"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" – Mark Twain
It’s that time of year again. The nights are drawing in, snow is starting to fall in the mountains, our minds turn to thoughts of turkey and Christmas pudding, and familiar faces appear: Santa, Len and Bruno, and of course, Jimmy Wales. If you are a user of Wikipedia (which, if you’re a user of … Read more
There is no shortage of pontification available about how to measure your online marketing campaigns: how to integrate social media measurement, landing page optimization, ensuring your site has the right feng shui to deliver optimal conversions, etc. But there is very little writing about the other side of the coin: if you’re the one selling … Read more
There’s been quite the hullabaloo since Google announced last week that it was going to send signed-in users to Google Secure Search by default. Back when Google first announced Secure Search in May, there was some commentary about how it would reduce the amount of data available to web analytics tools. This is because browsers … Read more
Retargeting (sometimes called remessaging or remarketing) has taken off in a big way, recently – Google introduced the feature into AdWords earlier this year, and a host of other players are in the game. Consequently, the interwebs now abound with commentary on the rather spooky nature of the technology, with people being “followed around” the … Read more
It turns out, alarmingly, that it’s been over a year since my last Online Advertising Business 101 post. And a year is an awfully long time in the world of online advertising. Long enough, in fact, for an entirely new kind of company to emerge and become the next big thing. I’m talking, of course, … Read more
Have a passion for data? Think yourself something of a BI/analytics guru? Does your heart sing whenever you see a well-turned chart (and your toes curl whenever you see something like this)? Looking for a new gig worthy of your exceptional talents? If so, then I might just have the perfect opportunity for you. I’m … Read more
Display Monetization Group, Microsoft Advertising Bellevue, Washington The Display Monetization Group is accountable for improving the yield of Microsoft’s online Display advertising offerings across our owned & operated properties (MSN, Windows Live and so on) and the Microsoft Media Network. A core function within the team is Yield Business Intelligence – providing data and reporting … Read more
For as long as I’ve been involved with the field, the term “Web Analytics” has never felt like the very best way to describe, well, Web Analytics – it’s somewhat limiting in many ways (the “Web” part doesn’t help there), and the “Analytics” bit does seem a bit, well, geeky.But another, better, term has never … Read more
Would you buy BI services from a company that can’t successfully execute a mail-merge? Not to mention ones that send unsolicited e-mails to drum up business…
It’s usually my lovely wife who blogs about jewelry, and me who blogs about charts and data, but today the tables are turned – well, almost. Wieden+Kennedy London has come up with a range of designer necklaces which celebrate the beauty of data, under the name Plot. The necklaces use charts of thirty years of … Read more