Category: Data Storytelling

How Curiosity Can Improve Your Data Analysis

Posted on by Coegi

Efficiently analyzing data and providing ongoing campaign optimization recommendations is critical for driving the best results for our clients. However, the complexity and rigidity of data sets can make the most meaningful insights difficult to accurately uncover. In order to elevate your analysis and provide better insights for your campaign performance, you must stay curious, using knowledge and creativity to bolster your approach. 

Moving from Data Analytics to Data Insights

Analytics and insights – they are closely related, but not the same. Analytics is a way we approach a problem that is standardized and repeatable. But what we’re really after is turning these numbers into insights. For instance, you might see that a lot of people clicked on your ad – analytics. But going further to ask ‘What does the high click-through rate mean? and deciding how are you changing campaigns based on that knowledge – that’s insight. 

In other words, analytics are repeatable, standardized processes to understand data and gain information. Insights are what we do based on that information. 

When running a campaign, there are often thousands, sometimes millions, of data points to analyze. Even when campaign goals and KPIs are clearly defined, it can be difficult to immediately identify the more subtle and complex insights hiding within the numbers. That is where curiosity and creativity come into play – we start looking for whatever stories the data can tell.  

The Benefits of Using Curiosity in Your Data Analysis

Asking thoughtful questions and keeping an open mind about what you see in the data helps identify unexpected opportunities and avoid pre-existing biases in your analysis. This allows patterns to appear in the data and provide beneficial insights for future campaigns. No matter what kind of data you are working with, there is always a learning to uncover.

For example, perhaps you have a channel that is unexpectedly driving better sales numbers than others. Instead of broadly accepting the success of the campaign, investigate why that channel did well so you can apply those learnings and build on that success. Stretch your mind to stretch your data and let it come alive for your brand.  

Avoiding Analysis Paralysis

Anyone deeply entrenched in data analysis will know it is all too easy to get buried, and even lost, trying to extract every bit of intel from the data. And while we want to glean as much insight as possible, it can be difficult to know where to stop once you start down a rabbit hole in an effort to get every morsel of information. At some point, the return on that time investment will diminish and you’ll start coming to the same conclusions, just from different angles. 

It’s critical to strike a balance, understanding when it’s valuable to take more time to really dive into the numbers, asking a variety of questions before taking action on the insight. Quarterly reviews, post-campaign reporting, planning phases – these are all times when deep analysis and questioning of the status quo is beneficial. 

Guide Curiosity with Measurement

When you start to dig, the data can seem like an endless hole if you don’t know what you’re searching for. But if you root yourself in your overarching measurement strategy, centering on your business goals and each channel’s role in helping achieve that success, it will become much easier to determine if your media is working or not. 

It is always best to spend more time upfront talking through the strategy as a whole before you begin analysis. Then it will all come into play and be very easy. The amount of time you spend should be way more upfront than it is actually building out final data visualizations and dashboards. 

Key Takeaways

Curiosity and data analysis – yes, they do go together. Applying creativity and allowing space for human intuition and insights is key to data storytelling. But to be an effective and productive data analyst, you need to balance the art and science. Keep in mind what is and isn’t reasonable. Live for the data. Explore it and search for the stories that it weaves together. But, avoid investing your valuable time on a dark rabbit hole that leads nowhere.

Data Strategy Podcast Episode

Data Storytelling: How to Act on Analytics

Posted on by Jacob Amann

Data storytelling transforms brands. Take an inside look at how Coegi crafts stories with actionable recommendations for our clients by finding the human element in the numbers.

As marketers, we now have access to vast amounts of data. There’s been a major influx of analyst jobs in the last several years as a result.

But are we telling compelling stories with that data and adjusting our strategies based on the insights? If not, what’s the point?

The true value in data lies in how we use key insights to take informed actions for businesses. In other words, with data storytelling.

4 Steps to Set up Data Storytelling in Your Analytics Practice

Gather: Set up a measurement framework to capture metrics that matter most

First, set performance KPIs that ladder up to your business goals. For more information on how to do this, feel free to reference our Marketing Measurement Playbook. Then, prepare a learning agenda to determine the types of information you are looking to understand from your campaign.

Are there hypotheses you want to validate? Assumptions you want to challenge? Audience learnings you want to gather? Use the agenda to help answer these questions.

Learn: Capture and visualize data to pull key insights

Once the campaign is running, you begin to gather data: this is your “what.” Now, it’s up to you and your media partners to uncover the “why.” Look at the underlying narrative running through your data to build a meaningful story arc.

