Introducing Flux Full Circle Reporting 3.0

Introducing Reporting 3.0

Reporting is a key value-add of Flux Full Circle Service Plans. As a data-driven business, we understand the power of data in making a meaningful impact on business performance. We aim to empower our clients with accurate data and meaningful insights and use these insights to maximise their return on investment in digital. Over the last four years, in line with our agile methodology, Flux has anticipated and responded to changing reporting requirements to deliver the best service possible.

Reporting 1.0 was released in 2021, followed by Reporting 2.0 in 2022. In 2023, we started work on Reporting 3.0, recognising the need to deliver reports that contain the most relevant and insightful data, comply with the latest digital data collection, privacy requirements, and analytics best practices. We are excited to announce that in July 2024, we have officially sunsetted Reporting 2.0 and upgraded to Reporting 3.0.

Why we are upgrading

Some of the reasons we are upgrading to Reporting 3.0 include:

• Our dedication to constantly improving our products and services
• Aiming to provide our clients with the most relevant and insightful data possible
• The requirement to comply with the latest data collection and analytics best practices to remain digitally competitive

Over the last few years, digital service providers such as Google have changed how they collect, process and present data, with the common changes including:

• Privacy Enhancements: Google has been enhancing user privacy across its platforms, largely due to legislative pressure. This includes measures such as limiting third-party cookie tracking in Chrome and introducing privacy-focused analytics solutions.
• Data Governance and Compliance: With increasing regulations around data privacy and security (like GDPR and CCPA), there has been a focus on providing tools and services to help businesses ensure compliance and implement data governance practices.
• Machine Learning Integration: Google has been leveraging machine learning algorithms to improve data analytics capabilities. This involves using AI for data interpretation, pattern recognition, and predictive analytics to provide more valuable insights to users.
• Data Visualisation Tools: Google has been updating its data visualisation tools, such as Google Data Studio (now Looker Studio), to make them more feature-rich. These updates aim to empower users to create insightful reports and dashboards with their data.
• Cloud-based Analytics: Google Cloud Platform (GCP) continues to evolve with new features and services for data analytics. This includes tools for data storage, processing, analysis, and machine learning, all integrated within Google’s cloud infrastructure.
• Real-time Analytics: Google has been investing in real-time analytics capabilities to enable businesses to make data-driven decisions quickly. This involves processing and analysing data streams in real-time to extract insights and respond to changes rapidly.
• Cross-Platform Analytics: Google has been working on providing unified analytics solutions that can track user interactions across multiple platforms and devices, helping businesses understand user behaviour across their entire digital ecosystem. Google Analytics 4 has now replaced Universal Analytics. Starting July 2023, standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data.

To respond to these changes, our team has completed the following for all clients:

• Reviewing all tracking implementations to ensure key events (previously referred to as Conversions) were set up correctly within Google Analytics accounts
• Reviewing Google Tag Implementations to ensure all tracking tags across client websites and booking engines have been updated and working as expected
• Implementing a custom Cookie Consent banner on all client websites to remove the reliance on 3rd party consent tools (which impacted ad conversion tracking)

Introducing the Flux Consent Manager

Another major digital change has been the requirement for a consent management solution to protect users’ privacy and respect their data collection preferences. After many late nights, we are proud to share that Flux has successfully developed a custom consent management solution for our clients, which has been rolled out across all Flux-built websites. Some of the key features offered by the Flux Consent Manager include:

• Easy integration: Easily added to your website without the need for third-party providers.
• Lightweight: No need for animations or reliance on third-party software.
• Fully customisable: Customisable by a developer to match your brand.
• Functionally-enabled: Interacts with Consent Mode signals on the data layer.
• Compliant: Built according to Google’s established best practices and already compatible with Consent Mode V2.
• Elegant design: Features a clean, luxury look and feel, following UX best practices.
• Cost-effective: Included with your Flux-hosted website at no additional cost.

We are proud to provide this solution at no extra cost to our clients and see this as part of our ongoing commitment to delivering the best service possible.