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This edition of TMAI Premium is free for Standard Edition subscribers.Â
Recent  Premium editions have obsessed about the super-actionable Modern Analytics Maturity Model. What the strategic framework is trying to solve for, how to assess the 11 dimensions of the model, and how to apply it to evolve to Level 5! If you want to truly build a data-influenced org (your own or client), download the MAMM. Last week, was Part 1 of the “Avinash Filters” to make your reports golden. :) You can upgrade to TMAI Premium here. All Premium revenue is donated to charity. | | TMAI #368: Upgrade Your Reports | "The Avinash Filters." | P2
| There are many contributors to an organization running on data pukes, hence data rich, insights poor, action bereft.  A part of it is the belief that the mere availability of data is sufficient for victory. A part of it is Senior Leadership’s over-confidence that given enough data, they can identify causal factors related to performance (rarely true, and remember that is not their job). A part of it is a lack of investment in Analysis Ninjas with enough depth of knowledge and experience to deliver actions to take (and not just data).  All of that will require lots of different fixes (many of which we have covered in previous Premium editions). Last week’s newsletter started us on a journey to fix #2 and #3 above by looking at your reports as I might – the filters and lenses I would apply to rapidly punch up the impact your current reports are delivering.We covered two “Avinash filters” last week:  1. Does it have the end-to-end view?  The single biggest fix you apply to make your reports instantly useful. You are getting ABO wrong in nearly all your reports. The fix is magical.  2. Does it have basic, intermediate, or advanced KPIs?  KPIs = Purpose. If you pick the best KPIs, you solve for a higher order purpose. Guess what happens then? Reports that deliver big impact!
 Activate the big batch of specific recommendations in TMAI Premium #365, and your organization will love you more for the additional profits you'll help deliver. Add to them the recommendations today, and make a giant career leap. :)  Bonus: I’ve consistently crafted always be learning cultures in teams I’ve had the privilege of leading. Last week’s newsletter also shares my Collaborative Learning sessions. It has proven to be a fantastic approach for delivering massive cultural change. Be sure to check it out, and use it to build hive mind in your team/org. | Upgrade Your Reports | Part 2 | Marketing.  Let’s look at three more “Avinash Filters” today. You can apply the principles across reports across a multitude of purposes, though the specific application below is Marketing.  3. Does it have the balance of efficiency AND effectiveness?  I feel sad when I see reports with just efficiency metrics (as VPs of Marketing, CMOs often insist - on behalf of the CFO, especially in tough times).  Conversion Rate and Cost Per Individual Lifted are two common examples of efficiency metrics.  Companies and clients frequently say: I want more efficiency! Make my Cost Per Click from $6 to $4.50.  And because internal marketing teams, or external agencies, aim to please, they go off to the races and try to whittle down 6 to 4.50.  What’s deeply under-appreciated by Extremely Senior Leaders (ESLs), is that the most efficient way to deliver on an efficiency obsession is… To sacrifice effectiveness!  I can move the 6 to 4.50. Yes, I can. Revenue will go down by 25% (or a hurtful amount).  Seeing the world through an efficiency only lens can be extremely harmful – and shortsighted.  There is no one in the Milky Way, saying: I can deliver a miracle, improve efficiency from 6 to 4.5 AND improve effectiveness by delivering 30% more revenue! [Note: If you see above happening, your current practice of Marketing sucks so much that “miracles” are possible.]  I want to make sure that when you report efficiency, you also have an effectiveness KPI next to it. A perfect brother < > sister combo. One giving balancing context for the other.  You need both, by the way. You don’t want me increasing effectiveness (increase Revenue by 30%) by lighting efficiency on fire (also increase Cost Per Click from $6 to $18).  As a client, you should identify smart efficiency AND effectiveness KPIs, and set smart Targets that incentivize good behavior by your team/Agency.  For example, for your brand Marketing campaign:Efficiency KPI | Target: CPIL | $3.  Effectiveness KPI | Target: Consideration Lift | +3. BOOM!  Your team now has to figure out how to be smart, they’ll have to think harder, and as a result, the work they deliver will ensure it delivers unmatchable value.  Bonus this is how to really rock guidance…  As a Marketing ESL, the most brilliant approach is to set ranges for efficiency and effectiveness. Give your Marketing teams, your agency, the opportunity to use the wealth of knowledge they possess to solve for the global maxima.  Here’s a recommendation I’d sketched on a Croud client's whiteboard… |
