We love to believe that decisions are made on the basis of facts backed by data, that the decision-making process is both rational and logical. But what happens is radically different. Data creates disbelief when introduced too early in the sales cycle, and it kills your website and digital marketing conversions. This happens because of an odd psychological quirk in the human brain.

As a Web and digital designer, I’ve had to get extraordinarily good at sales and marketing because ultimately my work is going to be judged based on how much traffic the website gets and how many sales it generates, regardless of how good it looks or how fast it loads. The challenge of the internet is that you’ve got to move people to action without being able to see how they react. Winning that challenge requires mastering practical psychology. 

For a long time, I believed that data was the ultimate trump card in getting customers. If something is empirically better, more efficient, or provided actionable insights, then wouldn’t that always be the best option for someone to choose? I was completely wrong.

The purpose of data is to give clarity and provide an empirical way to move forward. To be as factual as possible to uncover the truth. The hope is that that will shift someone’s perspective and get them to think, act, or do something differently. Ideally that means seeing things our way, a.k.a. doing business with us. 

What happens instead is shocking: People challenge the data, poke it full of holes, or walk away with more questions than before. Sales calls end with the ever frustrating “I have to think about it” backed up by some murky reason why and often without specific follow-up questions. Whether something is factual, empirically the best choice, or supported by the numbers matters very little to someone if it runs contrary to the experiences they’ve had in life because they’re not capable of perceiving it as a fact. This happens simply because people are emotional creatures. 

Another common mistake is to assume that the more analytical or data-driven someone is, the more you should double down…