Five Minutes with Phil Wade - Clarity’s Head of Measurement & Analytics

Clarity is proud to offer fearless, full-funnel marketing and communications consultancy to the world’s most progressive companies. We’re able to do this so successfully because we hire sharp-minded specialists from around the world that provide best-of-the-best services to our clients, as well as continuously upskilling our team on the latest MarComms developments and how we can integrate that into our work.

To deep-dive into our specialist expertise, we’re launching a new blog series ‘Five Minutes With…’ where we publish a rapid fire round of questions with some of our experts. The first person we’ve spent five minutes with is Devon-based Phil Wade who is the data genius heading up our Measurement & Analytics team. Over to you, Phil!

Phil Wade, Head of Measurement & Analytics, Clarity

What’s your elevator pitch for what the Measurement & Analytics team offers?

The Analytics team enables our clients to make better decisions by defining where they can drive growth and improve ROI. 

We do this by using data to improve effectiveness and efficiency across all channels used by the marketing department, including paid, earned and owned. This sees us working with many clients directly, irrespective of whether they are engaged with Clarity across other services, as well as providing measurement expertise across all of our services, from PR to PPC.

As an agency we are dedicated to showing the effectiveness and ROI of our work and consultancy, which is why we’ve invested heavily in our Measurement & Analytics department. Ultimately our clients are after tangible, board-friendly success metrics which is why we put measurement front and centre of everything we do.

What does your team do that drives the most impact for clients?

I could talk here about end-to-end tracking across the full user journey, or providing insight on why users aren’t converting, or many other things related to providing data and insight for optimising marketing output.

However, none of this actually matters if the insight or data we share is not actioned. 

Therefore I’d have to say the most impactful things we do are on the ‘people’ side of Measurement and Analytics. This includes training our clients on what metrics mean, as well as taking them on the journey when we build their measurement strategy. This means we’re able to help our clients create and foster a culture that is data informed and can be continuously optimised based on insight they can easily gather.

We do this by defining processes, identifying North Star metrics and KPIs for all teams and departments within marketing, and ultimately putting the tools in place for seamless access to data and insights.

Despite the fact that as a society we’re becoming more inundated with data every day, Measurement and Analytics is more and more often 60% about people, and just 40% about the data.

What work have you done recently that you’re really proud of? 

There is a particular client that pops to mind that we have an ongoing long-term relationship with. We've helped the company bring alignment to marketing metrics and reporting across the five global regions and 60+ countries that it runs campaigns in. This means everyone is now working in the same direction, defining success by the same standards and measures, and enabling data from each country to be rolled-up to provide reporting at a regional and global level. 

As well, something we do on a regular basis that lights up our clients’ eyes is linking CRM data with web-analytics. Particularly for businesses with lead-gen focused sites and a sales process, this is such a revolutionary moment because of the amount of deep insight we can very quickly provide them. It’s hard not to be proud every time we put this in place for a client and support them to rapidly optimise their marketing function and ROI.

How does Measurement & Analytics fit into an integrated MarComms strategy?

By considering Measurement at the start it ensures all activities are pulling in the right direction. We achieve this by identifying and setting tangible success measures, which feed into the strategy and tactical plans.

Once the campaign is finished, or at key intervals throughout, we come in again, utilising data from our success measures to show effectiveness.

Tell me about YOU! How did you get to where you are today?

I have taken an unconventional route into my role as Clarity’s Head of Measurement & Analytics. I started my career as a general in-house marketer working on everything from running events, to producing brochures and direct mail, as well as running campaigns across digital channels. This was a great starting point that gave me insight across the full marketing mix while I was getting qualified through the UK’s Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). 

I then progressed into a digital specialist role with a heavy weighting towards SEO work where I led teams working with large ecommerce brands. During this time I really amplified my analytical nature and developed my love for helping brands to grow. As a consultant I worked with the likes of Lidl, Argos, BooHoo, PWC, Direct Line, Natwest, Regus, Nectar - to name just a few!

After a stint working purely with ecommerce companies as a consultant, I came to realise that the most effective way to grow, or the biggest barrier to efficient growth, for most businesses is not lack of strategic or tactical skills, or poor creative ideas, but a lack of ability to objectively define what really counts as success.

This manifests in a number of ways, such as conflicting and siloed departments, or overarching KPIs that don’t have direct impact on business objectives. But, I’ve found ultimately it’s a lack of understanding in this area that holds businesses back.

With that in mind, I directed my career into measurement so I can help the brands I work with to quantify and continuously optimise their growth. 

Finally, a fun one - what’s the most fearless thing you’ve ever done?

Phil’s adorable new puppy.🥺

I’m renovating a house top-to-bottom and back-to-brick, while building an extension… and restoring an old Land Rover. If that wasn’t enough we’ve recently adopted a puppy who is now four months old, and being a Border Collie is rapidly becoming too clever for her own good (or is that my good?). But as my girlfriend says, I cause trouble when I’m not busy so having lots to think about and plan is good for me!

 

 

Learn more about how Clarity’s Measurement and Analytics services here or reach out to us here to chat with Phil directly.

 

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