All day every day we’re told to pay more attention to analytics. Every new web app promotes their gorgeous charts and they call them “Insights”. But analytics and insights are two fundamentally different things.

Analytics are the numbers, or data, that are central to the digital experience. If you have a website, you no doubt have some sort of web analytics service.

Insights are the learnings we develop, in large part based on analytics. They’re the “aha” moments we get from understanding our audience better.

Anyone can give you analytics. It’s the rare person who can give you insights.