Data is expansive and complex but, when you take a step back, it’s only ever one of two things: qualitative or quantitative.
Qualitative data is generally nonnumerical and exploratory, while quantitative data can be measured and expressed using numbers. One is conceptual, and the other conclusive.
Qualitative data is generally nonnumerical and exploratory, while quantitative data can be measured and expressed using numbers. One is conceptual, and the other conclusive.
So, for example, let’s look at you. If we were to judge you quantatively, we’d look at your height and weight, how much money you make or your IQ score. To understand you from a more qualitative perspective, we might look at the street you live on or the colour of your hair – factors that are more descriptive and less numerical.
The point of quantitative data is to gather data points in measurable, numerical form. In digital marketing, a common source for this type of data is Google Analytics which gives very defined statistics when it comes to the number of people who visit your site and the percentage of those people who convert into leads, for example.
An example of a qualitative marketing source, however, might be an open-ended customer survey where the user can share their common pain points or highlight product features that are interesting to them. Opinions and motivations. This helps you to explore more in-depth ideas.
Both data types have their uses and both have their place in a fully-rounded digital marketing strategy. In fact, they can be particularly useful when used together. This is because the quantitative data usually answers the ‘what’, but not the ‘why’.
Both data types have their uses and both have their place in a fully-rounded digital marketing strategy.
You can learn how many users clicked on your site, but not why. Or you can find out the open rate of your email but nothing about the word or phrase in your subject line that inspired the open.
Without the qualitative side of data research, you risk misinterpreting the information and creating narrative fallacies. You might think ‘The bounce rate on this page is really high. That’s probably because the image isn’t very attractive.’ This is a baseless conclusion that could lead to time (and money!) wasted getting new hero images for all your pages. Instead, the issue could be your tracking, or the page’s headline, or a million other things you haven’t even considered.
When it comes to improving your site or optimising your strategy, misinterpreting data undermines your efforts. Assumptions or ‘intuition’ are not your friends – don’t trust them.
So, what do you do?
Mix up your methods, and then use your data research to generate theories, which you can then either prove or disprove through testing.
The real beauty of mixed methods (combining qualitative and quantitative data research) is that you can gain deeper insight into your findings and better understand the contradictions between them.
By integrating both quantitative and qualitative data, you also mirror the way individuals naturally collect information. If we’re looking for the results of a football match, for example, they’d be presented as the final scores (quantitative) alongside match highlights or images from the game (qualitative), providing a more complete history of what happened. Both types of data inform and support the other.
By integrating both quantitative and qualitative data, you also mirror the way individuals naturally collect information.
Once you’ve gathered your data through various quantitative and qualitative means, your job is to sift through – and organise – it. The data with the highest potential value should be tested or implemented first.
And this cycle should be repeated, and repeated, because there’s always something new to learn about your audience and how to optimise your processes. If you use this information wisely, and effectively combine qualitative and quantitative data, you’ll be able to translate this more meaningful understanding of your data into more revenue – and it doesn’t take an Analyst to see the benefits of that!
Photo by William Iven on Unsplash