I recently had the opportunity to take the stage at Google Cloud Next to talk about “How SMBs Use Data to Drive Value and Profitability Using Looker” (there’s plenty of info here if you’re interested).

For me, it was a great exercise to reflect on the power of centralized data – for our team and for our clients. Whether you’re a brand or an agency, having access to centralized data is truly a game-changer for your marketing efforts. While this particular presentation focused on Looker, the platform you choose – assuming you’ve done your research to find the best fit – is less important than the client and team benefits you get from having your data in one place.

Before I get into those benefits, a bit of personal history: I spent my first 16(!) years at DMi working on client accounts. In 2022, we decided to make our reporting a company strength that would lift performance across account teams, for our entire client portfolio, and my position as VP of Analytics & Marketing Intelligence was born.

In the roughly two years since, it’s clear that this decision was a smart one – not least because of the centralized data source we’ve established.

The first big benefit of having a centralized data source is that it standardizes tons of important initiatives across teams: dashboards, reports, outputs, even vocabulary. Before we committed to Looker, our reporting was spread across platforms like Excel, PPT, Power BI, Looker Studio, and more – basically according to team preference. With Looker, we consolidated almost all of our analytics into a common dashboarding tool that placed all visualizations that an Account Manager might need into a single place, meaning they could easily export visualizations to share with their client instead of hopping from report to report across multiple other reporting platforms.

The second big benefit is that you can (and should) choose the platform that best addresses the needs of your audience – which, in our case, was account teams who could save time and get cleaner, more actionable insights to benefit their clients with centralized reporting. As I mentioned, I spent 16 years on client accounts, so I had a good base of understanding of what clients need and want. That said, it’s crucial, when you’re researching products, not just to understand who your main audience is but what their needs and challenges are. Make sure you’re conducting surveys, interviews, and open-ended brainstorm sessions; you may find yourself, as I did, discarding many of the assumptions you had going into the research stage.

The third big benefit is happier, higher-performing clients who will stay with the agency longer. The reasons for this are two-fold: 1) our teams spend less time on reporting and more time on things like partnerships, optimization, and strategy; 2) our clients get access to reporting they can actually digest and use in their strategic planning. One big example of this is that thanks to Looker, our affiliate clients, many of whom list new-customer acquisition as their most important KPI, now have one clear view of that KPI, including a breakdown by source. That data existed before, but it was spread across platforms and very under-referenced.

I’ve known for years that DMi’s commitment to partnership with our clients and our approach to account management is elite. I’m proud to say now that we’re building an analytics and data function that makes our whole team even stronger, with client results as proof. If you’re interested in learning more about how we get more out of our clients’ data and give our account teams even more time and space to shine, drop us a line at info@dmipartners.com.