Want to make your customer data work harder for your business?
You are not alone. Every company is looking to deepen its understanding of customers. The more you understand your customers’ needs and expectations, the higher your conversion rates and lifetime value will be.
Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Here’s the problem:
Most companies are drowning in customer data but cannot find alignment between the data they analyze and business outcomes.
Analytics are not a destination, they are a journey.
Alignment between business goals and customer journey analytics is key if you want to make a real impact with your data investments. In this article, we will take a look at why Business Goals & Analytics Alignment Matters, The Current State of Customer Journey Analytics, and what Strategies Can Work.
Here’s what we will cover:
- Why Business Goals & Analytics Alignment Matters
- The Current State of Customer Journey Analytics
- Real-World Strategies That Work
Why Business Goals & Analytics Alignment Matters
Aligning your business goals to customer journey analytics provides significant benefits for your organization. If you are still operating in the discovery phase of connecting analytics to business goals, here are three things you need to know.
Drive Measurable Business Impact
Customer journey analytics is one of the best ways to deliver your bottom line results. If you are serious about growing your business in 2023, take the time to align analytics to business goals.
Why? Because when analytics are connected to business outcomes you can track and understand how customer interactions influence revenue.
Your performance increases when you build more strategic insights from platforms like the Quantum Journey analysis tool that Google and the C-Suite already trust.
And as you know…
Better analytics alignment = More measurable business impact.
Let’s take a look at some interesting market data. 65% of senior executives believe that using Artificial Intelligence and predictive analytics will be a leading growth driver in 2025.
Successful companies are achieving two things when they align their analytics:
- Their business goals are more easily attainable through data driven decisions.
- Their customer insights can be translated directly into revenue growth.
It all makes sense when you think about it. Strategic alignment with business goals is one of the most effective ways to drive ROI on your analytics investments and business performance.
Build Executive Buy-In & Trust
Analytics alignment can be a great way to connect your analytics insights to what the C-Suite is thinking.
The easiest way to think of analytics alignment is like building a bridge between departments. Leaders want to know that their analytics investments are moving the needle for business before they are willing to dedicate additional resources to data initiatives.
How do executives know their analytics are adding value? They see direct connections between customer journey insights and business outcomes. This is the single most effective way to build executive confidence and ongoing support.
If your analytics team can deliver insights that link directly to business goals, this will add credibility to your team across the organization.
Optimize Resource Allocation
Resource optimization is one of the best benefits of business goals and analytics alignment.
There are two primary ways in which analytics alignment will make you more efficient. First, your analytics effort will become more targeted and focused, and you will get better insights with less wasted effort. Your team will get a significant productivity boost because they are now working on the right problems.
The second part of resource optimization is that teams are more likely to act on insights that connect directly to business goals. When business and analytics goals are aligned this creates more:
- Implementation of recommendations
- Actual business improvements
The result is a win-win-win situation.
Alignment means your analytics insights connect directly to business outcomes. This ensures that everyone who sees those insights understands their value. When you are building your analytics, your primary focus should be on customer analytics that connect to specific business metrics with clear action items.
The Current State of Customer Journey Analytics
Customer journey analytics alignment is different from traditional reporting and metrics. Most businesses need customer journey insights that connect to specific business outcomes.
Specific business goals include connecting data to:
- Revenue goals
- Customer acquisition targets
- Retention objectives
- Operational efficiency metrics
The most challenging aspect of customer journey analytics alignment is that those insights are often isolated from business planning efforts. The secret sauce to success with customer journey analytics is to ensure your insights directly support strategic decision making.
Real-World Strategies That Work
Now we get into my favorite part…telling you about the exact strategies that successful companies use to align their customer journey analytics with business goals.
Use Advanced Journey Analysis Tools
This is an analytics alignment strategy that is more technology focused…
When it comes to aligning customer analytics with business objectives… Technology is your best friend.
Here’s why: The easiest way to create connections between customer journey insights and business outcomes is to use analytics platforms that offer actionable business intelligence. Advanced platforms allow companies to transform complex customer data into clear, strategic guidance that supports business decision-making directly.
Advanced platforms like these help you to:
- Track customer behavior across all touchpoints
- Connect journey insights to revenue outcomes
- Identify optimization opportunities that drive business results
The secret to this approach is ensuring your analytics platform provides business context, and not just data visualization.
Connect Analytics to Revenue Metrics
This is my personal favorite alignment strategy…
Here’s how it works: Start by identifying your top business priorities and revenue goals.
You then want to map customer journey insights directly to these business outcomes. Why? The reason that executives support analytics initiatives is that they can see clear connections to business results.
Market research backs up this approach. 83% of marketing leaders now consider demonstrating ROI as their number one priority. This is a huge increase from the 68% who considered it a top priority just five years ago.
Once you have business priorities mapped out, it’s time to connect journey insights to those goals. Create dashboards and reports that show changes in customer behavior impact revenue, and clear ROI metrics for analytics initiatives.
Implement Cross-Department Collaboration
Cross-department collaboration may be the easier alignment strategy you are looking for.
Most analytics insights are created by data teams but need to be implemented by other departments. The value proposition is simple here — you create insights that teams will actually use and in exchange, those departments help you understand business priorities.
So how do you build cross-department collaborative relationships?
My two favorite strategies for building effective cross-department alignment are:
- Regular strategy sessions with business stakeholders
- Shared goals and metrics across departments
Regular Strategy Sessions
Regular strategy sessions help you understand current business priorities and ensure your analytics work supports those objectives. You can build these sessions around quarterly planning sessions or monthly business reviews.
Simple right? It works because you remain connected to shifting business needs.
Shared Goals and Metrics
Shared goals are a strategy for aligning analytics team objectives with broader business metrics. This creates natural alignment and collaboration because everyone is working towards the same business goals.
Bringing Everything Together
Business goals and customer journey analytics alignment is no longer optional if you want to have a competitive advantage in 2023. Analytics without business alignment is like playing a video game without understanding what your objectives are.
With 90% of international CEOs stating that data analytics has improved their ability to deliver customer service, companies that do not tie their analytics to business goals are already behind.
The most successful approach is to syndicate multiple alignment strategies together. When you blend technology, revenue focus, and cross-department collaboration, you create a system for turning customer insights into business results.
The time and effort it takes to properly align analytics will require some investment. The question you need to ask yourself is this — How much more are you willing to invest without understanding your analytics efforts drive real business value?