It's a challenge as old as the smartphone (or...technically... a little bit older): we want to track and know people , but, when they're visiting us from their phone, their tablet, their work laptop, and their home desktop, we often really just know cookies and device IDs! Countless vendors tout their enabling technology...but then admit that, yes, you do have to get your customers to authenticate on all devices to provide a common key, which isn't always easy (or even remotely reasonable). Unle...
Nov 07, 2017•48 min
You’re listening to this podcast, so you’re, obviously, well-attuned to the cutting edge of all things digital. But, in this episode, we’re going to discuss a couple (or countless) products/platforms (PaaS — Platforms as a Service! Who knew that was a thing?!) from a little upstart company based in California. Google wouldn’t actually return our calls (okay…we didn’t call them), so we went with an Even Better Option: Mark Edmondson — Data Insight Developer at IIH Nordic , Google Developer Expert...
Oct 24, 2017•1 hr 5 min
Do you have a spare shingle lying around? Have you been thinking about painting, "Analyst for Hire - Will Work for Cookies" on it and hanging it up on your front door? It seems like a lot of analysts are pondering whether the next company they should work for should be their own. Adam Ribaudo did just that (figuratively -- we have no evidence of an actual painted shingle) 2.5 years ago. He now works for Noise to Signal , a company he joined...just as soon as he founded it! On this episode, we gr...
Oct 10, 2017•1 hr 3 min
Have you learned R yet? No? Well, then Tim is disappointed in you. Or, maybe that's totally okay! Way back on episode #035 , we asked the question if data science was the future of digital analytics. We concluded...maybe...for some. On this episode, we dive deeper into what the career options are for digital analysts with longtime digital analytics industry recruiting and staffing maven Corry Prohens , founder and CEO of IQ Workforce . The good news? There are lots of options (if you find your p...
Sep 26, 2017•53 min•Ep. 72
Let's pretend your goal as an analyst is to eloquently and accurately explain reinforcement learning. Now, let's pretend that you get to try that explanation again and again, and we'll give you an electric shock every time you state something inaccurately and a cookie every time you say something right. Well, you're an analyst, so you're now wondering if this is some clever play on words about cookies. As it happened, we didn't give Matt Gershoff from Conductrics any cookies of any kind in his r...
Sep 12, 2017•58 min
Is your organization customer-centric? Does your product team dive into the demographics of your customers to figure out what features will make them as happy as possible? If so, then you're doing it all wrong! Perhaps. On this episode, the gang chats with Dr. Peter Fader about putting customer lifetime value (CLV) front and center when it comes to developing and executing marketing strategies. For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the sh...
Aug 29, 2017•1 hr 1 min
Are you biased? Either you answered, “Yes,” or you’re in denial. Or you’re an AI, in which case you should just go and start your own podcast instead of listening to this one. UNLESS your prediction algorithms told you that this would be the episode where we would finally announce the addition of a third co-host, and you need to collect that data point (and, damn, you’re good, BTW). On this episode, though, our THREE (count ‘em!) co-hosts dive into different types of biases that analysts (should...
Aug 15, 2017•55 min•Ep. 69
The conceit of this podcast is having real analysts hang out with each other -- enjoying each other's company and talking a little shop. But, for you, dear listener, that hanging out is occurring through your earbuds. What does it take to hang out IRL with other analysts? Guest host Moe Kiss from THE ICONIC joins the guys this week to chat about Web Analytics Wednesdays , MeasureBowling , MeasureCamp , and what it takes to get those local, in-person relationships rolling successfully. For comple...
Aug 01, 2017•49 min
WHY does Tim simply not give Python its due? Isn't Python a perfectly acceptable -- possibly even better -- option when it comes to diving into programming with data? It's open source, too. Some say it's easier to learn than R. And, frankly, isn't a programming language named after a snake just inherently cooler than one named after a letter of the alphabet? The fellas tackled the topic with Ryan Praskieviecz from EY on this episode...and possibly wound up tackling it in a way that will leave Py...
Jul 18, 2017•52 min
It's another one of those on-going lobby bar topics: how much of the data should be made available to whom and in what form? Should all of an organization's data be completely and freely available to everyone in the company, or is that a recipe for messy data being misinterpreted and misused? That's the topic tackled on this show, courtesy of a recommendation from Pawel Kapuscinski . As it happens, it's also Independence Day in the U.S. -- a fact with which the guys had a little fun. For complet...
