FFullstory
Behavioural insight with the context intact.
Session replay, product analytics and journey intelligence used to diagnose friction and prioritise experience change.
Digital experienceSession replayJourney insight
Start with the right
questions.
Data Says is a digital experience measurement and optimisation consultancy. We connect and augment the data you collect, ask sharp questions, discern what matters, and deliver measurable value — sequenced by return. We work in close partnership with clients from the first conversation all the way through to delivered outcomes. Our approach, in three words: Question. Discern. Deliver.
Start a conversationWhat we do ↓
Data strategyCollection & implementationMeasurement & insightExperience optimisationAI augmentation
The state of play
Martech — failing to deliver.
The Martech dream promised personalised experiences. The reality arrived at cost, siloed capability and features that go underutilised.
More data, more tools, more dashboards — and still no straight answer on what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus next. The technology is not the problem. The problem starts during vendor selection and ends with an execution gap. A lack of lucid business value cases, due consideration of total cost of ownership and resourcing new ways of working to bolster the BAU delivery imperative. Meanwhile, media budgets quietly cover for declining engagement and customer retention problems.
78%
of marketing leaders say their martech investments are not delivering the expected return.
eClerx Marketing Report 2026: Mind the Gap
0 of 50+
senior marketing leaders McKinsey interviewed could clearly articulate the ROI of their martech investment.
McKinsey, 2025
No clear line of sight to ROI
1 in 3
marketers are fully satisfied with their ability to unify customer data — siloed systems and data quality remain the top barriers to personalisation at scale.
Salesforce State of Marketing, 10th edition
What we see
Seven signs of struggle.
You have the platforms, the data, the dashboards, maybe even an agency or three — and still nobody really understands the lived experience behind the metrics or how to deliver personalisation at scale to sustain profitable growth. Sound familiar?
- The data doesn’t connect.
Web, app, CRM and campaign data sit in silos. No single view follows the customer from first touch to sale, renewal or quiet churn.
- The numbers aren’t trusted.
Quality goes unwatched, definitions drift, and meetings start with an argument about whose figure is right.
- The customer view is fragmented.
The same person shows up as five different records; identity never quite resolves.
- Experiences are disjointed.
Channels don’t hand off to each other, and the journey resets at every touchpoint.
- Personalisation isn’t personal.
Everyone gets the same version A or version B; relevance never arrives.
- Priorities are opinion-led.
Which feature, which test, which segment — the calls go to the loudest voice in the room, because the evidence is scattered and contested.
- AI isn’t landing.
Pilots stall because the data underneath can’t carry them, and consumer-tier tools can quietly expose your IP and your customers’ data.
You cannot solve these issues with more technology — you need experienced practitioners who can help you reach a clear understanding of your current state capabilities and help you develop a roadmap to achieve your future state vision.
We have a road-tested approach that helps clients quickly reorientate, refactor and reset towards their future state: best-in-class digital experience delivery.
How we work
Question. Discern. Deliver.
Our approach is deceptively simple and comprises three active states that we transition in order to quickly deliver best-in-class capability and minimise time to value outcomes.
01Question.
Asking the right questions does more work than any tool. We frame the problems worth solving and challenge assumptions the organisation takes for granted.
02Discern.
Not all signals warrant action. We multiply data by lived human experience to determine what matters, what can wait, and what to ignore.
03Deliver.
Value lives in the last mile that few programmes reach. We develop, deploy and measure: working implementations, running experiments, and the evidence of what the work returned.
Five services deliver the method — from strategy through to delivery ↓
What we do
Five services. One focus.
All of our engagements are discovery led - whether at a lite or paid tier, this ensures that we align value outcomes to your contextual considerations from the outset.
The focus is digital experience — five services, one discipline.
01Data strategy
Where to invest, what to fix first, and in what sequence.
- DX data strategy and prioritised roadmap
- Measurement frameworks tied to business outcomes
- Stack rationalisation and vendor selection — run from the buyer’s side of the table
- Investment sequencing: what to fix first, and why
- How to cultivate first party data assets
02Collection & implementation
Full-context, first-party capture — engineered for quality and connection.
- Analytics implementation with context and data-layer design: first-party, server-side, built to last
- Data quality monitoring and ongoing maintenance
- CDP implementation and integration — when a CDP is actually the answer
- Solution designs and tagging specifications — documentation built to be used
- Identity strategy and implementation — designed to work in harmony with progressive trust practices
- Privacy first trust practices & CM implementation
03Measurement & insight
Mixed-method as standard: what happened, why, and which of it matters.
