Data Points vs. Data Insights

Distinguishing between data points and data insights is extremely important to achieve useful learnings from marketing research.

Imagine you've just spent $30K on a research study to then walk away with a couple metrics in a table graph. That last step in marketing research, analysis, is crucial to understand what learnings your research has provided you and your organization. The difference between your table graph and analysis illustrates the very important distinction between data points and data insights.

As put in an article on Forbes: "Actionable insights appear to be the missing link for companies that want to drive business outcomes from their data... Often what is really being offered by many analytics solutions is just more data or information—not insights.  Data, information and insights are not synonyms."

Data points can come in many shapes or forms.

It is the raw, unprocessed results of research that is typically in the format of numbers and text. We often see data in spreadsheets or databases.

A common misconception is that graphs, such as those shown above, are insights. However, without the interpretation and analysis of the information in these graphs, we still lack insights.

Data insights are conclusions drawn from data points.

"Both data and information set the stage for the discovery of insights that can then influence decisions and drive change." - Forbes.

For example, you may see that some of your Tweets perform better than others. To take a deeper dive, you might download a report from Twitter Analytics that tells you metrics for each post. This data can only get you so far. You may take a closer look at the data and see that posts containing a multimedia item - like a photo or video - perform better than those that don't. Moreover, you may notice that posts containing wellness-related information result in higher conversions than those blatantly promoting your fitness product. Through these insights, you can alter your social media plan to improve engagement and conversions.