Carista - 173tech

Data Strategy

From fragmented systems to scalable insights

Objective

Define and prioritise key data initiatives through a clear, actionable roadmap, mapping the journey to measurable business value.

Obstacle

A complex omni-channel customer journey with disconnected systems and multiple touchpoints.

Outcome

Delivered a comprehensive data roadmap that unified marketing and subscription analytics, enabling scalable, insight-driven growth.

Background

Carista is a leading provider of aftermarket car services, empowering drivers with advanced diagnostics, maintenance tracking, and personalised vehicle insights. With a bold ambition to grow their active subscriber base to 75,000 by 2026, Carista recognised the need to strengthen its data foundations, centralising key systems and enhancing analytics to better understand customer behaviour and optimise subscription performance.

To kick off the partnership, 173tech hosted a focused half-day strategy session with Carista’s senior leadership team, mapping the full customer journey and identifying the most valuable touchpoints for insight and optimisation. This set the direction for a scalable, data-driven growth roadmap.

Strategy Review

Data Fragmentation and Limited Visibility: Disconnected data sources, such as backend databases, Amazon sales, and marketing platforms, created significant challenges in understanding user behaviour and business performance. The lack of integration between these systems resulted in fragmented insights, making it difficult to track customer interactions across different touchpoints. Additionally, existing reports were inflexible and failed to connect pre-app marketing funnel behavior with in-app activities, limiting visibility into the entire customer journey.

High Costs and Lack of Actionable Insights: The reliance on BigQuery for direct raw data queries led to unexpected cost spikes, making data analysis expensive and inefficient. Furthermore, the absence of advanced analytics hindered the ability to identify churn signals or predict high-value customers. Without robust retention and churn insights, optimising customer engagement strategies and maximising lifetime value became increasingly difficult.

Solution

Strategic Business Alignment: We collaborated closely with the founding team to define strategic business goals and identify key data use cases that could drive growth. This process involved conducting in-depth interviews with key stakeholders to map the entire customer journey, ensuring a clear understanding of critical touchpoints that impact user engagement and retention. By aligning data strategies with business objectives, the foundation was set for more data-driven decision-making.

Scaleable Data Infrastructure: To support scalable growth, a thorough audit of the existing infrastructure and data processes was conducted, identifying key data silos that hindered efficiency. Key performance indicators (KPIs) were defined in alignment with the customer journey to measure and optimise growth effectively. Finally, a comprehensive data roadmap was developed, designed to deliver immediate value, encourage company-wide data adoption, and iteratively scale analytics capabilities for long-term success.

Impact

Iterative Approach: To drive quick wins and maximise return on investment, the initial focus was on integrating high-value data sources such as backend databases and Amazon sales. This provided immediate insights into key business metrics. As part of a phased approach, additional data sources like CRM and Shopify analytics were gradually incorporated to enhance customer journey visibility. A unified data pipeline was then established, seamlessly integrating backend databases, Amazon sales, and marketing platforms to ensure smooth data flow and accessibility.

Strengthening Data Capabilities: Investing in internal data talent became a priority, with dedicated specialists hired and trained to maintain and expand the analytics infrastructure. We assisted in putting together the job spec and onboarding this new hire. We are unusual as an agency in that we actually encourage our clients that long-term they should inhouse their analytics requirement, although we are always here to help.