Cocktails, Tangents and Answers
Cocktails, Tangents and Answers is a marketing podcast that takes you on a ride with our team. We'll kick off every episode with a little chat, a cocktail recipe (sometimes basic, sometimes craft, sometimes bougie) before we get into a conversation to tackle some of the pressing marketing questions of the day. And of course, our brains take us on some of the most wonderful tangents. Come along for the ride!
Cocktails, Tangents and Answers
Why Your Reporting Creates Stress Instead of Clarity
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Host: Rich Mackey
Producer: Zac Hazen
About Antidote 71:
Think of us as your very own offsite, highly effective team of local marketing growth experts, from digital marketing to traditional (who you’d also happily grab a beer with). Antidote 71 is equal parts skill and personality. We’re super fun to hang out with (in our opinion) and exceptionally good at what we do. We love our work and care about the people we work with.
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Cold Open: Data vs Reporting
SPEAKER_01Most teams don't have a data problem. They have a reporting problem. Too many dashboards, too many metrics, not enough answers. Hey, Zach, we are back in the new year. Yeah, wow. Okay. We took a little pause for Christmas. Hope you had a good holiday. And then we're back. And we're going to talk about a problem today.
SPEAKER_00A reporting problem. Why your reporting is more stressful than it needs to be.
Cocktail Spotlight: Nashi Highball
SPEAKER_01Yeah, everybody wants data, data, data. Like, right? You hear that a lot from people like, oh, I need more data, I need more data. Well, you probably don't need more data. You probably need to clean up your reports and have the right data. So we're going to get into that after we talk about the Nashi Highball. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. This one sounds so much fun. So this is definitely a Zach cocktail. The Nashi Highball was created at Kiko, a Japanese-influenced restaurant and bar in New York City. The ball team developed it as a part of a broader focus on modern food-friendly highballs.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00They wanted to focus on drinks that are low-proof, refreshing, and meant to complement a meal rather than dominate it, which I think is awesome. I'm a big foodie. You're a big foodie. I think we can both appreciate a nice cocktail pairing. Nashi actually refers to an Asian pear, which is inspired by the use of spice pear liqueur. And it actually gives it a nice crisp and delicate flavor profile. Okay. The cocktail is blends Japanese whiskey and manzilla sherry. And versus Manzania sherry. Oh, manzania. Okay, thank you. I'm learning something. And versus uh blanc, which I've learned is a non-alcoholic uh like grape kind of liqueur juice thing. And uh pickled ginger syrup is probably the craziest thing that's in this. Uh I have a little recipe on how to make that once you get through this recipe, but I don't usually like pickled ginger. I'm a big sushi guy, but I'm never like grabbing at the pickled ginger. Wow, okay. But um, yeah, I think I'd like it in this drink. Go ahead and give us a recipe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean, and I'm a super big like pear liqueur fan, like second only to like uh a lychee martini, like I would do like a pear forward martini of some sort. Um so yeah, this is great. So one and a quarter ounces of Japanese whiskey. Um, and in spite of this being a whiskey drink, I would try this because sometimes when whiskey's in a cocktail with other things, I love it. I just don't like whiskey straight. So then so one and a quarter ounces of Japanese whiskey, three quarters of an ounce of spiced pear liqueur, uh, a half an ounce of uh manzanilla sherry, a quarter ounce of verju blanc, a quarter ounce of pickled ginger syrup, and then a half a teaspoon of cane syrup. So you just do that, um, it's two to one sugar, white water to sugar, right? Yeah. Or is it the other way around? Yeah. I think maybe the other way around, but so you just make a simple syrup, you can look that up, but um, or you can actually buy simple syrup at your liquor store. It's usually in with the mixers and things. Um, then three ounces of soda water, and then a fresh bay leaf, which is interesting as a garnish. No, don't eat the bay leaf, you're not supposed to eat those. Um, but it will give it like a little bit of an herby like spin-off. Um so everything except the soda water and that bay leaf go into a glass and you stir these um and then top it with soda water, garnish with the bay leaf. Um, Zach, it doesn't say, but I would assume you put ice in this, or do you not?
