“Knowing purpose increases the chances you’ll discover out-of-sights that qualify as such with all four attributes: Novel, Actionable, Credible, and Relative.”

“Most Important KPIs are those that are tied to money going into your bank account.”

“Don’t deliver sadness, deliver meaning and impact. Make your job fun!”

“Real-time data in the hands of humans is a colossal waste of technical, financial and human resources. It takes too long for humans to process the data through themselves, their team, the bureaucracy, the agencies, and the technology stack to convert real-time data into action.”

“It would not surprise you to learn that smart teams codify their thinking (frameworks FTW!), and implement a process that ensures that thinking is applied 1. at scale 2. at the right moment, and 3. is understood by all.”

“Media Costs is the amount you have to spend on advertising (a category that also includes your Owned and Earned efforts – after all SEO, Email, Organic Social all cost money).”

“Conversion Rate is a fine metric. A junior Analyst – even a budding reporting-focused new hire – should be watching it.”

“If you have a choice (and you do!), let the needs of the Data Consumer drive your data visualization efforts. The only exception is when you are trying to push propaganda, then go with your agenda.”

“One of the business side effects of the pandemic is that it has put a very sharp light on Marketing budgets. This is a very good thing under all circumstances, but particularly beneficial in times when most companies are not doing so well financially.”

“In life, and at work, perhaps the #1 job we have as Analysts is to be able explain data in a way that’ll be understood.”

“When you set yourself on the quest for out-of-sights, you set a standard for yourself, for your team, for your data, that will result in everything you discover being meaningful and material.”

“Measuring the wrong thing should be the last reason to get a false signal of the impact of a campaign. False positive or false negative.”

“When you are trying to drive long-term profit, picking Conversion Rate as a Success KPI for a campaign would be a mistake.”

“Creating a performance Success KPI for a brand campaign is a particularly common, and heartbreaking, mistake. Sophisticated brand measurement is hard. It feels simpler to pick what’s easy to measure, but you are going to make the fish feel bad when you judge its ability to climb trees AND you don’t accomplish the desired outcome.”

“You do the best you can with a marketing campaign (creative, audience, targeting, channels, media plan elements like duration, reach, frequency, media delivery quality elements like AVOC, Viewability, etc.), and sometimes the dice do not roll your way when you measure impact.”

“One of the biggest reporting mistakes is not making clear if the performance is good, bad, or otherwise. It’s missing context.”