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Google Looker Studio
Google Looker Studio

Google Looker Studio: Making sense of big data

In a fast-paced world, making quick and – above all – informed decisions is crucial. Google Looker Studio is a free tool that can give you an advantage. It can transform your big data into informative and fully customisable dashboards and reports that are easy to comprehend and share. At BSL, we have hands-on experience with Looker Studio, and we can assist you in creating these dashboards and reports to support your business using almost any source.

Google Looker Studio – Your data is beautiful. Use it.

Looker Studio is a crucial platform that helps organisations make sense of their data. Perhaps less well-known than other Google services, it excels at handling and processing big data. With Looker Studio, you can quickly and easily gather data from multiple sources, organise and filter it, and present it in visually appealing reports and dashboards. What is more, Looker Studio can read and process your data wherever it’s stored using one of the several hundred available connectors.

Many options are available to present your data, including graphs, charts, pie charts, and geo-maps. You can choose and configure each with just a few clicks, placing them on your virtual dashboard and fine-tuning their appearance. Additionally, there are controls available so end-users can perform “what-if” analyses or compare data over different periods. Moreover, these connectors refresh data in real time, allowing you to build interactive dashboards that managers can use to monitor their data instantly.

Looker Studio and Analytics

When used with large datasets such as Google Analytics, it can analyse and present a website’s traffic data in a way that is easily understood by individuals throughout the organisation, regardless of their technical expertise. Looker Studio will help you and your colleagues understand your audience and your campaigns’ performance without needing any training or experience with Analytics.

Looker Studio Analytics Dashboard

Improving your Analytics

Understanding your website’s performance is crucial. Looker Studio makes it easy to comprehend your Analytics data, including which pages and blogs are popular and which are not.

1. Target group segmentation and analysis:

Understanding your target audience is crucial for successful marketing. Looker Studio helps you classify data based on demographics, behaviour, and interests. This detailed breakdown enables you to customise your website for specific target groups.

Just imagine discovering that a particular group of users from a specific region is spending more time on particular pages of your website. Using this information, you can optimise the content and layout of those pages to increase engagement and boost conversions and sales.

2. Tracking campaign performance in real-time:

With Looker Studio, you can gain real-time insights into the performance of your marketing campaigns, with daily reports sent to management, with access to “easy-to-use” dashboards to show data in real-time. You don’t have to wait for weekly or monthly reports to understand how well a specific campaign performs. By analysing real-time data, you can respond immediately to changes in audience behaviour.

For instance, if you notice that a specific campaign ad is performing unexpectedly well, you can immediately increase the budget for that campaign. This level of responsiveness can be crucial for the success of your website and conversions.

3. Personalisation at scale:

Personalisation is a crucial factor in attracting and retaining customers. Looker Studio provides you with the ability to comprehend the preferences and behaviour of individual users. With this knowledge, you can create customised content and offers to cater to each customer’s needs.

For instance, suppose you operate a job website. In that case, Looker Studio can help you identify a particular group of visitors who frequently search for job openings related to software development. Personalising your homepage to guide these customers directly to the latest software development jobs will increase the likelihood of conversions.

4. User experience optimisation:

The user experience will influence a website’s performance. Looker Studio provides valuable insights into how users interact with your website. You can identify which pages are causing visitors to leave, which pages they spend the most time on, and which buttons they click the most.

This data is crucial in optimising your website’s user experience. If you notice that a specific page has a high drop-off rate, you can modify its layout, improve its load time, or adjust its content to enhance the user experience.

5. Attribution analysis for ROI determination:

Assigning website conversions to specific social media channels can be challenging. However, Looker Studio provides a solution. With GA4 attribution analysis, it is possible to identify channels and campaigns contributing to website conversions.

Identifying these channels is vital to optimising your marketing budget. By discovering which channel provides the highest ROI (Return On Investment), you can allocate more funding to that channel, increasing your growth.

The future of your website with Looker Studio

Undoubtedly, processing analytics data is crucial for marketing. In the coming years, Looker Studio will introduce more advanced features, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. These advancements will play a significant role in predictive analysis and proactive response to changes in the behaviour of your target audience.

Conclusion

Understanding your target audience is crucial for any business’s success, and Google Looker Studio can help you achieve that. With Looker Studio, you can gain valuable insights into your target audience’s behaviour by analysing website traffic. Doing so lets you optimise your marketing strategy, improve your users’ experience, and maximise your ROI.

At BSL, we have experience processing big data and can help you create clear and easy-to-understand dashboards and reports in Looker Studio. You will get these reports in your email daily, allowing you to respond to the latest data immediately. To learn more about how we can help, let’s schedule an appointment.

Pulse – enhanced user experience and embedded AI

Pulse – enhanced user experience and embedded AI

Pulse just got better! Our latest Pulse release, developed for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) by BSL, leverages cutting-edge Azure AI technology. It introduces new AI-based features such as translation, summarisation, and sentiment analysis. We’ve also redesigned the user interface for an improved user experience.

