Dealing with scattered marketing data, Anastasia Hamel turned to Databox to offer a holistic view of Deeplite’s marketing performance. The result? An improved workflow, significant time savings, and positive feedback from the board.
It’s no secret that today, companies that leverage data most effectively have a significant competitive advantage. But having data isn’t the problem. The real challenge is turning data into actionable insights.
This is something Anastasia Hamel knows a lot about. As the Marketing Manager at Deeplite, a Canadian AI software startup, data is the core of her marketing strategy. “I take data seriously. If I want to test things – to see how this or that works – I need access to data in real-time, be able to explain it and deliver it to others” says Anastasia.
When Anastasia joined Deeplite, she had a big task on her hands: setting up the marketing infrastructure from scratch, which involved creating a robust reporting process. Like many companies, Deeplite used various channels for marketing, and putting all that data together was extremely time-consuming. “It’s quite tricky to combine data from different marketing channels and make sense of them,” says Anastasia.
Since Deeplite hadn’t been using any reporting tools, Anastasia went looking for a solution that could centralize all her marketing data and present it in a way that made sense for executives and board members – without spending hours on reporting or blowing the budget on an expensive setup.
Throughout Anastasia’s career, she faced many challenges with reporting. “I’ve worked in small, medium, and large teams, and the problem remains the same everywhere. Reports consume an enormous amount of time. And often, no one really understands the data. There might be one person who can explain it, but the visualization is usually not great,” she explains.
When exploring solutions, Anastasia considered several options. “To name a few, there are spreadsheets,” she noted. “Excel is a powerful tool, but for spreadsheet reporting, it’s a manual pain. Google Data Studio takes a lot of time to set up, and Tableau is super expensive and requires a high level of proficiency. The latter two options are also limited in terms of integrating different data sources into one comprehensive picture.”
Upon a colleague’s recommendation, Anastasia decided to try Databox. “I just fell in love,” she expresses. “It’s the easiness of the user interface, the ability to create custom metrics and add various sources.”
When introducing Databox at Deeplite, Anastasia started by exploring the Public Template library. “Having dashboard templates was very useful. I got several templates and used them to create my own dashboards,” she shared. Using the drag-and-drop interface, she also experimented with the different ways she could visualize the data. “On several occasions, I was looking at how to visualize the data best. I would just drop things around”.
Her main focus was creating a dashboard for executives that provided a high-level view of the marketing funnel. Anastasia used the visualizations in Databox to highlight key metrics like sessions, new visitors, MQLs, and new subscribers. For her own tracking, she also created additional drilldown dashboards that provided a deeper analysis of social media engagement on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter.
To make data a more regular part of her routine, Anastasia created monthly snapshots that would automatically send her updated visuals of her dashboards. “I send myself monthly snapshots. But, I always want to go back and check on things. So, now and then I check all the dashboards. I naturally want to know what’s happening. So I’ll go through all the numbers,” she explains.
She also shares real-time dashboards with her boss and CEO. “It’s easier for them to understand everything because they don’t have to check numbers here and compare them to a table. It also updates itself. Whenever they look at it, it’s showing a new time frame,” she adds.
Before using Databox, addressing additional questions about the data used to be a time-intensive process for Anastasia. She would spend approximately three days pulling together visuals and insights. With Databox, she can now create new dashboards in just a couple of hours. “Being in a startup and juggling all sorts of things, I don’t have enough hours in the day. I appreciate very much that I don’t have to spend all my time on reporting. I can just pull out the snapshot and show everyone what’s happening in marketing at Deeplite today,” she notes. The time saved allows her to prioritize strategic tasks over tedious reporting tasks.
Beyond time savings, Anastasia now effortlessly shares comprehensive updates with the board and team. The positive feedback she received emphasized the clear, easy-to-understand visuals Databox provides. “We are a small, early-stage startup, and it’s rare to see such a comprehensive overview. With Databox, the board can quickly and clearly see everything they need. It’s made a difference in how we present our data.”