Myth Busting the Seer Analytics Team

Since the official inception of Seer’s Digital Analytics Team in 2015, there have been many questions regarding what we do and who we are (no we’re not robots unfortunately).

Given that our team has grown significantly (see chart below), and the ever changing nature of the larger Digital Analytics field, this lack of clarity is understandable. Using input from the members of the Seer Analytics team, we decided to tackle this by debunking a few of the common assumptions we’ve heard over the years. Let's go!

1) You need experience before starting an Analytics career.

MYTH!

Would it surprise you to know that some members of our Analytics team had no prior Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager experience before joining Seer? Yes, analytics experience is a great selling point on your resume, but what we value even more is an insatiable desire to learn. Digital Analytics is a world that is literally changing every single day (discover some of these changes here). Even if you come in knowing “everything” on day 1, on day 3 there may be some new development that’s important for us all to learn about.

Attitude we like:

I know I don’t meet all of these criteria, but what can I do in the next week or two to change that?

- Ellen C.

2) There is a “right” skill set for Analytics.

MYTH!

Take it from us - it’s impossible to have a productive team when all members have similar backgrounds and ways of thinking. At Seer, we make sure to hire individuals who embody all different strategic styles to ensure we have an array of perspectives and approaches. If you continue to tackle a problem the same way, it will never get solved!

Looking at the different backgrounds of our own team members you can definitely see that we practice what we preach. Coming from schools all across the country, some of us studied Marketing, Creative Advertising, others Political Science, and even Anthropology! This also contradicts the mini-myth that you need a technical degree to work in Analytics (mhm that one’s false too).

But, we’re not going to lie and say there aren’t a few common threads among us. We all embody that desire to learn which translates into us being pretty proactive about the things we want to learn about. We also take pride in being strong team players with all of us willing to help address any project challenges one another may face (yes we know it sounds a little cliche, but cliches exist for a reason right?).

Thinking a step ahead of a problem is just the beginning in Analytics. You have to be able to let the data do the talking, while you tell the solution as a story.

- Kia S.

3) Analytics just involves tracking.

MYTH!

Ask any Analytics team member and they’ll say this myth may be the most infuriating. Although tracking is an important part of our service offering, it doesn’t even encompass half of what we do!!

Instead of the data pumping robots many envision us to be, we prefer to think of ourselves as both translators and storytellers whose aim is to humanize our clients’ data! Anyone can spit out numbers and highlight some high level metrics.

This type of “reporting” falls under the category of Cargo Cult science - a metaphor used by our director Sayf to describe situations where things may actually look useful but really isn’t. Our goal is to avoid this at all costs and work with our clients to connect their data to their actual business objectives, turning it into veritable value based on their individual KPIs.

Tracking is what we use to get to our broader goals. We take pride in insight and tying data to larger business objectives

- Aniqa A.

4) All Analytics roles are the same.

MYTH!

Wrongggggg. We are not just one trick ponies!

Across our team, members specialize and prefer different roles that encompass the five main buckets of the digital analytics spectrum. For example, some specialize in data science and development, others analysis and data visualization, and even digital marketing and attribution. Here at Seer we encourage you to hone what you’re passionate about!

We look for people who treat Analytics as if they’re in grad school. People who like figuring things out when presented with challenges.

- Sayf S.