Scapegoating Analysts | Recognizing & Preventing A Bad Idea.

Here’s a sign that you’ve arrived as an Analyst or an Analytics team: At the first sign of failure reported by the data, most people blame you (Analyst/Data). Wear it as a badge of honor! It means your analysis has identified insights that are big enough, important enough, that the recipients get instantly worried. Ideally, […]

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Strategic Marketing Analytics: CMO Dashboards That Rock!

An extraordinary amount of time, effort, $$$ are spent on building dashboards/scorecards for CMOs… Yet, the end result, nearly always, is a useless data puke. It turns out boiling the ocean is hard. To build an effective big picture scorecard for the CMO, that is not data pukey, there are three crucial challenges that have […]

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Transform Data’s Impact: Pick The Right Success KPI!

Your analysis provides clear data that the campaign was a (glorious) failure. It could not be clearer. The KPI you chose for your brand campaign was Trust, it had a pre-set target of +5. The post-campaign analysis that compares performance across Test & Control cells shows that Trust did not move at all. (Suspiciously, there […]

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Robust Experimentation and Testing | Reasons for Failure!

Since you’re reading a blog on advanced analytics, I’m going to assume that you have been exposed to the magical and amazing awesomeness of experimentation and testing. It truly is the bee’s knees. You are likely aware that there are entire sub-cultures (and their attendant Substacks) dedicated to the most granular ideas around experimentation (usually […]

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The Most Important Business KPIs. (Spoiler: Not Conversion Rate!)

I was reading a paper by a respected industry body that started by flagging head fake KPIs. I love that moniker, head fake. Likes. Sentiment/Comments. Shares. Yada, yada, yada. This is great. We can all use head fake metrics to calling out useless activity metrics. [I would add other head fake KPIs to the list: […]

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Increase Analytics Influence: Leverage Predictive Metrics!

Almost all metrics you currently use have one common thread: They are almost all backward-looking. If you want to deepen the influence of data in your organization – and your personal influence – 30% of your analytics efforts should be centered around the use of forward-looking metrics. Predictive metrics! But first, let’s take a small […]

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Marketing Analytics: Attribution Is Not Incrementality

One of the business side effects of the pandemic is that it has put a very sharp light on Marketing budgets. This is a very good thing under all circumstances, but particularly beneficial in times when most companies are not doing so well financially. There is a sharper focus on Revenue/Profit. From there, it is […]

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The Power of Exponential Growth | Data Viz to Simplify Complexity

There has been a lot of heartbreak around the world with the CV-19 pandemic. This chart, from NPR, illustrates some cause for optimism. It shows the 7-day average new cases per day across the world. It is crucial to acknowledge what’s hidden in the aggregated trend above: The impact on individual countries is variable. A […]

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The Impact Matrix | A Digital Analytics Strategic Framework

The universe of digital analytics is massive and can seem as complex as the cosmic universe. With such big, complicated subjects, we can get lost in the vast wilderness or become trapped in a silo. We can wander aimlessly, or feel a false sense of either accomplishment or frustration. Consequently, we lose sight of where […]

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Closing Data’s Last-Mile Gap: Visualizing For Impact!

I worry about data’s last-mile gap a lot. As a lover of data-influenced decision making, perhaps you worry as well. A lot of hard work has gone into collecting the requirements and implementation. An additional massive investment was made in the effort to perform ninja like analysis. The end result was a collection trends and […]

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Five Strategies for Slaying the Data Puking Dragon.

If you bring sharp focus, you increase chances of attention being diverted to the right places. That in turn will drive smarter questions, which will elicit thoughtful answers from available data. The result will be data-influenced actions that result in a long-term strategic advantage. It all starts with sharp focus. Consider these three scenarios… Your […]

Five Strategies for Slaying the Data Puking Dragon. is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Smarter Career Choices #3: Solve for the Global Maxima!

Today, a simple lesson that so many of us miss at great peril. In fact in your role, at this very moment, your company is making a mistake in terms of how it values your impact on the business. The lesson is about the limitation of optimizing for a local maxima, usually in a silo. […]

Smarter Career Choices #3: Solve for the Global Maxima! is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Create High-Impact Data Visualizations: Nine Effective Strategies

I believe deeply in the value of making data accessible. In service of that belief, there are few things that bring me as much joy as visualizing data (smart segmentation comes close). There is something magical about taking the tons and tons of complexity that lurks in our data, being able to find the core […]

Create High-Impact Data Visualizations: Nine Effective Strategies is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

The Very Best Digital Metrics For 15 Different Companies!

The very best analysts distill, rather than dilute. The very best analysts focus, when most will tend to gather. The very best analysts are display critical thinking, rather than giving into what’s asked. The very best analysts are comfortable operating with ambiguity and incompleteness, while all others chase perfection in implementation / processing / reports. […]

The Very Best Digital Metrics For 15 Different Companies! is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Artificial Intelligence: Implications On Marketing, Analytics, And You

A rare post today. It looks a little further out into the future than I normally tend to. It attempts to simplify a topic that has more than it’s share of coolness, confusion and complexity. While the phrase Artificial Intelligence has been around since the first human wondered if she could go further if she […]

Artificial Intelligence: Implications On Marketing, Analytics, And You is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Cookies To Humans: Implications Of Identity Systems On Incentives!

A story where data is the hero, followed by two mind-challenging business-shifting ideas. At a previous employer customer service on the phone was a huge part of the operation. Qualitative surveys were giving the company a read that customers were unhappy with the service being provided. As bad customer service is a massive long-term cost […]

Cookies To Humans: Implications Of Identity Systems On Incentives! is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Digital Attribution’s Ladder of Awesomeness: Nine Critical Steps

Culture is a stronger determinant of success with data than anything else. Including data. [People + Process + Structure] > [Data + Technology] It seems hard to believe. Yet, it is so fantastically true. At least for now. At least until AGI takes over. Why is this formula material? The first part of the equation, […]

Digital Attribution’s Ladder of Awesomeness: Nine Critical Steps is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Digital Attribution’s Ladder of Awesomeness: Nine Critical Steps

Culture is a stronger determinant of success with data than anything else. Including data. [People + Process + Structure] > [Data + Technology] It seems hard to believe. Yet, it is so fantastically true. At least for now. At least until AGI takes over. Why is this formula material? The first part of the equation, […]

Digital Attribution’s Ladder of Awesomeness: Nine Critical Steps is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Be Real-World Smart: A Beginner’s Advanced Google Analytics Guide

Being book smart is good. The outcome of book smart is rarely better for analytics practitioners then folks trying to learn how to fly an airplane from how-to books. Hence, I have been obsessed with encouraging you to get actual data to learn from. This is all the way from Aug 2009: Web Analytics Career […]

Be Real-World Smart: A Beginner’s Advanced Google Analytics Guide is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Be Real-World Smart: A Beginner’s Advanced Google Analytics Guide

Being book smart is good. The outcome of book smart is rarely better for analytics practitioners then folks trying to learn how to fly an airplane from how-to books. Hence, I have been obsessed with encouraging you to get actual data to learn from. This is all the way from Aug 2009: Web Analytics Career […]

Be Real-World Smart: A Beginner’s Advanced Google Analytics Guide is a post from: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik