Does the reporting help other chief officers?
We believe Marketing Performance and outcomes are what matter. Whilst the workings may be complex that is just another factor to overcome when making sure reporting helps.
Whether gremlins creep in from technical misunderstandings or complex interactions we work to make the complexity disappear. So clear paths emerge and you can plot your route forward with confidence.
If you’ve got a challenge you’d like to talk about…you probably ought to..
Will the reporting help you see the risks and opportunities?
No corporate is short of data today. But people are snared in tangles of data that hasn’t been cleaned. Unable to get a clear picture or story.
For instance dramatic new pictures can emerge when you transform analytics data. When you stop using the generic historic trend line and use different types of chart to get a comparative viewpoint.
If you’ve got a data processing challenge why not…
Create Persuasive Reports for the C Suite
Reporting help for the C Suite isn’t just about throwing a chart of trend lines onto a screen. A story needs to be explained, with options and backing detail. We want reporting help chief officers to satisfy themselves a coherent and sensible course is being advocated.
So a different kind of reporting package is needed.
If you’ve got a reporting challenge why don’t you…
Improving Results, Reducing Risk – without political risk.
Many corporate marketers complain their analytics reporting doesn’t help them. So why do most wait until campaigns have happened to discover this? A little thought would show it’s a dangerous tactic if careers etc. matter!
Our approach is to simulate the traffic beforehand. To confirm the reporting works when reputations etc. aren’t at risk. To test when reporting can be easily changed. So you get reporting help when you need it most.
The outcomes of analytics are what matter – video 1
Marketing Performance. It’s vital as soon as you come into a room like this.
Sure, anecdotes may help. But the board will only respect you and treat you as credible if you can show them reports and results that prove that marketing has performed.
Analytics Engineering is the approach, the system that we use to deliver that reporting and those results.
If the heating system isn’t keeping you warm you get experts (plumber, heating engineer) in to help. The solution may be complex. Highly specific to your situation. But none of the internals matter nearly as much as getting the temperature (warmth).. you want..
I’m Vernon Riley and I run Analytics Engineering at SmartMarketingReports. This video is about the outcomes we believe you should concentrate on – not the finer points of analytics..
With analytics engineering the outcome isn’t hot vs cold. It about whether marketing is “taken seriously” or as “a bit of joke”.. by the board.
Except that it isn’t a joke…
If marketing doesn’t perform, doesn’t deliver clear results, it isn’t just the CMO who’ll be looking for another “opportunity”. It’s others as well.
So how is Analytics Engineering different from normal analytics & data offerings? Well it’s a “processing approach” that concentrates on outcomes. We’re experts in the plumbing, but we work to make the complex internals disappear.. We sort out the messy data and systems and deliver clear credible information to the right people…
We know the infrastructure is rarely ideal.
So we’ll crawl over that in detail, finding omissions and opportunities..
Discovering if the data gathering is comprehensive and robust; or adhoc and fragile
But more importantly we’ll also talk to you as business people, about
Whether the reporting serves your business as it should.
Whether there are missing perspectives?
Whether some roles are starved of the information they really need?
Or whether questions suck everyone down into a vortex of complexity that never produces a clear answer?
We work to get the technology to disappear so people can concentrate on outcomes.
Giving the clear answers that the board craves.
So CMO & the rest of marketing get the credibility they want…
If you’re focused on marketing performance and want to be taken seriously by the other Chief Officers..
Do your reports have fog obscuring the key points of interest? – video 2
Online data can mislead people, you can think everything’s accurate – ‘cos you’ve got precise numbers. But if in reality there’s a fog obscuring the points of interest, everyone suffers. {cochem picture with]
Why should any reporting system vendor expect people will work out what’s buried in the fog? Or delegate the tasks to its customers?
We believe our role should be to cleanse & transform the data. Allowing the story and important details to emerge. The transformation may be simple or complex. {remove for from cochem picture] But without it the fog just lies there…
We organise our data transform blocks {image] into a flexible pipeline that cleanses and transforms your data. Now “we” do the organising as we took the decision upfront to put flexibility and capability ahead of end-user editing.
And standing back for a moment; should experts really load the responsibility for arranging complex transformations onto customers backs? Shouldn’t experts work with you to ensure the right data transformation is actually delivered? {image of box]
And this means the system doesn’t wait until the viewer asks for information before transforming the data. We configure our pipeline to transform it earlier; in the background. Making everything more responsive.
We construct APIs to deliver data to our peregrine reporting system – or to external systems if that makes more sense.
What kind of things do we transform? [image from website] Well for example..
Analytics Data that allows marketers to see how different parts of their reseller channels use resources.
Public and third party data – so businesses can improve sales efficiency by importing this into their CRM system.
If you suspect your data features are buried in a fog; why not get in touch…
Selecting the right type of reporting system – video 3
The first challenge in selecting an appropriate reporting system is to understand the different types of marketing report. Reports can enable users to.
1) Track Progress.
This requires specific features. It’s pretty certain charts with trend lines will be involved. Sometimes comparisons. Perhaps tables. Things to show differences between now and what happened previously. This is the one area where real time might be relevant to some.
2) Explore the data. An analyst explores the data but others decide what to do…
Now we still want charts and tables, but analysts need particular features like changeable date ranges, drill down, segmentation, data transformation etc. etc.
3) Explain the “story” that’s inside the data. The challenges and opportunities.
Whilst we still want charts or tables; the output and insights that come from types 1 and 2 we want text, annotations etc. to do the explaining.. We don’t need the analyst’s toolset…
Sadly many online reporting systems aren’t clear about these distinctions.
Features, licensing and distribution models make it hard to achieve the right answer. Particularly for a corporate…And if I may be heretical for a moment – there probably isn’t a single right answer…
Now many people use the systems designed as type 1 or 2 and try and explain the story by “talking it through” in a meeting – or cutting and pasting relevant bits into slides. But this isn’t ideal..it’s manual and you may still lack the facilities to explain the story the way you really want to.
Our Peregrine Reporting Service is designed to be type 3. To explain the story. We use background processes to transform the data. We leverage the type 2 knowledge gained from the online system admin panels or other analytical tools. This radically simplifies the look and feel but still provides those critical data transformations. Cut and paste of charts & tables isn’t necessary and we’ve got the features you need to inspire the C Suite online. Like text, images, annotations, soundtracks etc. even embedding video if that’s appropriate.
We believe helping marketers explain the hidden stories and opportunities better to the C Suite will give you a dramatic advantage. Better decisions should be taken.
Reducing risk before launch is a smarter thing to do – video 4
Installing the Google Analytics snippet is easy. But ensuring complex paths are being measured accurately at scale is hard.
The pressures can mean marketing campaigns, funding and effort kick in before anyone has checked if the measurement is working. And when people come to look at the results the awful truth is exposed. People just assumed things were “being measured”. But by then it’s too late.
But how you change the outcome? Getting an someone to repeat page sequences can work. But checking sequences rapidly becomes uneconomic as they grow longer, more complex and more branches are included . And dozens of repetitions would be needed if the reports were to mimic realistic reports.
Our DERIVE methodology is the answer. We get a “robot army” of visitors to simulate pre-defined sequences. As often as required. Actual Google Analytics reports are created . All of this verifies whether the reporting works at scale expected in production. At minimum risk..
Finding measurement bugs allows judicious changes to be made. Protecting your reputation. Before business critical launches…
So as you look around the site have a think… Are you just hoping it’ll be alright on the night?..