You probably know that Business Intelligence (BI) is crucial to your business’s overall success. BI has the ability to turn raw data into actionable information that you can use to fuel your business-building efforts and to effectively share those efforts throughout your organization. Whether your goals are to increase sales, track trends, gain an edge on your competition or simply to improve brand recognition, BI can help.

It’s simple: data can show you where you’re succeeding as a business, where you can improve and how you can nurture your vital relationships. However, most businesses aren’t getting a clear picture of their data, and it can have detrimental effects on their growth. If this sounds familiar, read on.

In order to make sure you’re getting the most out of your data, it’s imperative that you have a comprehensive view of every aspect of your funnel, from marketing to sales to revenue to customer retention. And if you’re struggling to use BI to your advantage, it could be because you’re making one (or more) of the three most common data analysis mistakes:

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1. You aren’t actually tracking the full funnel.

If you’re only keeping tabs on a few sales metrics, you’re doing it wrong. No matter how fundamental sales are for your organization, they’re only one small piece of the puzzle that you’ll need to complete before you’re effectively utilizing your data. To combat this nearsightedness, we recommend making a list of your goals for each step of the funnel, and then determining what KPIs you’ll need to measure those goals. If that process feels overwhelming, take a look at these examples to get you thinking about what metrics you may be missing out on:

• Marketing: MQL:SQL Ratio by Channel, Cost of Customer Acquisition, Leads, Unique Website Visitors, Closing Rate, Total Conversion Rate
• Sales: Opportunity-Close Ratio for Large ($100k+) Deals vs. Previous Quarter, Average Purchase Value, Monthly Sales Bookings, Monthly Sales Growth, Sales By Contact Method
• Revenue: Revenue vs. Forecast YOY, Recurring Revenue Rate, Average Revenue Per User, Gross Profitability
• Retention: Churn by Cohort, Repeat Customer Rate, Average Order Value, Customer Lifetime Value, Customer Retention Rate

Once you’re sure that your funnel dataset is complete, you can start utilizing BI tools or manual reporting to establish a single source of truth and ensure that your entire organization is on the same page.

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‍2. You aren’t digging into the details.

Some companies are content to simply stick with high-level metrics—usually because they’re the easiest to calculate—and aren’t willing to take the time to dig a little deeper. This is a mistake, because lingering solely on the surface can mean that you’re missing out on key information. For example, you need to know your basic sales number; but you can also gain a lot of insight into your business by tracking Sales by Channel Month-Over-Month. And while it’s important to keep tabs on your conversion to revenue rates, you run the potential of missing out on key revenue sources if you don’t bother to track conversion within every specific channel.

Macro-level metrics are useful for gaining overall information about your organization as a whole, while micro-level metrics can track the effectiveness of more strategic objectives. Simply put, the deeper you go, the higher your chances of gaining insights that will help you accomplish your goals will be. Because of this, full-funnel analytics are well worth the time and effort you’ll spend building them out.

To help with this, keep in mind that the main KPI associated with each goal probably shouldn’t be the only metric that you’re tracking. Always think about what supporting metrics will help you better understand the details.

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3. You’re too focused on one part of the funnel.

Maybe you’ve taken a deep dive into your data—but only on one aspect of your funnel. If you’re fully equipped with information about your sales and revenue, but have no idea what’s going with your retention or marketing strategies, you’re unlikely to get the results you need to truly succeed.

If you relate to this problem, it’s time to take a closer look at your goals by mapping out each part of your funnel. Make a list of your current goals and metrics and manually sort them into the following categories:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Revenue
• Retention

This should provide you with a visual representation of the gaps in your data, and help you decide where you should focus on your attention. For instance, if sales has 14 metrics, but revenue has only two, you should have a tighter grasp on what data need to start gathering. Listing your goals should provide you with a stepping-off point to help you understand what data is missing and how you can obtain it.

If you relate to one of these common mistakes, or if you’re wondering what other steps you can take to make your data analysis more effective, we’d be happy to help. Get a complete view of your funnel and all its data by visiting Grow.com/Demo