Summary In today's episode, I walk through a simple Google Data Studio exercise for diagnosing dirty data in your Google Analytics account. Here's what this means for you. You'll gain a fast, no-code method to surface the attribution-breaking problems hiding in your traffic sources. You'll also learn these concepts: why a source/medium table exposes your…
Ashlee asks, “What are some strategies for increasing first-party data?” Let’s recall that first-party data is data given to us by prospective customers, and comes in two flavors. Passive first-party data is data collected by tools like Google Analytics and our email marketing software – when a user does something, these tools measure the actions…
One of the truths we don’t talk about nearly enough in marketing data science is the need to blend data. There are very few data sources that are a single source of truth by themselves, that need no augmentation or supplementation to provide maximum value. Even our most favorite, most used tools like Google Analytics,…
Kate asks, “Why do you have such a fixation on data?” This is a more interesting, philosophical question than it might first appear. Yes, I emphasize data a great deal in my work; my company, Trust Insights, is rooted in data-driven marketing. But where did this all come from? A significant part comes from my…
A few years ago, there was a big movement called Quantified Self, in which we would apply principles of analytics and data science to our lives with fitness trackers and other apps that would help quantify how we were living. For a variety of reasons – mainly overhead – that movement never really took off.…
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…
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 what dark data means in marketing analytics, how to spot dark traffic in Google Analytics, and practical steps to recover unattributed visits. Here's what this means for you. You gain a clear framework for diagnosing whether hidden traffic is undermining your decisions and learn concrete ways to shrink…
Summary In today's episode, I walk through the fundamentals of data preparation for analysis as the first installment in a multi-week series on getting your marketing data ready for meaningful insights. Here's what this means for you. You gain a practical framework for evaluating whether you can actually use your data before you spend time…
Summary In today's episode, I walk through the six most common mistakes marketers make when building marketing personas and why those mistakes undermine real campaign performance. Here's what this means for you. You discover how to construct data-driven, outcome-calibrated personas that actually reflect your audience instead of becoming fictional constructs based on opinion. You'll also…
