http://correlate.googlelabs.com/
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Using Analytics to Improve Strategy
If we put as much effort into understanding and optimizing the factors in a strategy as we did into tactical optimization, we'd probably be four or five times more effective.
Why?
Tactical testing and analysis, when done well and right, can yield returns of approximately 2% to 20%. In certain industries, like airlines and travel arbitrage, the profit margin is made up entirely on tactical testing and optimization. Revenue management, logistics, and competing on analytics is simply the norm. Compete or die. So I'm not knocking tactical analytics.
In most instances, however, companies do not have to compete using analytics. That is to say, most companies do not see analytics as a key factor in their strategies.
Most companies certainly see strategy as the most important factor.
There are a few methodologies for producing what is likely, quantitatively, a good strategy. Five Forces and Six Sigma are two.
What should analytics contribute anything to the formulation of strategy?
Why?
Tactical testing and analysis, when done well and right, can yield returns of approximately 2% to 20%. In certain industries, like airlines and travel arbitrage, the profit margin is made up entirely on tactical testing and optimization. Revenue management, logistics, and competing on analytics is simply the norm. Compete or die. So I'm not knocking tactical analytics.
In most instances, however, companies do not have to compete using analytics. That is to say, most companies do not see analytics as a key factor in their strategies.
Most companies certainly see strategy as the most important factor.
There are a few methodologies for producing what is likely, quantitatively, a good strategy. Five Forces and Six Sigma are two.
What should analytics contribute anything to the formulation of strategy?
Monday, May 16, 2011
Does anyone give a shit about your dumb idea?
You're invited to #WAWTO on June 22. Success would be several analysts, developers, marketers, data miners and creatives/artists coming out to engage and connect.
Check out the invite below because it's going to be a fascinating and fun meetup:
http://www.meetup.com/WebAnalyticsWednesday/events/17841071/
The thesis question for the night is: "Does anyone give a shit about your dumb idea?", first posed by David Cancel on his Data Driven Startup blog.
And to help answer that, one of the best innovators, bootstrapper, and scientists I know, Joseph Carrabis, will be on hand to present solutions, pose problems, and answer your questions.
Like any collective community, we're long on ideas (good), long on realism (okay), and a bit shorter on testing (not as good). So how can we accelerate that in a meaningful way? How can we maximize the odds of winning while minimizing the impact of failing? That's the genesis, and that's why it's important to get together and really address it.
Check out the invite below because it's going to be a fascinating and fun meetup:
http://www.meetup.com/WebAnalyticsWednesday/events/17841071/
The thesis question for the night is: "Does anyone give a shit about your dumb idea?", first posed by David Cancel on his Data Driven Startup blog.
And to help answer that, one of the best innovators, bootstrapper, and scientists I know, Joseph Carrabis, will be on hand to present solutions, pose problems, and answer your questions.
Like any collective community, we're long on ideas (good), long on realism (okay), and a bit shorter on testing (not as good). So how can we accelerate that in a meaningful way? How can we maximize the odds of winning while minimizing the impact of failing? That's the genesis, and that's why it's important to get together and really address it.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
The Economist Style Guide
The Economist Style Guide is a good reference for communicating insights.
It's the easiest style guide for our industry.
A few favourite highlights:
"Short words
Use them. They are often Anglo-Saxon rather than Latin in origin. They are easy to spell and easy to understand. Thus prefer about to approximately, after to following, let to permit, but to however, use to utilise, make to manufacture, plant to facility, take part to participate, set up to establish, enough to sufficient, show to demonstrate and so on. Underdeveloped countries are often better described as poor. Substantive often means real or big. “Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.” (Winston Churchill)"
"Active, not passive
Be direct. A hit B describes the event more concisely than B was hit by A."
And on being concise:
"In general, be concise. Try to be economical in your account or argument (“The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out”—Voltaire). Similarly, try to be economical with words. “As a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigour it will give to your style.” (Sydney Smith) Raymond Mortimer put it even more crisply when commenting about Susan Sontag: “Her journalism, like a diamond, will sparkle more if it is cut.”"
.
It's the easiest style guide for our industry.
