Rolling Up Analytics Rock Stars: Cardinal Path CEO Andrew Swinand (Part 6)

Sramana: Today we have to market through so many different channels that we can be overwhelmed. The basic version of Google Analytics actually does not provide a lot of insight. They have very vague reporting of what is happening and where the traffic is coming from or what path it is following.

Andrew Swinand: Google Analytics Premium has robust methods for tracking, but there is still a problem a lot of times because people do not know how to deploy it. Only 18% of the functionality gets used. Google pays us to consult with them to help them develop Google Analytics. They have outsourced all training and SEO of Google Analytics to Cardinal Path. We are training about 5,000 people a year for Google.

The interesting thing is that attribution is a free functionality of Google Analytics. Most people do not have the horsepower on staff to take any action based on that data. They don’t know how to integrate the data, which means they do not have clean data. It becomes impossible to use.

Sramana: What was the third industry trend that you wanted to mention?

Andrew Swinand: The third trend we see concerns the ability to integrate offline. We have formed a partnership with MarketShare to perform online and offline attribution and to understand the impact of upper funnel metrics via digital behavior. We have found that 96% of marketers are still performing and optimizing on last click. Once you get into a full suite of attribution to include digital video and social media, you can realize they have real ROI contributions that can be demonstrated through attribution.

As Facebook gets beat up in their IPO, we have seen that once you can quantify the value of social interaction, it becomes a much better vehicle. Once you can quantify the effects of video, an increasing number of marketers are going to invest in those vehicles. Right now they are premium inventories that have lower returns. You still see more money going to display tactics right now.

Sramana: Where are you today in terms of revenue?

Andrew Swinand: We are well north of $10 million and [growing] 30% per quarter.

Sramana: Has the company raised additional money?

Andrew Swinand: We have not. It is interesting being a service based business. We generate the money we need to grow. We are up to 68 people right now. We employ a distributed workforce.

Sramana: Where is your workforce?

Andrew Swinand: They are located all over North America. We have two people in San Francisco. We have people in Austin, Phoenix, Toronto, Boston, Chicago, and all over. These are people who are working out of their homes. What we have found is that the best analysts are akin to artists in that they are creative minds. To support the growth and maintain the talent, we have invested in technology and infrastructure to integrate and deploy shared work via technology. We made that investment as opposed to a physical space.

Sramana: That is a cutting-edge trend right now. Our company operates virtually. We have people all over the world, and there are no offices.

Andrew Swinand: We do have offices in Vancouver, Chicago, and Phoenix. Other than that, we are entirely distributed.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Rolling Up Analytics Rock Stars: Cardinal Path CEO Andrew Swinand
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