'm very happy to connect with you. Um, I have a website, which is called websites that win. com. And by the way, on that website, there's an ebook, a free giveaway. Which is called something like five hidden gems.

[00:22:38] It's actually five real life stories from me and my clients, um, where we found something in the analytics that we couldn't possibly have known without that data that has allowed us to make a big change that, and a big, obviously worthwhile change either to the website or to the business as a whole.

[00:22:57] That, that really brought the business, uh, much greater results and, and the idea, and it's a non techie book. They're right. There's no. There's no charts in it. There's no numbers in it. But the idea is to, to give small business owners some sort of inspiration and why I'm hoping that you might read each example and, and it tells you what we look for and how we found the insight and to say, you know what, maybe I should see if that's happening for me.

[00:23:21] Mark A Preston: Do you know what? That's intrigued me. I'm going to now, I'll send, I'll send 

[00:23:27] Philippa Gamse: you the book, Mark. Cause that's no 

[00:23:29] Mark A Preston: way it's intrigued me. But many, many thanks for your time today and joining us on the talk about digital podcast. Thank you. Thank you for tuning into the talk about digital podcast. Remember, every small step you take brings you closer to your business goals.

[00:23:47] If you found today's episode helpful, subscribe to our podcast and sign up to your free 12 week tab, customer growth course@www.talk about digital.co uk to receive even more customer generating tips and in size. Until next time, keep harnessing your. Strengths of making actionable, impactful moves in your digital marketing journey.

[00:24:13] See you soon.