SPEAKER_00Um, it might be one that doesn't have ice, but um the pickled ginger syrup also has a recipe. So 500 grams of sugar, 500 milliliters of water, 250 grams of pickled sushi ginger. You add all the ingredients to a blender and blend on high for 30 seconds, then you pass it through what's called a super bag, which is kind of a giant polyurethane bag that's used for like storing different like things, but you can also use it in cooking to strain things out at a like really like high level, and then you store it in the refrigerator. Well, actually, you're supposed to bottle it and then store it in the refrigerator. So I guess it's I don't know how many of these it it would make, but it sounds like if you're passing it through a super bag, which is very large, you're probably making a lot.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I mean, but you're only and you're only using a quarter ounce of it here. I mean, so you could also like you could probably do it with cheesecloth, maybe triple double sift it through cheesecloth. Um, that'll work. Um, if you don't have any of that, you can just multi-strain it, but you really want to strain it until you don't have any chunks. Like there shouldn't be anything floating in this, it should just be like this thick syrup that's gingery. Um, because yeah, you throw all the ginger in that blender and blend it up. So you're gonna have a lot of chunks in there. Zach, it's something you could do with your leftover sushi ginger.
SPEAKER_00There you go. I'm gonna be saving it just so I can make pickled ginger syrup. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01All right, and that one comes to us from punchdrink.com. That's a new source, I think.
SPEAKER_00Um, the weirdest cocktails. They're like higher they focus on uh like a lot of like higher end like bars and they like to share those recipes. The reason that I brought it to this episode is because they recently published an article called The Best Places to Drink Cocktails or the Best Bars in Asheville, North Carolina. And it's a really well put together article, and I loved it. So I was like, okay, let's look at the recipes. All right.
SPEAKER_01Perfect. Yeah, and I think that um we probably owe it to people at some point to be like, you bought a bottle of spice pear liqueur for this one drink. What else can you do with that?
SPEAKER_00You know, we're gonna have to make a running list of all the one-off ingredients.
Pickled Ginger Syrup How-To
Back From Break: The Real Problem
SPEAKER_01How do I use the rest of my vergeot blanc? We don't know. We you just I would Google that or have AI give you some a recipe with it. But anyway. All right, so we'll be back in a moment after a quick break to talk about why you don't have a reporting problem, you have well, no, you do have a reporting problem, you don't have a data problem. We're back. All right, so um, you don't have a data problem, you have a reporting problem.
SPEAKER_00And so where's why your reporting is causing a lot of stress.
Info Overload And Useless Dashboards
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Where does this issue come from? Where does the stress come from, Zach? Like what are some people saying out there?
Source Shoutouts And Bar Talk
Break And Topic Tease
SPEAKER_00So according to Supermetrics Marketing Data Report, marketers are using 230% more data than they were in 2020. Yet more than 50% say they haven't had enough time to analyze it properly, indicating what we've said that data availability availability has clearly outpaced at which you can actually like get the answers from that data and the clearing. Right.
SPEAKER_01Information overload, right? Like I've got so much data, but I can't actually process it. So I mean, along with that, 40% of people say that their dashboards don't support decision making and they find them hard to use, cluttered. Um, and so those are ineffective dashboards, right? If nobody's looking at it, nobody's using it, and you can't use it for decision making, that's terrible. Um so yeah, I think um the other thing though is like there's this dichotomy, right? The data I have isn't useful in the way it's being presented to me, but 87% of markers say data is the most underutilized asset in the company. So it's like, okay, so we want data. However, when you give us a lot of data, we don't understand it and it's not useful for us. So yeah, that's um that's a problem.
Vanity Metrics vs Business Metrics
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think so I kind of covered our first point already, but more data often creates more confusion, as we've said. And I think it also with that confusion, it causes you to focus on things that aren't necessarily good things to focus on, especially with like social, right? A lot of people, and I've seen this with uh people that I've worked for and clients in the past, where they get focused on the wrong metrics, like vanity metrics. And that's the things they're bringing up where and we have to go back and tell them that doesn't really matter to your overall business goals or your growth on social media. Like nobody really cares how many, you know, of this vanity metric you're getting, like let's focus on things that are actually actionable and like valuable like data to your business. And I think with if you aren't focusing your dashboards on the right data points, then that's where it gets confusing, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think um just for those who haven't heard the term, I think everybody probably has by now, but vanity metrics are things like number of followers, number of likes. Um, they're things that feel good because you feel like, oh, I got all of this wonderful stuff, but they don't mean anything for your business. Things that are relevant metrics in social and and other areas, um, clicks can be if you're clicking through to your website, people who are visiting your website through social. So the source of traffic to your website, having social be high in that and looking at your social properties broken down, um, can be something more useful. The bigger one is how many people who interacted with our social or saw our social actually bought something or did something. Now, for us, we've actually been talking a lot about, and I think we talked about this on the last episode of the year, um, looking more inward. So we're looking more client-focused, internal client focused, less aggressive growth focused. So for us, I don't need somebody to come and buy, but we can actually look at our clients interacting and engaging with our content. Are clients asking us questions about our content? Is it driving curiosity for them? Um, and those are the types of things we can measure. Those are really different than how many people saw this and all that.