Jul 04, 2017•48 min
We can watch (sort of) what users do on our sites. That's web analytics. We can ask them how they felt about the experience. That's voice of the customer. But, can we (and should we?) actually analyze their emotional reactions? On this episode, Michael and Tim sat down with Dr. Liraz Margalit , Head of Digital Behavioral Research at Clicktale , to bend their brains a bit around that very topic. And, they left the discussion thinking differently about conversion rates, and even realizing that scr...
Jun 20, 2017•55 min
Back in the day, we explained the difference between a visitor, a visit, and a pageview to stakeholders using an analogy of a person walking into a physical store. Now, digital channels are dominating, and physical stores are struggling...which is an opportunity to apply what we've learned about behavioral analysis on the web to in-(REAL)-store consumer behavior. Gary Angel from Digital Mortar ( @digitalmortar ) returned to the show (our first ever repeat guest!) to walk us through the many, man...
Jun 06, 2017•58 min
Change. It's scary. It's exhilarating. It's a song by Churchill . Sometimes, be it due to your manager, due to a corporate acquisition, or due to a job change, you just wind up with a voice in your head belting out, "You want me to change, change, change!" In this episode, Nancy Koons from Team Demystified joins us to dive into our collective histories when it comes to switching analytics tools -- where we stumbled, where we succeeded, and how we've come to approach the ever shifting landscape o...
May 23, 2017•40 min
It seems like a simple couple of questions: 1) When and where does the analyst’s role start?, and 2) When and where does the analyst’s role end? And, do the answers to either of these questions change based on the type of organization you’re in (in-house versus agency)? As it turns out, Michael and Tim largely agree on the answers to these questions…but their agreement is pretty expansive, so this could be the episode that infuriates you , dear listener! Give it a listen, and be prepared to shak...
May 09, 2017•49 min
"Psssst! Hey! Buddy! Want some analytics? Whatcha' lookin’'for? Insights? Recommendations? Maybe some implementation? I got anything you want, and I got it at a great price!…" Sound familiar? No? Well, then you’re just not hanging out in dark corners next to executive washrooms the world over! On this episode, Sayf Sharif of SEER Interactive joins us to chat about the how and when of selling analytics — from outside OR inside an organization. Plus, there’s a nice throw down about the proper pron...
Apr 25, 2017•54 min
Do you want to know something about analysts? They're people. And, not only are they people, but they work with people. And people have personalities. Even the hosts of this podcast have personalities. One of the hosts is introspective about the ramifications for those facts when it comes to his work. The other host gets so rattled by the topic that he uses the phrase "a lightbulb went off," when the appropriate figure of speech was actually "a lightbulb went ON." Can you guess which host is whi...
Apr 11, 2017•56 min
Well into our third year of the show, we decided it was time to show that we've become hard-hitting audio journalists by bringing on a heavy-hitter in the world of display media and grilling him with tough questions. And then we found out we're not hard-hitting audio journalists. And the heavy-hitter we brought on was informative, articulate, and willing to muse objectively about the challenges that face display advertising. So much for the original plan! John Nardone of Flashtalking was actuall...
Mar 28, 2017•46 min
FINALLY! It's a show all about Google Tag Manager! Oh. Wait. What's that? We had Simo Ahava on the show and actually covered a different topic entirely? WHAT NINNYHEAD APPROVED THAT DECISION?! Well, what's done is done. With 'nary a trigger or a container referenced, but plenty of wisecracks about scrum masters and backlogs and "definitions of 'done,'" we once again managed to coast a bit over the one-hour mark. And, frankly, we're pretty pleased with the chat we had. You'll just have to go to S...
Mar 14, 2017•1 hr 2 min
So, knowledge management and data management walked into a bar and bumped into Github . The result? Open data and, specifically, data.world ! Coremetrics ...and then Bazaarvoice founder Brett Hurt, along with Homeaway.com and Bazaarvoice veteran Jon Loyens, joined us to talk about what open data is, why it's gaining traction, and why we all should care. And, if you've been pining to have us record an episode that runs for more than an hour, this one is it! For complete show notes, including link...
Feb 28, 2017•1 hr 13 min
Have you ever been to a really great analytics conference and had just one great conversation after another with other attendees? We have! And, for this episode, we decided to head up into the hills above Budapest and try to bring that experience to you. With a range of fine and foreign libations in hand, a crackling fire toasting our backsides, and a roaming handheld microphone, we asked the questions, and the Superweek 2017 attendees provided the answers. Except when the audience asked the que...