A few favourite highlights:
"Short words
Use them. They are often Anglo-Saxon rather than Latin in origin. They are easy to spell and easy to understand. Thus prefer about to approximately, after to following, let to permit, but to however, use to utilise, make to manufacture, plant to facility, take part to participate, set up to establish, enough to sufficient, show to demonstrate and so on. Underdeveloped countries are often better described as poor. Substantive often means real or big. “Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.” (Winston Churchill)"
"Active, not passive
Be direct. A hit B describes the event more concisely than B was hit by A."
And on being concise:
"In general, be concise. Try to be economical in your account or argument (“The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out”—Voltaire). Similarly, try to be economical with words. “As a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigour it will give to your style.” (Sydney Smith) Raymond Mortimer put it even more crisply when commenting about Susan Sontag: “Her journalism, like a diamond, will sparkle more if it is cut.”"
.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
The top 5 most interesting questions arising from eMetrics Toronto
eMetrics Toronto 2011 was excellent. A huge thank you and congratulations to Andrea Hadley, Jim Sterne, my colleagues on the advisory committee, Syncapse for putting on a great Web Analytics Wednesday, and the Rising Media team for putting it on and pulling it off.
Many points of view were generated and shared.
The top five that generate the very most interesting questions (for me) are:
5. Laura Callow delivered a convincing arguement in favor of testing regardless of much traffic a given site or page is doing. Traffic will eventually accumulate for significance. She also presented the relationship (dare I say correlation?) between page load time and conversion on site, and, in a delightful twist, linked it page tagging and the impact on conversion. Brilliant. Does the a culture of testing, if sustainable and feasible, drive incremental improvements in usability simple because the organization becomes more aware of usability?
Ie. The testing may generate returns, but the institution of testing itself generates better results overall because the institution simply exists.
4. Patrick Glinski reminded / told analysts to structure their analysis so that an experience designer will actually want to use the output. The message was taken very seriously. We need to really talk about how analysts communicate with others more broadly, and his design-optimization cycle. Why don't/won't designers and analysts work together more often?
3. Amy Sample spoke compellingly about the role of video and linking it to their objectives at PBS. 1/3 of all visits to the site are motivated by video. How should intra-video navigation (scrubbing) be isolated, treated and considered?
2. Simon Austin identified four types of social media measurement and how he treats each one. Most notably, monitoring (buzz, listening, so on) is separate from counting (fans, actions, so on). He talked about some metrics that have credibility with the CFO and generally about how we treat money in marketing performance. Will accountants and people in finance reach a point where they'll be comfortable with the ambiguity in marketing analytics?
1. Dan Quinn, Angus Frame, and Louis-Jacques Darveau gave excellent pointers on how analysts should speak to decision makers and executives. It's the first time I've ever heard such advice delivered from decision makers themselves at a conference. Dan Quinn argued convincingly that marketers are irresponsible in their budget allocations to digital relative to TV, and showed empirical evidence to that effect. He was realistic in an assessment of how far MMM can get us. Angus Frame reminded everybody that conversations amongst analysts about methodology and definitions, are not a value add when outsiders are present. Angus advised that analysts must always bring them a point of view, and while honesty and transparency is appreciated, a clear point of view is essential. They urged analysts to use executive-speak, not analyst speak. Does that mean we ought to sacrifice descriptive accuracy (accounts, http cookies) for descriptive simplicity (lead, customer, person, people)?
The questions are open for discussion. I'm asking you - what do you think?
.
.
.
Namedropping Ahoy!
It was Hemash Bhatti's first time as an expert panelist, his second eMetrics conference, and he did delivered. Congratulations on a great presentation!
Mark Dykeman presented relevant data about the size of digital relative to TV. His point was to remind us just how massive TV is in marketing. I got it.
Dave Hamel wrote out an action list throughout the entire conference. He placed a check box next to each point. This, I think, is an absolutely brilliant way to make something actionable. He has posted his own link-baiting article about eMetrics Toronto - "The Six Things I learned from eMetrics "they" don't want you to know about". It's increasingly some what of a meme among frustrated analysts. The sad reality is...such tactics really work. We're both seeing strong incremental lifts in traffic as a result.
