When one data point reshaped a company

In this episode of Datadrivet, Joni Lindgren and Jasmin Yaya tell the story of a WOW moment from data, the kind of single finding that ends up moving budgets and reorganizing teams.

The finding was this. 83% of the visitors to a landing page were already existing customers. The page was the destination for all the paid traffic meant to bring in new customers, which meant a large share of that marketing spend, across several teams and departments, was being aimed at people the company already had.

Joni got there by working the data, then going straight to the source. After analyzing the web data, Joni used Hotjar to put a popup poll on the page asking visitors directly whether they were existing customers. Several thousand responses came back within days. Before taking it to the wider organization, Joni validated the finding with the analytics team.

The implications went deeper than wasted spend. Existing customers were clicking the ads because they wanted more interaction and communication from the brand. That insight fed into how the company reorganized, splitting into multiple product teams, one focused on acquiring new customers and another on serving existing ones. A single data point ended up touching org structure, budget allocation and the priorities of multiple teams.

The takeaway is that the strongest insights are often the ones that contradict what everyone assumed, and the discipline is to validate them and then follow them all the way through to a decision.

Listen to the full episode of Datadrivet for the full story behind the finding. The hosts invite listeners to share their own WOW moments from data on LinkedIn.