We’re already a few days into the new year. That means gyms are full of people hopeful to get in shape for the year, mindfully eating their greens and drinking more water. You may see friends show up on time more consistently or hear talk of meditating everyday. That’s all well and good but according to Business Insider, about 80% of personal resolutions fall off by February. And it’s easy to fall into same trap for professional goals as well. If you, like many other digital marketers, are setting marketing and data goals for the new year, be wary of that February slump.

So here are four evergreen goals to grow your marketing and improve your data analysis, that are easy to adopt and easy to maintain:

1. Say hello to automated reporting with dashboards

If you’re like me and you use a variety of digital marketing tools, then automated email reports are a godsend. Yes, there’s the initial time to set them up, but automated reports save so much more time in the long run because you no longer have to repeat the same action every week. In 2018, embrace automated data analytics reporting with customized dashboards. Here’s one example of how, with Google Analytics.

Go to your Google Analytics account and you’ll notice that above each section overview there is the Share button. If you click on the share button, you can set email recipients, attachment type, and frequency of the reported metric in which you’re interested.

In Google Analytics, there is also the option to create custom dashboards. I’ve created one for weekly web traffic and monthly web traffic. Each is set to update me on Sunday night and on the first of the month, respectively. When I worked as an editor we would get hourly web traffic reports because of the push and pull of current events. Set the frequency to whatever fits your current traffic size. Here is how to set it up:

Under Customization, you’ll find the Dashboard section. You can see the two that I created in the past. Hit Create and you’ll get the option to start out with a Blank Canvas or a Starter Dashboard. I recommend hitting the starter dashboard and removing widgets per your preference.

Once that’s all set up, you can then once again hit Share  to find yourself at the same window as before. Set the recipients and frequency. Voila, you’re all set with your customized dashboard and automated email report.

The best thing about this data resolution is it’s the easiest practice to maintain. But don’t forget to actually read those reports every week!

2. Embrace fewer social media metrics

That’s right, I said fewer. Let 2018 be the year when your social media marketing breathes. We’ve talked about this is in the past, the importance of focusing on social media metrics that have an actual impact on your brand’s ROI.

? Feeling overwhelmed by #marketing and #socialmedia #data? Our upcoming blog can help with that. Here’s a sneak peek: pic.twitter.com/Db5ptGnTNT

— Scraawl (@Scraawl) October 24, 2017

It can be scary to let go of metrics like your Friends to Follower ratio, but unless you can translate that ratio to actual conversions for your brand, it may be time to focus your energy on another metric such as engagement. And when we say focus, that could mean putting more dollars behind social media posts instead of paying for another follower campaign. This, of course, all depends on what your company needs. At the heart of what we’re saying here, is to let go of the data that doesn’t serve you in order to open your valuable time and energy to more impactful social data analysis.

3. Try on new lingo – from Big Data to Machine Learning

2017 was the year big data died. Not to say that big data is no longer important, rather companies are no longer impressed with large quantities of data. They want to know how agencies, marketing managers, analysts are processing that data. Are you leveraging artificial intelligence and its subset machine learning? You use analytics to understand brand market penetration online? Great! But are those analytics predictive yet?

If it’s seems like a lot– don’t worry! Martech tools are still catching up to data science industry trend. So consider 2018 the year when marketing becomes better acquainted with predictive analytics and AI.

In the meantime, simply learning how terms like AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning all relate to each other is a great place to start (and an easy win for your 2018 data resolutions)

4. Invest in the right data analytics tool

At the start of each quarter, and especially at the start of a new year, digital marketers will often renew their search for the right data analytics platform for their brand. It can be a time consuming process to find the right tool for your budget and unique social media needs.

And this comes from personal experience. We do a lot of demos for Scraawl. We can feel the palpable relief on the other side of the phone when we say Scraawl can answer digital marketing questions about influencer impact (and bot detection and etc.) and is cheaper than similar competitors.

That being said, to invest in your brand’s digital brand presence often means getting your whole team on board first. That’s why it’s great when tools offer a free version of their tool, or demo trials. If you want to try out our tool with no risk, you can sign up for Scraawl for free. There is no credit card necessary and there will be no barrage of emails asking you to buy the product.