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What is the difference between data, analytics & metrics?

2 Answers
Moon Kang 🚀
Moon Kang 🚀
Front Director, Digital Demand GenerationJuly 20

I would consider data and metrics to be synonymous in most cases, however, if I had to define it individually, I'd say data is the raw format of all the little quantitative metrics we are collecting on an individual, company, or campaign. Metrics are a bit more aligned to the quantitative data that I want to see because it's important for the analysis. For example, raw data might contain page views, sessions, new users, returning users, conversions, cost per conversion, and conversion value. The "metrics" I care about when looking at a website's performance is page views, sessions, new users, and conversions. Conversion value is more of a metric to look at the ROI or ROAS of a campaign. Basically -- data is the raw dump of quantitative metrics as a whole. Metrics are what I filter for to do a proper analysis. 

This brings me to analytics. To me, analytics is the effect of pulling the raw data, sifting through the core metrics, and analyzing the quantitative metrics to uncover actionable insights. Analytics, to me, is translating quantitative metrics into a qualitative story/narrative. 

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Erika Barbosa
Erika Barbosa
Observable Head of Growth MarketingJanuary 13

I see the definition for data, metrics and analytics as different although related.

For me, data is the raw information. It’s probably messy and isn’t very actionable. It's most likely arranged into columns and rows.

Metrics are measurements layered on top of the data or raw information. This is the first attempt to make sense of the data.

Lastly, analytics is the process of coming to insights based on the metrics and data. For example, Google Analytics attempts to take raw data, organized into metrics (e.g., time on page) and is displayed in a way that intends to be actionable or at a minimum insightful.

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