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The concept of solving for Market Share was new for the client, not something we would be asked to focus. But. Why not? Is that not what powers whatever big happens to the company? We would typically only have the blue discussion: Efficiency.  We are at $10 today. Find smart and brilliant ways to get us to $9.  We at Croud can totally do this. We have a fantastic Performance team, we have brilliant analysts, we can find oversights and missed new opportunities, and deliver $9 efficiency.  And. This will be a win.  It is really going to make a dent in Market Share? Effectiveness?  Likely not.  You don’t cut yourself to glorious growth.  Instead, my proposal was: Based on an understanding of your company strategy, and competitive landscape… Would it be ok to make the efficiency much worse, move it from $10 to $12, if we could get you four points of Market Share?  Ohhh… Yummy. :) Strategic discussions followed. Lots of big picture thinking. Numerous new and radical ideas to do significantly smarter things. You see… The event horizon was changed. And, that’s the magic.  For every worsening of efficiency (10 to 12), ask for way more return (a nearly impossible 4 points of Market Share). Because temporarily being inefficient is ok, if the size of the prize is big enough.  Likewise, there is a restriction above on how much Market Share we are willing to lose in the quest to be efficient.  That is smart thinking.  That yellow triangle is immensely important: Balance.  They may not get to 22 points of Market Share, even if they get to 19.5 at a Cost Per Incremental Sale of 10.5, that would be long-term incredible.  Establish ranges. Create bounds. Find smart KPIs. Ensure solid ranges. All that incentivizes good behavior by all. And, a bigger prize in the end. | 4. Does it have inspiring visuals to simplify complexity?  There is no question that Marketing has gotten far too complex.  At one-point, great Marketing was simply building a great product, and customer word-of-mouth did the rest. Or, all there was to Marketing was buy ads on the three TV channels, send out a bunch of direct mailers, and sponsor the local Little League baseball team.  It boggles my mind to think of the options for just CTV (the newest kid on the block).  Then, there’s the incredulous explosion of data we can collect.  No wonder, our reports are data pukes.  Smart visualization can be a wonderful strategy to reduce data puking AND more effectively drawing out the story that is hidden in the data.  A table becomes a stacked bar chart, with clustered data, thoughtful segments, context from past performance.  Sparklines can be lovely to eyeball the trend that would be difficult to see in dense tables.  Choosing to abandon the Z-axis, and focusing on one KPIs, just two segments, can ensure that someone with 98x less analytical processing skills than the Analyst can actually understand what in the name of Reindeers is going on in the data.  For sure, do all of the above.Â
When we are in a Collaborative Learning session (see TMAI #367), I'm looking to see if you are going way, way further out to simplify complexity.  As an example… It is nearly impossible to create a report about multitouch attribution. The consumer experience you are trying to show is so incredibly complicated. When you flatten it out to columns and rows, you lose that complicated reality. As a result, the ESLs can’t make optimal decisions about Marketing investments.  So, use a Chord diagram. |
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It is not the absolute perfect answer to understanding all the complexity of Attribution. It shows essentially the first-click and the conversion-driving last-click channel.  It is still amazing at visualizing a lot of the complexity that’s inside the data, and that is good enough to power a significantly smarter conversation than any table could.  You simply move your mouse across the screen, and see the contributions of that channel – both the inflows and outflows. |
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This approach, vs. a dense report, will cause your leadership to ask all the right questions about your sub-optimal current last-click approach to attribution. That will drive change.  I’m looking at your reports to see if you have Sunbursts, Radar charts, Streamgraphs, Choropleth, Bubble Map, Sankey, an occasional Heatmap, and more. I’m trying to identify that you and I are going above and beyond what’s native in Excel to simplify the complexity ever present in our reports.  Furthermore, I am looking for your visualizations inspired by the oft-recommended Napoleon March Map – to recommend that you eliminate that visualization strategy. If only you as the Analyst/Visualization Master Guru understands your visual, you’ve lost track of the plot.Deeper Dive Recommendations:  If you are a TMAI Premium member, re-review the recent series, #319 & #320: Data Visualization: Inspiration to Think Different.  If you are not a Premium member, and even if you are, here’s a free fantastic collection to inspire you at Occam’s Razor: Create High-Impact Data Visualizations: Nine Effective Strategies  Extra Bonus: For all of you Analysis Ninjas, I have a codified approach for assessing if your data visuals are meh, good, or, ideally, great. |
