# Case Study: A Quarter of Confirmed Enquiries Had No Matching Analytics Record, and It Took Six Separate Causes to Explain It | Crank Source: https://wearecrank.com/case-studies/executive-education-crm-analytics-gap-2019 The sales system knew about enquiries the analytics platform had never heard of — and the gap turned out to be six small faults rather than one big one. --- ![Executive education case study: A Quarter of Confirmed Enquiries Had No Matching Analytics Record, and It Took Six Separate Causes to Explain It](/images/case-studies/executive-education.png?dpl=dpl_2uJjggmfov9ibhArygujfRBb3pax) Executive Education — 2019 Audit # A Quarter of Confirmed Enquiries Had No Matching Analytics Record, and It Took Six Separate Causes to Explain It The sales system knew about enquiries the analytics platform had never heard of — and the gap turned out to be six small faults rather than one big one. Challenge An executive education provider whose sales system and analytics platform disagreed about how many enquiries it was getting. The sales system recorded 25 per cent more brochure downloads than analytics did for the same event, so nobody could say which number to plan against, and any cost per enquiry calculated from the lower one was wrong. Approach Match the two systems record by record rather than argue about the totals. Take the 10,647 confirmed touchpoints held in the sales system and check each one for a corresponding form submission and goal completion, then trace every mismatch to its own individual cause instead of writing the gap off as tracking loss. Outcome Seventy-seven per cent of confirmed touchpoints had a matching form submission and 74 per cent a matching goal completion. The shortfall resolved into six separate root causes, each individually diagnosed and each individually cheap to fix — including a hash used instead of a question mark in email links, and campaign names that differed between the two systems. 01 ## Two systems, two different truths The sales system recorded 25 per cent more brochure-download enquiries than the analytics platform for the same event. Both were live, both were configured, and both were being used to make decisions. That gap matters more than it sounds. Every cost per enquiry the business calculated used the analytics figure as its denominator, which means every one of them was overstated. A campaign judged as expensive may simply have been measured short. 02 ## Matched record by record, not argued about in totals Rather than reconcile the two totals, every one of the 10,647 confirmed touchpoints in the sales system was checked for a matching form submission and a matching goal completion. Seventy-seven per cent had the first; 74 per cent had the second. Doing it this way is what made the next step possible. A total tells you a gap exists. A record-by-record match tells you which records fell through, which is the only way to find out why. 03 ## Six causes, not one The missing quarter did not have a single explanation. It had six, each diagnosed separately: among them a hash character used in place of a question mark in email links, which silently stripped the campaign information, and campaign names that had been entered differently in the two systems so the same activity never joined up. None of these is a large piece of engineering. They are the kind of faults that survive for years precisely because each one is too small to investigate on its own, and because the symptom they produce — a number that looks slightly low — is easy to explain away. 04 ## What this means for you If your sales system and your analytics platform disagree, the difference is almost never one big fault. It is usually several small ones, each individually cheap to fix and none of them visible until you match the records rather than compare the totals. And until you have done that, every cost per enquiry you have calculated is built on the smaller of two numbers. ## What matching the records, not the totals, found 25% More enquiries recorded in the sales system than in analytics, for the same event 77%/74% Of 10,647 touchpoints with a matching form submission / goal completion 6 Separate root causes, individually diagnosed \# not ? One character in an email link, silently stripping campaign data Drawn from Crank's account audit conducted in 2018, with findings delivered in 2019, for this executive education provider. Client not named. ## Want to know what this looks like in your own account? These findings came from asking straightforward questions before any budget moved. We're happy to do the same for yours. [ Talk to Wearecrank](https://wa.me/447457416922?text=Help%20my%20business)[Get in touch](/contact) [← Back to all case studies](/case-studies)