Feb 14, 2017•41 min
The world is an oyster. It's also a system. A complex system! Companies are components in that system, and they're systems unto themselves! And marketing departments, and digital marketing, and the data therein, are systems, too. As analysts, we're looking for pearls in these systems (and you were wondering where we were going with this)! Join Michael and Tim as they chat with Christopher Berry of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) about "systems thinking." You'll be smarter for it! As ...
Jan 31, 2017•51 min
Pop psychology is fun, if not that useful. Pop analytics can be dangerous! What IS pop analytics? It's a term coined (as far as we can tell) by analytics legend Kevin Hillstrom, and we managed to get him on the show to chat about it! The fact that it turned into a therapy session for Tim was just an added bonus. NOTE: We hit a glitch with Kevin's audio 45 minutes into the episode and have done our best to work around it. It was especially painful, in that he had some very nice things to say abou...
Jan 17, 2017•58 min
Do you care about acquiring customers? Do you care about data? Do you like wearing shoes that have soles that are 2-3″ thick? Put those three things together and it means you care — or should care — about customer data platforms. On this episode, Todd Belcher from BlueConic joins us to explain what CDPs are and what they’re good for. Tune in to hear Todd masterfully steer clear of a sales pitch for his company…while Michael transitions on the fly from getting a basic understanding of CDPs…to ins...
Jan 03, 2017•51 min
2016 is almost in the books! In just over a week, we'll be ringing in the new year, and we have it on Very Good Authority that 2017 will be the Year of Mobile. But, this episode is as much about looking back as it is about looking forward -- looking back on how our industry has evolved, what product launches piqued our interest the most, and what Snoop Dogg-related stunt marketing occurred during the year. We even do a little navel gazing about the podcast itself: our favorite topics and guests ...
Dec 20, 2016•48 min
Have you ever seen a one-man show in the theater? It's awesome. Unless it's terrible. The same can be said for one-person digital analytics teams. It can be awesome, in that you get to, literally, do EVERY aspect of analytics. It can be terrible because, well, you've got to do EVERYTHING, and it's easy for the fun stuff to get squeezed out of the day. On this episode, we head back Down Under for a chat with Moe Kiss , product (and digital) analyst at THE ICONIC . Whether you pronounce "data" as ...
Dec 06, 2016•54 min
Step right up! Step right up! We've got your org charts here! If an analyst falls in the woods, and she reports into a hub-and-spoke model, is the result best illustrated with a 3D pie chart? Join Michael and Tim as they conclude that, at the end of the day, effective communication is imperative regardless of where the analysts sit organizationally. And, because, "Why not?" ride along on a digression about the product management of analytics platforms within the organization! Miscellany referenc...
Nov 22, 2016•47 min
If you're in the U.S., happy election day! In the spirit of the mayhem and controversy that the political process brings, we're tackling a topic that is every bit as controversial: tag management. Does Adobe DTM gratuitously delete emails? Has GTM been perpetually unaware of when it is around a hot mic? What does Tealium have against coffee?! Is Signal broadcasting dog whistles to marketers about the glorious data they can collect and manage? What about Ensighten's sordid past where the CEO was ...
Nov 08, 2016•59 min
You know what season it is? Well, in the United States, we're closing out a 4-year, never-ending cycle of electing a president. The tweets are getting tweeted and retweeted, the Facebook posts are getting posted and reacted to, and the video! Oh, the video! So, what better time to dive into social media ANALYTICS than today? Join Michael and Tim as they dive into this topic -- which they both love to hate -- with Hayes Davis, co-founder and CEO of Union Metrics. You might even want to Snapchat a...
Oct 25, 2016•51 min
Have you ever read an analytics job description? Have you found yourself wondering, "Is it just me, or is there something fishy going on here?" Who better to verbally cogitate this question writ large than a couple of guys who haven't actually applied for a job in a few years? Join Michael and Tim as they dive into the world of analytics job descriptions and chat about the red flags they find...and the various tangential thoughts that the exercise itself sparks. Resources mentioned in this episo...
Oct 11, 2016•54 min
Do you listen to podcasts? Well, of course you do! Are you working in or involved with analytics? If you listen to this podcast, you almost certainly are! Where do those two interests intersect? On this episode! Steve Mulder , Senior Director of Audience Insights at National Public Radio (NPR) , joins Michael and Tim to discuss podcast measurement...and audience measurement...and the evolution of analytics...and standards (well...guidelines)...and more! Tim fanboys out in a way that would be emb...
Sep 27, 2016•51 min