SPEAKER_00Um It's again, like vanity metrics don't support actual uh decision making. And it's important to build your dashboards and your reports with a clear like intent and focus in mind so that you know the data points that you're looking at are actually important and crucial to your business decisions. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think you know, having an awareness goal, that's not a vanity metric, right? Like, because you do need a certain base level of awareness among your audience. Um, for me, um, especially when I was client side, and sometimes I say this now, and you've heard me say it, I'm sure, is like so what? You've told me this happened, this is a metric we've got, whatever the metric is, so what? And if you can answer so what, which is why is this important to us? Why does it matter to me? Then okay, it probably should be on the dashboard. If you can't answer so what, it's probably just a nice shiny thing and off the dashboard. Or stop measuring it. Like if you're not gonna do anything with the data, stop measuring it and definitely stop reporting on it. You're just cluttering stuff up. 100%. I honestly feel that like most companies need like there's like six metrics that matter to them. And there might be underlying things where you have to dive deeper into those, but you don't need a dashboard with 53 reports on it that tell you like everything that's going on in your company. Like that's just not realistic.
SPEAKER_00And that's probably why you're stressed out and reporting is such a headache to you, right? If that's if that's you, you have a huge dashboard of all these numbers that seem super important, and like you're looking at all those numbers and you're going up, going and you're looking in like report and like actually like trying to make business decisions on stuff that doesn't matter, like it's gonna be a headache and it's gonna be stressful.
Tool Sprawl And Fragmented Systems
SPEAKER_01Well, and you can't make the decision, right? If this metric doesn't actually support any decision you need to make, you're just you're nowhere. You're the same place you'd be if you had a blank piece of paper in front of you. Um so yeah, that's that's a big one. So I think that it also comes down to like, um, and we've had this in the past, we've been in pitches or whatever, and we're like, what are your KPIs? What are your goals? You tell us. Well, okay, we don't run your business. What's important to your business? Like, what matters to you? And then sometimes we'll get like this is the growth we want by this date. This is our budget, these are the things that are matter to us, this is our audience, et cetera. It's like, okay, we can work with those things because now we want to grow a specific audience. We want to look at how they're translating into conversions or sales, and we want to look at that dollar amount and how it's moving. Yeah, how did you grow in the past? Because if you grew at 10% a year and you want to grow at 50% next year, like that's probably not gonna happen without either significant budget um inflection, a completely different change in product or product line or revenue um or some other outside force. Like it's just it's really hard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think we've covered and done a good job of covering what too much data and unclear like uh goals in your reporting can do. But what about if uh the tools you're using are holding you back, right? So what if the systems you're using and the reports that you're looking at are all in different places and they get very confusing on where you're looking at? Maybe you have reports in HubSpot, maybe you're looking at reporting for your podcast somewhere else, like that can get confusing too, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we actually just uh did a pitch that that's one of the problems they identified is we have this system that doesn't talk to this system, that doesn't talk to this system, that doesn't talk to this system. They had like five or six systems that don't integrate. Um, and we did recommend HubSpot. We can get all but one of those into HubSpot. That one, we could do a custom API and pull in the data we need, um, which is really common, right? Like a lot of times people get everything done in one system like HubSpot or Looker or wherever, except like their sales data is in a custom tool that has no like out-of-the-box integrations with anybody. Well, as long as it has an open API, you can pull that information into a CRM and be able to look at it. So that is one of the big problems. I mean, the other thing we've done as a workaround for folks is export your sales data from that system and we'll create some custom fields. We'll import that into your CRM, and then we'll have reports that can report on that. Now we can only report on it when there's an export import. Um, you know, it's also possible some people, um, some systems will export a CSV file to a specific FTP address. You can have Google Sheets go grab that file, pull it in, update it. You can have Google Sheets integrated with HubSpot, and then it's an overnight, which is easier. That one's a lot more complicated. Part of me is like spend the 20K and just build the API because you know it's important, right? If you can't see sales data, we can't optimize your ads well. We don't know on the fly what's working and what's not working, and you're gonna waste money.