It was great seeing everybody again - Jason Dong and Jose Davila (WAA Research Committee and serial contributors), June Li, Stephane Hamel (Now at Cardinal Path with Alex and John - who were also nice to see), Jacques Warren for his excellent advice on securing a publisher and for asking about Granovetter, which was a highlight. I really enjoyed seeing Alex Brasil and our labor market and leadership troubles in Toronto. I enjoyed meeting Angie Brown and her contribution to the KPI panel. Gscott is the most on brand analyst in the world. No slight to the names I may have missed - I remember many faces but I'm horrid at names.
You can see how much value there is from attending an eMetrics Toronto. See you next year!
Many points of view were generated and shared.
The top five that generate the very most interesting questions (for me) are:
5. Laura Callow delivered a convincing arguement in favor of testing regardless of much traffic a given site or page is doing. Traffic will eventually accumulate for significance. She also presented the relationship (dare I say correlation?) between page load time and conversion on site, and, in a delightful twist, linked it page tagging and the impact on conversion. Brilliant. Does the a culture of testing, if sustainable and feasible, drive incremental improvements in usability simple because the organization becomes more aware of usability?
Ie. The testing may generate returns, but the institution of testing itself generates better results overall because the institution simply exists.
4. Patrick Glinski reminded / told analysts to structure their analysis so that an experience designer will actually want to use the output. The message was taken very seriously. We need to really talk about how analysts communicate with others more broadly, and his design-optimization cycle. Why don't/won't designers and analysts work together more often?
3. Amy Sample spoke compellingly about the role of video and linking it to their objectives at PBS. 1/3 of all visits to the site are motivated by video. How should intra-video navigation (scrubbing) be isolated, treated and considered?
2. Simon Austin identified four types of social media measurement and how he treats each one. Most notably, monitoring (buzz, listening, so on) is separate from counting (fans, actions, so on). He talked about some metrics that have credibility with the CFO and generally about how we treat money in marketing performance. Will accountants and people in finance reach a point where they'll be comfortable with the ambiguity in marketing analytics?
1. Dan Quinn, Angus Frame, and Louis-Jacques Darveau gave excellent pointers on how analysts should speak to decision makers and executives. It's the first time I've ever heard such advice delivered from decision makers themselves at a conference. Dan Quinn argued convincingly that marketers are irresponsible in their budget allocations to digital relative to TV, and showed empirical evidence to that effect. He was realistic in an assessment of how far MMM can get us. Angus Frame reminded everybody that conversations amongst analysts about methodology and definitions, are not a value add when outsiders are present. Angus advised that analysts must always bring them a point of view, and while honesty and transparency is appreciated, a clear point of view is essential. They urged analysts to use executive-speak, not analyst speak. Does that mean we ought to sacrifice descriptive accuracy (accounts, http cookies) for descriptive simplicity (lead, customer, person, people)?
The questions are open for discussion. I'm asking you - what do you think?
.
.
.
Namedropping Ahoy!
It was Hemash Bhatti's first time as an expert panelist, his second eMetrics conference, and he did delivered. Congratulations on a great presentation!
Mark Dykeman presented relevant data about the size of digital relative to TV. His point was to remind us just how massive TV is in marketing. I got it.
Dave Hamel wrote out an action list throughout the entire conference. He placed a check box next to each point. This, I think, is an absolutely brilliant way to make something actionable. He has posted his own link-baiting article about eMetrics Toronto - "The Six Things I learned from eMetrics "they" don't want you to know about". It's increasingly some what of a meme among frustrated analysts. The sad reality is...such tactics really work. We're both seeing strong incremental lifts in traffic as a result.
It was great seeing everybody again - Jason Dong and Jose Davila (WAA Research Committee and serial contributors), June Li, Stephane Hamel (Now at Cardinal Path with Alex and John - who were also nice to see), Jacques Warren for his excellent advice on securing a publisher and for asking about Granovetter, which was a highlight. I really enjoyed seeing Alex Brasil and our labor market and leadership troubles in Toronto. I enjoyed meeting Angie Brown and her contribution to the KPI panel. Gscott is the most on brand analyst in the world. No slight to the names I may have missed - I remember many faces but I'm horrid at names.
You can see how much value there is from attending an eMetrics Toronto. See you next year!
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