Why most marketers avoid analytics (and what finally made us stop)
Marketing analytics isn’t exactly the sexiest skill in the stack.
It’s technical. It’s time-consuming. And for a long time, we thought it was someone else’s job.
Until it wasn’t.
We didn’t choose analytics. It chose us.
The real story? We were managing a major campaign at an agency. The dashboards were half-built. The teammate who set them up had left. And a deadline was looming.
There was no time to hire someone new. No luxury of passing it off.
We had to learn Looker Studio fast – not because we were curious, but because the contract depended on it.
And we did it. We finished the report. The client was thrilled. And something shifted.
Why we avoided it for so long (and why you might be, too)
We know we’re not the only ones who spent years avoiding analytics. Here’s what held us back – and what we hear from clients all the time:
1. "We’re too busy creating to track it."
In small teams, it’s all hands on deck. Content, social, ads, emails – it never ends. And analytics? It falls to the bottom of the list.
2. "We don't have the resources."
When you’re juggling platforms and managing day-to-day execution, stopping to figure out tracking feels like a luxury you can’t afford.
3. "It feels too technical."
Terms like 'event tagging' and 'cross-domain tracking' sound like developer territory. So we kept pushing it off.
4. "It isn't creative."
We’re marketers. We like storytelling, design, strategy – not spreadsheets and data points.
We felt the same, until we realized: analytics is storytelling. It’s just a different language. And when you learn how to read it, you start to really understand what’s working – and why.
The moment everything changed
After surviving that first dashboard fire drill, we kept going. We refined our skills. We started offering analytics projects on their own – just tracking, reporting, interpreting.
Not because we wanted to become data nerds. But because we saw what happened when marketers actually had the numbers:
✅ They made faster decisions
✅ They stopped wasting time on tactics that didn’t convert
✅ They finally got answers to the questions that kept them stuck
What we wish someone told us sooner
Marketing analytics isn’t about drowning in charts. It’s about:
Knowing where your leads actually come from
Understanding which content drives action
Spotting trends before they become problems
Showing your team (or boss) what’s worth the budget
And yeah – it can be creative. A great Looker Studio dashboard is just as much about design and copy as it is about data.
If you’ve been avoiding analytics, we get it.
You don’t have to learn it all overnight.
But if you want to stop guessing and start making moves with confidence, this is where the shift begins.
We built Harsh Marketing because we learned analytics the hard way – and now we make it easier for others to learn it the smart way.
