Summary In today's episode, I walk through the mathematics of trend detection, methods for measuring rate of change, and the timing for taking action on data signals. Here's what this means for you. You gain a framework for spotting anomalies, upward trends, and breakouts so you can act on momentum before it fades. You'll also…
One of the most important questions you can ask a prospective customer is one almost no one asks: How did you hear about us? (or its many variations, like “What made you come in today?”) is a question we don’t ask nearly enough. Why? Why don’t we ask this critical question, a question that is…
Let’s be candid: most marketing reporting sucks. It’s either so superficial and activity-based that it doesn’t tell us anything, or it’s a truck backing up, dumping data all over our desk and expecting us to sort through it all. Neither helps us improve our marketing. What’s the solution to this conundrum? One answer is a…
Summary In today's episode, I walk through how to use publicly available third-party data to inform your marketing decisions with hands-on demos from FRED and TSA travel data. Here's what this means for you. You'll gain a repeatable framework for validating your marketing assumptions using free government datasets and spotting real trends versus anomalies. You'll…
Summary In today's episode, I walk through how to use Google Analytics 3's competitive benchmarking feature to compare your marketing performance against industry peers and turn the results into actionable dollar amounts. Here's what this means for you. You'll gain a framework for identifying which channels are underperforming and quantifying the revenue you're leaving on…
In the past few weeks, we’ve heard that the sky is falling and that marketing will forever be ruined with Apple’s new iOS 14.5 update which would put privacy popups all over users’ iPhones. Now that the update is out, what’s the reality? How much of the hype was true? I upgraded my phone to…
Summary In today's episode, I run a hands-on test of iOS 14.5 to see how its new privacy features actually affect web analytics tracking across multiple browsers and apps. Here's what this means for you. You can stop panicking about losing all your marketing data because organic tracking still works in most real-world scenarios. You'll…
Summary In today's episode, I walk through how attribution modeling works in Google Analytics 4 and show how to rebuild an attribution dashboard in Data Studio since GA4 dropped the native attribution tool. Here's what this means for you. You get a free way to track which marketing channels actually drive conversions while GA4 matures,…
Third party cookies. Safari iOS tracking updates. Ad blockers. CPRA. So many different initiatives are in progress now to increase consumer privacy (a good thing) and decrease marketing’s ability to target people (less of a good thing if you’re a marketer who relies on that data). When other marketers ask what my strategy is to…
Summary In today's episode, I walk through how to turn competitive analysis into actionable marketing decisions using a proper SWOT framework and a digital footprint score across channels. Here's what this means for you. You gain a tactical, channel-by-channel method for spotting competitor weaknesses and defending your own strengths instead of collecting data you never…