Progressive Web Apps in EU undermined by Apple?

Progressive Web Apps in EU undermined by Apple?

If you aren’t familiar with mobile app development, you may not know that Apple has recently thrown a rather large spanner into the iOS ecosystem. Since the early betas of iOS 17.4 were made available, developers noted that so-called “Progressive Web Apps” (PWAs) were no longer functional in the EU. Our blog explains more.

The role of AI in Business Intelligence for multinationals

The role of AI in Business Intelligence for multinationals

BSL delivers Business Intelligence solutions to multinational organisations, integrating content from thousands of publications worldwide and delivering daily themed news alerts and briefings to business users. Recently, we’ve introduced AI technologies to these services, and our latest blog post highlights some of the benefits.

Whiteboards and the Canon of the Netherlands app

Whiteboards and the Canon of the Netherlands app

Recently, a digital whiteboard supplier called CTOUCH reached out to BSL, requesting permission to include the Canon of the Netherlands app in their store for use on their digital whiteboards in classrooms. We liked the idea and recently created a special version of our app designed specifically for the big screen.

Let BSL take care of your website maintenance updates

Let BSL take care of your website maintenance updates

We understand the importance of regular website maintenance updates for WordPress and Drupal. Hackers sometimes target popular open-source products, so keeping your CMS and any plugins up-to-date is essential. Trust BSL to keep your website up-to-date and secure while you focus on crafting persuasive content for your audience.

BSL Summer event on the water

BSL Summer event on the water

It was time for our annual summer event with the whole company. This year, Diana arranged a boat trip in a salon boat along the Vecht towards Loenen and Vreeland. After the boat trip, the summer event continued in the restaurant of Bistrotel ‘t Amsterdammertje, where everyone enjoyed a delicious dinner.

Adobe Firefly and Photoshop Beta with generative fill

Adobe Firefly and Photoshop Beta with generative fill

After the success of ChatGPT and Midjourney AI – both already in use at BSL – Adobe didn’t want to be left behind and made public their Beta releases of Adobe Firefly and Photoshop AI. With the arrival of the Adobe Betas, we’ve turned our attention to the new kids on the block, comparing them with Midjourney.

Midjourney prompts – Describing your perfect image

Midjourney prompts – Describing your perfect image

In an earlier blog, we introduced Midjourney as a tool we use within BSL when designing websites and banners for blogs. To direct Midjourney to create the image you have in mind, you need to write a prompt describing the image. This new blog discusses Midjourney prompts and some of the commands and parameters you can use.

Drupal 9 development using Tailwind CSS

Drupal 9 development using Tailwind CSS

Using Drupal, BSL has developed an extensive Intranet site to which we all have access. We’re developing a new version of the site, and in this blog, one of our developers talks about some of the tools we are using, including Twig templates, the Entity and Form APIs and Tailwind CSS.

Midjourney AI – Turning your ideas into images

Midjourney AI – Turning your ideas into images

Over the past few weeks, BSL has been exploring the many possibilities offered by Artificial Intelligence. This latest blog describes the use of Midjourney AI, a web service that generates images based on natural language descriptions (“prompts”). The results are impressive. Read our blog to find out more.

The benefits of long-term partnerships

The benefits of long-term partnerships

NBD Biblion offers personalised book and media title recommendations to schools and libraries, and supplies their clients with the titles they select. BSL has had a long-term partnership with NBD Biblion for more than twenty years, delivering development teams, technical advice, and support.

ChatGPT for business information analysis

ChatGPT for business information analysis

After the initial enthusiastic response to the introduction of ChatGPT and AI, attention switched to the unreliability of many ChatGPT answers. However, using Azure OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Cognitive Search with reliable data, we can deliver reliable, high-quality business information in response to natural language queries.

Browser engine wars – Part 2 – The impact of Apple’s iOS monopoly

Browser engine wars – Part 2 – The impact of Apple’s iOS monopoly

The Apple iOS monopoly means that every app on iOS – including browsers from Apple’s competitors – must use WebKit to display web content. While it’s not uncommon for browser developers to use a third-party engine, they can usually control which engine features they use in their browser and – if needed – add custom features.

Browser engine wars – Part 1 – How did we get here?

Browser engine wars – Part 1 – How did we get here?

The Register recently reported that Google is working on an iOS version of Chromium. A few days later, a second article claimed that Mozilla is working on an iOS version of Gecko, Firefox’s browser engine. Both reports suggest that the Apple browser engine on iOS, WebKit, is in danger of losing its monopoly.

Donation on behalf of earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria

Donation on behalf of earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria

On Monday, 6 February, several powerful earthquakes and aftershocks hit Turkey and Syria. This disaster affects as many as 23 million people, including many who are already in desperate need due to the conflict in Syria. If possible, please join us in making a donation on the Giro555 website.

WordPress and page-builders such as Divi and Elementor

WordPress and page-builders such as Divi and Elementor

For building websites on behalf of clients, we often use WordPress together with page-builders, making it easy to prototype and develop modern, responsive websites. With page-builders such as Divi and Elementor, you can easily and quickly design and build pages to match almost any design.

2022 and the Bright Side of Life

2022 and the Bright Side of Life

Taking the time to reflect regularly on the things we are grateful for at the Bright Side can help shift our perspective to focus on the positive aspects of our work. So, here are the things for which I’m grateful in 2022.

SEO benefits, and the power of good-quality content

SEO benefits, and the power of good-quality content

Many business owners still think their websites are merely visiting cards. Their “go-to” expression is: “our clients/audience already know where to find us…”. This may be true, but optimizing your website will reach new clients and audiences.

New Keylane Careers website

New Keylane Careers website

Keylane asked BSL to help design and build a new Careers website. The main aim is to increase the number of visitors by improving the organic search performance. To achieve this, we’re introducing a new design and adding blogs.

Cloud provider migration: What are the benefits?

Cloud provider migration: What are the benefits?

The focus of Cloud computing is to improve the efficiency of IT services. By choosing a cloud-based solution, organisations can stay up-to-date with technology innovations and benefit from higher scalability, lower expenses, and enhanced security.

A new website for BoekWijzer

A new website for BoekWijzer

We’ve completely revamped the BoekWijzer website! The website was built to support the BoekWijzer app, the mobile guide to the world of Dutch literature. Using the app, you can quickly and easily stay up to date with the latest literary news.

New developer / web designer at BSL

New developer / web designer at BSL

If you have any questions about your website or web design in general, then Patrick van Bennekom is ready to help you five days a week at BSL. Patrick helps to design and create websites and apps for our customers, including the design of logos and house styles to deliver a professional end product.

Migrating to the Cloud, benefits and opportunities

Migrating to the Cloud, benefits and opportunities

Several of our clients are migrating to the Cloud, and some that aren’t yet ready for this step are reviewing their legacy systems, intending to migrate to the Cloud in the future. We’ve recently completed two migrations on behalf of multinationals, and our experience has taught us that a direct approach (simply redeploying existing databases and applications on virtual machines) is not always the best route…

Beleev: Controlled Multisensory Environments

Beleev: Controlled Multisensory Environments

Perhaps you have never heard of snoezelen, a Dutch term that describes controlled multisensory environments (MSE) that stimulate various senses within a custom environment – a so-called “Snoezel” room. On behalf of St. John the Baptist special education school in Kerkrade, we’ve created custom software to create and manage so-called “Snoezel” rooms, controlling, lights, audio, switches and a video projector.

Goodbye 2021 and COVID-19 lockdowns – It’s time to look back

Goodbye 2021 and COVID-19 lockdowns – It’s time to look back

So who, in early 2020, thought that we’d still be operating under COVID-19 lockdown measures in January 2022? Luckily, my skill set has given me a better understanding of software development and technology than catering or hospitality. As director of an IT company, I’m happy to say that Bright Side of Life has taken to remote working as a fish to water. Let me tell you about our year.

Canon of the Netherlands apps now available in stores

Canon of the Netherlands apps now available in stores

The Dutch Canon of the Netherlands (2007) tells the story of how the Netherlands was formed. Using the Canon, BSL developed the popular EnToen Nu apps for iOS and Android a few years later. In 2020, the Canon was extensively revised, so we’ve completely rewritten the Canon apps, bringing them up-to-date, making them faster and even more fun to use. They’re now available in the app stores.

Integrating powerful AI search capabilities within apps and web-services

Integrating powerful AI search capabilities within apps and web-services

Search technology is continually evolving, so we’re always ready to adopt new technologies to meet specific client needs. This blog outlines our recent experiences with Azure Cognitive Search and Cognitive Search AI services – classifying thousands of new documents each day, delivering customised briefings to subscribers. Using Machine Learning and AI we can create intelligent search prototypes in just a few weeks.

Canon of the Netherlands apps coming soon!

Canon of the Netherlands apps coming soon!

The Committee on the Development of the Dutch Canon developed the Canon of the Netherlands in 2007. BSL developed the EnToen app a few years later, and since its launch in 2013, it has been a top-rated school app. In 2020, a new Canon Committee updated the Canon. We’re now busy working on new Canon Apps, with a modern look, and using the latest technical know-how.

Drupal 9 replaces Drupal 8. Long live Drupal 7!

Drupal 9 replaces Drupal 8. Long live Drupal 7!

Drupal 9 arrived last year, and Drupal 8 is end-of-life in November 2021. Nothing strange about this. But did you know that Drupal 7’s life has been extended to November 2022? Due to the high number of active users, it will remain in use longer than Drupal 8! Nevertheless, if you’re still using Drupal 7, you’re drinking in the last chance saloon, and it’s time to plan your transition to Drupal 9.

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