A great way to do this is by visualizing the data in a way. This method of data storytelling allows you to easily identify trends and understand performance relative to goals. Consider layering campaign data with third party data to see a holistic picture and identify outliers or interesting correlations. Look at the data from a macro lens. This helps weave the micro data points into a cohesive story makes sense to both marketers and external team members like the sales team or the executive suite.

We often talk about blending art and science in our marketing strategies – that same concept applies to data analytics. When communicating results to internal stakeholders, qualitative information with direction from quantitative data often speaks volumes for executives. But only if you tell the right story. You want to layer in context, feeling and understanding – the human emotion and behavior will amplify the data you’ve collected. Knowing the audience and tailoring your story to their point of view will help ensure the information resonates.

Brent Dykes, author of ‘Effective Data Storytelling’, says “Your data may hold tremendous amounts of potential value, but not an ounce of value can be created unless insights are uncovered and translated into actions or business outcomes”. This leads us into the next step: application.

Apply: Transform insights into actionable strategies, and repeat.

Data storytelling provides an opportunity to connect the dots between various media spend across channels and show how they work together to reach your customer when and where it mattered. If done right, it will also show areas that didn’t succeed. Those failures can guide new messaging or creative on particular channels, or the adjustment of certain tactics and spend reallocation. Additionally, it should highlight any gaps between customer touch points and eventual conversion or retention. Lay out clear, actionable steps based on analytic insights to transform your digital marketing strategy.

Refine and Repeat

Marketers create an infinite cycle of improvement through this data feedback loop. The digital ecosystem is constantly in flux. New platforms, privacy laws, consumer behavior and more, creating twists and turns in the media landscape. This process is never perfect. But, by using performance marketing data to tell your brand story, you can ensure it is always evolving and being refined. This practice minimizes media waste and allows marketers to make more informed decisions and craft winning strategies.

“Numbers have an important story to tell. They rely on you to give them a clear and convincing voice.” – Stephen Few

If you need help finding the story in your data, Coegi is here to help. Set up a discovery call with our team to explore opportunities for your brand.

Balancing the Art and Science of Advertising

Posted on by Coegi

 

Advertising may elicit thoughts of uniquely designed print ads and Super Bowl commercials; the output of creative minds with the ability to persuade consumer decisions. For some people, advertising seems to be a strictly artistic discipline when all one sees is the final creative product. In truth, the art and science of advertising must blend together in order to maximize marketing campaign results. 

“The solution to capturing consumers comes down to a sophisticated blend of art and science.”

– Paul Robson, President International at Adobe

On one end of the spectrum we have science, the known and the unknown, for the analytical and curious minds looking to uncover unique insights and trends. At the other end lies art, a subjective and ever-changing expression of unique thoughts and imagination in which there is truly never a right or wrong. There are a variety of perspectives on what the core of advertising is, when realistically both science and art’s synergy are central to achieving sustainable, successful strategy and activation. 

Why you need both art and science to build a brand

With art highly visible and science working behind the scenes, both pillars are critical to build the brand foundation. Our President, Sean Cotton, recently said that data is best used as a guide to craft engaging campaigns inspired by the numbers, keeping creative at the forefront while ensuring it is impactful with analytics. Sometimes this synergy is simple when you are working with a full-service agency. But, it is often more effective to work with separate creative and performance media agencies. As long as both sides communicate and prioritize business outcomes, the brand is set up for success.

How to optimize creative with data insights

At Coegi, we are the science fueling the art. We dig deeper into the what’s, why’s, and how’s of digital media through robust data analysis and industry research. The basis for our campaigns is research and analysis of our brands’ audiences. Then, we rely on machine learning and human intuition to optimize.

However, when it comes to strategy, it all really starts with the measurement framework.  This ensures we can understand if the research and thinking we put into action is actually impacting the brand’s bottom line. As a result, this process is not completely devoid of art. In fact, around 75% of an ad’s impact can be attributed to quality creative.

However, great creative pieces need data-driven insights to be delivered effectively. Our teams have to get creative with how and where we reach audiences to make the greatest impact. By doing so, we can better deliver solutions that make the art work harder, thus building up ROI. In essence, our strategy is our art.

Collaboration is key to success

At the end of the day, effective collaboration is at the core of the art and science of performance advertising. Communication and transparency between departments and our partners offers balance, allowing for seamless work processes and better results for clients. When this is done well, the lines between art and science begin to blur – proving that advertising isn’t black and white. It’s the molding of colors as the science and art of an agency work together to create a balanced composition paving the way for brand growth.

“The purpose of marketing is to influence the behaviors of others to bring them closer to your brand, organization, product, or service. The best way to achieve it is to strike a balance between the hard data and evidence that support the best path to take, and the human appeal and creative approach necessary to solidify its impact.”

– Eminent SEO CEO, Jenny Stradling

 

 

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