Conflicting Numbers And Attribution
SPEAKER_00And if you're looking at different platforms too, or systems of record, right? You can also get conflicting numbers, which creates even more confusion. I'm sure if you're looking at the exact same thing on two different platforms and telling you two different numbers, that's probably like a real headache for you.
SPEAKER_01So Yeah, and that's um, I just had uh an onboarding that was like, hey, we want to bring our Google Analytics data into HubSpot and report on it. And I'm like, well, it doesn't really work that way. Um because I'm like HubSpot has their own like web metrics and analytics and whatnot. And they're they're gonna be close to what Google says. Like they shouldn't be far off. Um, we did have one client who was like, Google's reporting double, and we realized their pixel was on the page twice. So yeah, you're counting twice, remove the pixel, which happens, right? People put it on the page, but then they put it into Google Tag Manager and don't realize that you if you do it in Google Tag Manager, that's great, and that's a wonderful place to do it, but take it off the page natively. Like you don't want that in there. But yeah, and so I had to explain like, so they do have different definitions of what is a conversion or what is um, you know, just just the way that they measure attribution is a little bit different, the way that they measure the data. So you're not gonna have like, I had 400 clicks in Google, I have 400 clicks in um HubSpot, because um they have just slightly different ways that they measure it. Usually it's like how long have they been on the page, like and it could be microseconds or a second or whatever. Um, so there are little things that are different, but you've kind of got to pick, right? And I like having what we try to say is let's use HubSpot as your system of record. Let's use Google Analytics as a backstop to just double check and make sure that we're in the right ballpark. Um that's a good way to look at that.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, if you're looking at six different tools, like Yeah, that's how I mean research from Gardner has shown that poor data governance, not lack of tools, is one of the biggest barriers to effective analytics adoption. So clean up your data.
What Useful Reporting Looks Like
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's more you have too many tools than it is you have um, you know, not enough tools. Like, and that's the other thing that's interesting is when you get a system like a HubSpot, there's others out there, obviously we talk about HubSpot a lot. That's no secret to anybody who's in the all-inclusive. Where it's got a whole bunch of stuff. And while still you could still have something outside of that, but if you're still sending email through MailChimp, yes, there's an integration and blah, blah, blah. You're just not gonna get the depth of reporting that you would get in HubSpot. Same thing with like we talk about using HubSpot CTAs or calls to action. HubSpot can tell you if somebody viewed that call to action. If it's just a button on your website, you don't get that reporting. So it's, you know, so you don't even know the click. And so knowing how many people actually saw the call to action in an email versus how many people clicked it, that gives you like your scroll rate, right? Like, did they get to it? Maybe you just need to move it up to get a better conversion. So that consolidation of tools and having something that you trust and is set up right is so, so helpful. Like it's amazing. And we have used Looker, like Google's, it used to be Google Data Studio, I think it's called Looker now. Um and most things will integrate with that. It can be a little complex. You got API keys and things that you've got to do, and then like if the person who set it up leaves, like it breaks things, like it's a little bit weird. Um but yeah, but having it all in one place is huge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. All right. So those those are the first two points we've covered. Uh kind of the systems you use and how an over a too much data can cause way too many issues. So now let's talk about what clear and useful reporting looks like in practice. So what have you seen work in your experience, Rich?
SPEAKER_01Um the first step is you've got to have clear goals and they have to be measurable. They call them smart goals. Um specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Yep. I got it.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say I was you're stuck on the R, but next thing I can probably name all the seven dwarfs.
SPEAKER_01I won't be able to, but um uh so yeah, so having your goals and your KPIs set, you've gotta understand your business enough to be able to articulate what matters to you. Um and it's not like so the first thing that people will say is sales matter to me, revenue matters to me. Yes, got it. Understand it, and yes, we should be measuring that. What are your drivers to revenue? What are your indicators to close? What are your rates from traffic to your site to closing a deal? Like you've got to understand how that works. And if you don't, you've got to be willing to measure it and study it and do some trial and error to figure it out. So that's my number one is you've got to know what's important. Like I said, four to six things ideally is important. I think the other one that I've seen is it's like when you do an ad. So when we create an ad, you want to have one thing you want to tell people. It is, It's not, I need you to understand these 10 things from this ad because if you try that, no one's going to understand anything. There needs to be one clear message that that ad is trying to get across. Same thing with reports. What is this report trying to tell me? One thing. Not I need a Mondo chart that has six different metrics overlaid on each other. No. What is this one report trying to tell me? And how does that relate to my KPIs? And then more importantly, how does that relate to the decisions I need to make moving forward? So that's kind of my magic bullet for reports. Um what you're measuring, measure that thing, and understand the KPI or the business metric it relates to and how it relates to decision making.