- Tracking and data-quality audits
- Behavioural, product and CX analytics — one connected read, not two camps
- Voice-of-customer and session-replay integration
- Attribution and retention measurement, calibrated to your sales cycle — long or short
- Value chain analysis, insight triangulation and prioritisation
04Experience optimisation
Experimentation, personalisation, activation — judged on results.
- Experimentation programme design and delivery
- Statistical power honestly assessed — including when experimentation isn’t the right tool for your traffic
- Personalisation, CRO and audience activation — roadmaps prioritised by impact
- Tactical CRO quick wins to deliver immediate impact — tried and tested patterns
- Qualitative evaluation — guides and surveys, run & maintained
05AI augmentation
Domain-encoded skills, human judgement in the loop.
- Domain-encoded AI skills for DX workflows
- Private and hybrid model infrastructure
- Governance, logging and a full audit trail
- Reference architectures that minimise IP leakage by design
- Latest platform native and MCP enabled experience evaluation & optimisation
Technology partner ecosystem
Deep expertise where it matters.
We work at the sharp edge and champion our clients. These are platforms we know well and represent best in class — not a catalogue of badges — and we recommend them only when multiples of ROI are achievable.
Preferred platforms
Deep implementation and optimisation experience
OObservePoint
Trustworthy collection at enterprise scale.
Automated tag, analytics and privacy governance — used to find drift, breakage and risk before it reaches reporting.
Data qualityTag governanceCompliance
AAdobe Experience Cloud
Focused on the measurement and activation stack.
Our Adobe work centres on analytics, experimentation, cross-channel journey analysis and orchestration — not the entire Adobe catalogue.
Adobe AnalyticsTargetCJAAJO / AEP
Other technologies we often work across
Work with us
Start small. Build trust.
Three fixed-scope ways to start — each begins with a scoping call and ends with a written deliverable you keep.
DX Capability Diagnostic
Define the boundary of the engagement: a wide martech 'ecosystem' lens, or a more focused data strategy or user experience remit.
Lite — free.
A fast paced working session, context review and a summary of value opportunities.
Full — fixed fee.
Deep assessment & capability development roadmap tailored to your context & priorities.
Data Quality & Context Audit
A focused audit of context capture and data quality across your stack, findings ranked by risk. Quality and context are foundational — to staying relevant, and to every robust capability you build next.
2 weeks·fixed feeExperimentation & Personalisation Programme Review
Your testing and personalisation programme assessed for velocity, statistical power and real impact, with a re-prioritised roadmap.
2–6 weeks·fixed feeOur engagement models
We offer three commercial models — matched to your budget and needs.
01Project
Fixed fee or a defined time bucket. Defined scope & timeline to deliver to a specific solution or value outcome.
02Retained
Integrated capability delivery — we run and operate alongside your team, building your capability as we deliver interim throughput.
03PartnerNew
An outcome-based subscription: defined goals with commercials tied to the uplift delivered.
Why Data Says
What you can expect.
The founders have a track record of working in, co-founding, and growing hyper-specialised 'boutique' consultancies spanning the UK and Australia.
Retained advisers to leading Australian brands you would recognise, you can expect to engage with senior and founding team members onshore. Our business is personal, with a mix of virtual and in person face-to-face relationship based delivery.
Delivery through to outcome.
Strategy is where we start, not where we stop. We implement, integrate and optimise — and stay until the change is live, the results are measured, and your team can run what we built.
Senior hands, AI-augmented.
Encoded versions of our own methods do the sweep — every tag, every event, every page checked against spec overnight — and a founder judges every finding before you see it. No pyramid, no juniors learning on your account.
Straight-shooting integrity. Always.
Client first, in practice: recommendations grounded in real-world delivery experience. Sometimes the path to resolution requires spending less, or switching to lower-cost alternatives — you can expect unflinching advisory.
Leading-edge partnerships.
We partner with a deliberate few — leading software platforms and specialist co-delivery partners — so you get the best possible outcome, as quickly as possible.
Clients
Who we work with.
Retained and project engagements with Australian brands you would recognise. Client references and anonymised case studies are available on request.
About
Who we are.
Founded by James Wawne and Joss Hickey — senior practitioners in enterprise data and digital experience.
Brisbane and Sydney, working ANZ-wide: deepest in financial services, higher education, retail and utilities, with work across media and professional services. Delivery is onshore, and customer data stays resident in Australia — AI runs on governed, private infrastructure with a full audit trail.
Financial servicesHigher educationRetailUtilitiesMediaProfessional services
Contact
Start a conversation.
Bring us the decision you’re weighing, the problems you are facing, and the outcomes you are chasing. You’ll talk to a founder, not a salesperson — and leave knowing where you should start, with clear next steps.
Prefer a fixed-scope start? Pick one of the three ways in.