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You get a score out of a total of 66. See TMAI #223, Data Viz Quality Assessment Algorithm, for the details. The newsletter includes four amazing visuals to learn from, and their scores. | 5. Does it contain targets?  This is a very big deal for me. Very. Big. Deal.  A bit because reports with Targets are better. A bit because Targets reflect an invaluable dimension of sophistication at a company. The first bit, I like. The second bit, I love.  The first one first.  Your report likely contains numerous lonely carts like this one…
| Is the performance indicated above good or bad? Â Hard to say. Â Rather, it depends on so many, many things you are doing as a digital entity, that that slight dip in weekly performance could be entirely expected, or not. Who knows! Â That is why I call it a lonely chart: It is missing anything to help us understand if the performance is good or bad. Which in turn means, it is not very useful to the recipient. Â You can see this in your tables too. Â Look at the table on the left, is the performance good or bad? |
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Now look at the table on the right, there’s a helpful indicator if 2.5k Direct traffic is good or bad. It is bad!  There are a number of ways to add context to your tables and charts. The simple time comparison above right is one.  What's massively better, and my absolute favorite context providing tool? Pre-set Targets!  If you have a Target for Direct Traffic/whatever, it shows an amount of advanced planning and focus. If that exists, the Marketing’s likely to be more focused and purposeful. That is a fantastic sign that the organization is sophisticated when it comes to strategy, planning, and execution. When that exists, it is less difficult to demonstrate high ROI / value from Marketing.  At the very minimum, ensure that you have Targets for each of the six KPIs we covered in my recommendation #1 across Acquisition, Behavior, and Outcomes in the CMO Scorecard.  Tranche #2 for Targets are any initiatives where we are currently spending large sums of money.  Tranche #3 are KPIs where we are currently not good, places we are small, but we hope to be significantly bigger by the end of this year.  Tranche #1 Targets will come from the Finance team – those KPIs are that important.  If you don’t have Targets, recognize that you are working in an organization where excellence might be expected, but it is unlikely to be delivered. Because you ain’t got no strategy, planning, and purposeful execution.  I still want you to create reports that help the recipients understand if the tables and charts they are looking at are good or bad. If you are missing Targets, try:  Time Comparisons. As above. Same day last week (or last quarter). Same week last quarter. Same month last year. Etc. We should not want to be just a little better than last week/qtr/yr, but look you got nothing so might as well have something.  Segment Comparisons. Since data in aggregate hides so much reality, you can provide context by comparing different sources of traffic, by comparing audience segments, or perhaps the top three keywords – over time.  Industry Benchmark Comparisons. For many KPIs, but not all, you can get industry benchmarks. These are often not exactly a banana to banana comparison. Still, if you are trying to show if your performance is good or bad, benchmarks can do the job. Here’s a report with a bunch of industry benchmarks.  Statistical Approaches. The lonely blue line in the picture above? If you were using upper and lower control limits, they could help you understand if any point in that graph is worth worrying about. If you are so blessed to have a nice Data Science team, they can use build models that predict performance, and you can show Actuals vs. Predictions, and that is a nice way to identify if the performance is good or bad.  Remember this mantra: No Targets, No Glory.  [Bonus read for Premium members: TMAI #226: Simple Tricks To Up-level Your Reports. Email me if you can’t find it.]. | Bottom line.  There are many more filters and lens through which I’ll see your reports. Smart segmentation for one. Smart sorting options for another. Little things that irritate me, like decimal points or numbers in millions expressed in full, or your use of fonts/colors. And… Lots more. Definitely ten more newsletters worth!  I do hope the three "Avinash filters" this week, and two last week, give you reports a massive instant boost in impact delivered.  The world is too beautiful to clutter it with data pukes.  Carpe diem.  -Avinash.
| PS: If you are a Croud client, reach out to your Client Director, and we can put together a session to upgrade your reports to give them an instant impact boost! | Committed to ensuring a step-change in your salary in 2023? Upgrade to TMAI Premium here - it is published 50x / year. | |
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