Time Windows, Why, And So What
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I would say also only report on things that you can directly influence to. Also, uh, we've covered this a lot, but remove reports that don't matter. Don't let that clog up all of your data and make you even more confused. Reporting can be really complicated and feel really complicated if you're if data is everywhere, if you don't really know why you're reporting on something, if um you're not using the correct systems. But hopefully uh all of this will help give you a clearer path forward so that your reporting doesn't seem as stressful and you can save yourself the headache.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So, Zach, if I came to you and said, hey, I want to see the last five years of social media engagements by week, what would you tell me?
SPEAKER_00I would say, oh man, that's a good question. You put me on the spot. Well, I mean, it doesn't really matter that much anymore, right?
SPEAKER_01Like what somebody did in 2020 has zero relevance to what they are going to do in 2026.
SPEAKER_00They can't directly influence what we've did five years ago.
SPEAKER_01Right. And so I mean, part of it is like looking at it by week is like, why? Why do you need to get that deep? So I think there's the high level versus the lower, right? So in that instance, you might say, you know, how are you gonna make decisions based on weekly data? Like, are and what are you trying to solve for? What are you trying to understand? And I might be like, Zach, I really just want to understand if I measure growth in social media engagement and I look at growth in revenue, are they correlated? And then you're gonna tell me, well, correlation doesn't equal causation. Like it doesn't mean that if they both went up that they're influencing each other, but still that's like, okay, so we could probably look at that year over year then. Like I could give you five bars for five years, and then you can see what's happening with that. And it's like, yeah, probably. And I think that's like when we report our revenue in our in our internal meetings. Like we used to do it by um I'm trying by month. And I still have the monthly report. It's kind of okay, but we actually started shifting it to quarter because our quarters can vary or months can vary wildly, but usually the quarters stay pretty stable. Um, and it's also like, what are we doing looking at it by month? Like we're not making a decision based on that. Um so I think that's a big um a big factor there as well, is you know, just why asking why, and then asking so what. Like, you know, why? Because I'm curious. That's not an answer. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_00You need to have a clear goal in mind.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What are we gonna do with this data when we've got it? You know, answer that.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, that seems like a good episode to me. Uh, I think feel like we covered everything we needed to cover. Hopefully uh you guys, the audience, found it very helpful. Um Yeah. As always. I mean it's hard.
SPEAKER_01Like, sorry, I was just saying, it's hard, right? Like it's hard to get a dashboard that works for you. Oh, yeah. And we have some dashboards that are like huge. We probably need to go in and make a good slash and burn on a lot of our dashboards. Um and ours are gonna change, right? Because, like you said, you know, we're not looking for 10 new customers next year. We're looking for deep deeper relationships with our existing customers. So, one, are we measuring the relationship? Maybe a little bit in a couple of ways. Can we measure in more ways? Yeah, probably. Then what do we need to report on to know where that's at? And then what are those things that do influence it? You know, and how do we report on those as well? So you've got you got some new dashboards to build. Yeah. Adriana will help you.
Refocusing KPIs For Client Depth
Hiring, Hotline, And Next Week Preview
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say, might need some help with that, but it sounds awesome. Uh as always, not to wrap this up too quickly, but as always, you can find our agency at edit71.com and all of our socials are there as well. Um, also, wanted to add this in. Um, we'll probably still be hiring around the time this episode comes out. So if you're looking for a new career, we have two positions open currently a HubSpot specialist, which is more of a mid-level uh hubspot knowledge, definitely needed for that one. And then a digital marketing coordinator. Both positions are remote in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Carolina. So if you live in any of those areas, go to careers.71.com.
SPEAKER_01Um Yeah, take a look, see what you think. Um and again, that's like this is coming out in January 2026. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You might be in an episode if you join the team. That might be fun. Um if you have a question you'd like to send our way, hit the CTA podcast. You didn't. Even better, leave us a voice message on our hotline at 402-718-9971. Your question might make it into a future episode. Uh, next week's episode is the HubSpot features clients ask us about the most. So that's so that should be a great one. Ooh. Using client feedback. I love it. Yeah. So we'll see everybody next week. All right.
SPEAKER_01Sounds good. Have a great new year, everybody.
