Bill Sebald says, “A process can easily become a habit. A habit may not change without awareness or intervention. Before it becomes a habit, a process should be adjusted to change along with new goals, constant learning, experimentation, and so on. Considering your time in analytics, are you engaging in a process, or in an outdated habit? That’s a real question that digital marketing practitioners should ask themselves. Inherently, marketers tend to be buried with work, reusing templates to speed up results. But many agencies lean on those templates a little too much, in my opinion. Templates... [...]

Pratik Dholakiya says, “Actionable metrics are like oxygen for your decision-making. The decisions you make obviously have a direct impact on your business. Google Analytics has been the staple stats feeder for a gazillion marketers and business owners over the years. But does it actually give you all the data you need? In fact, do you even realize the different types and sources of data that are available to you and whether you have uses and applications for all of them? Let’s take a closer look. Real-Time Web Analytics Google Analytics already provides you with real-time analytics built... [...]

Rachel Sprung says, “When it comes time to assess your marketing efforts, it’s not uncommon for you to run into a ton of questions. How are your contacts trending month over month? Was the time you spent creating social media graphics for that campaign worth it? And what about your email marketing efforts? How are those stacking up against your paid initiatives? So many questions, so little time … And while it’s easy to get lost in a mess of reports and numbers when you go looking for answers, it doesn’t have to be that way. To save you some time, we’ve put... [...]

Lori Goldberg says, “In digital advertising, we have an uncommon ability to collect user data that’s superior to other forms of advertising data; particularly compared to what’s available in TV or print. However, merely collecting the data can be overwhelming unless a marketing anthropologist can cut through the clutter and give meaning to what the data says about your business. Here are some tips on how to give meaning to your website traffic or advertising response data. Separate perception from reality Often, a business’ perception of its customer is very different than the customer’s... [...]

Benjamin Filip says, “At MarketingExperiments, we use patented heuristics to evaluate websites, emails and other digital mediums. Often people think that a heuristic evaluation is a purely qualitative approach to a problem. This can be true, but when you combine quantitative analytics with the qualitative knowledge you increase the power to make meaningful change. This post will show relevant metrics for three of these elements that any marketer — from beginner to advanced — can use to discover opportunities for improvement. Step #1. Look at the qualitative elements of your website Often... [...]

Rachel Sprung says, “I’ve been interested in data and analytics for a long, long time. As a ten-year-old, I remember creating Excel spreadsheets with my dad for his annual Fantasy Football pool. By the time I was 16, I was building Pivot Tables with my cell phone bill to figure out who I texted the most. (I promise I had other hobbies.) Since then, I’ve learned how much more there is to data analysis besides Pivot Tables and Excel. There’s a whole world of analytics out there — and I’ve barely scratched the surface.There’s always more to learn, so I’ve... [...]

Gianluca Fiorelli says, “Roger Dooley, neuromarketing expert, reminds us in his book Brainfluence that in 80% of cases we make a decision before being rationally aware of it. Although Dooley explains this effect in terms of how our brain works, in my opinion, distinctly separating neuroscience and the theory of archetypes would be incorrect. On the contrary, I believe that these two aspects of the study of the human mind are complementary”. Understand and Harness the Power of Archetypes in Marketing MOZ Blog  [...]

Thomas Koletas says, “Modern B2B marketing and sales teams rely on several techniques to maintain customer interest throughout the buying process. Rather than the classic sales funnel, the customer’s journey is now treated as an ongoing course of marketing and education, sales outreach, and (eventually) a transaction. Marketing automation is the engine that allows marketers to collect all touchpoints that occur during the customer’s path to purchase, and Big Data is the fuel that gives marketers this information to determine intent. Two strong methods of incorporating Big Data are lead... [...]

David Moth says, “Though the use of big data remains a huge challenge for many businesses, those with more advanced capabilities are beginning to shift the emphasis from volume of data to speed of analytics. As analytical processes gain more velocity companies are able to gain a competitive advantage by using data in a way that significantly impacts business performance and market position. Speed in analytics will be one topic open for discussion at Econsultancy and IBM’s BusinessConnect 2015 interactive roundtables in March, hosted in Malaysia, Thailandand Singapore. And the new focus on... [...]

David Moth says, “As companies become more digitally savvy they are beginning to better tap into the range of data and analytics at their disposal. This is frequently used to optimise marketing channels and campaigns, but are brands making the most of analytics to inform their product development? This depends to an extent on what you define as your product. One might argue that in our increasingly digitised world, the lines between product development and CRO (conversion rate optimisation) are becoming blurred. For example, for a pureplay retailer like ASOS its website and the content it publishes... [...]