Adobe Brings Creative Heritage to Data Analysis
The fruits of data analysis are difficult to realize if you can’t make the data accessible to the consumers of the insights. We talk about the democratization of data, but it goes beyond that. It’s about the democratization of analysis and actionable data. You’re only as strong as your weakest link, and when it comes to data science, you’re only as strong as your most novice user. Whether it’s the marketing manager or the merchandising specialist, delivering actionable insights is key. As digital data volume grows (IDC estimates that the amount of digital data created will grow 40 percent each year, through 2020) and businesses struggle to fund and hire analytics talent (McKinsey projects that by 2018, demand for data scientists may be as much as 60 percent greater than the supply), it becomes even more critical for data to be set free across an organization, with intuitive tools to support its consumption.
Today we are unveiling Analysis Workspace in Adobe Analytics, an original way for companies to analyze, share and utilize data within an organization, all at the speed of thought. Inspired by our creative heritage, we are changing how data is organized and consumed, helping deliver insight and drive action; No more canned reports that don’t give the broader organization any flexibility. Similar to the way a novice can leverage the Aviary editing tool in Adobe Creative Cloud to tweak an image that has been professionally retouched in Photoshop, data scientists can extend workspaces to marketers and other teams for further exploration. Data scientists can now express their “analytics creativity” and narrow down thousands of data points to a single “layer”, represented by a curated analysis, tailored to the needs of a specific group within the organization.
Whether a marketer is looking to toggle between revenue and order trends, or to break down revenue by a particular campaign, Analysis Workspace exposes the specific data that will help deliver better business results. Companies can now overcome the complexity of analytics tools, which often produce an overwhelming amount of dimensions and metrics. And best of all, no extensive trainings are needed for broader teams to work with data relevant to their job functions.
POPSUGAR, for example, is a beta user of Analysis Workspace, skillfully leveraging data to drive consumer desire. As one of the leading women’s lifestyle brands, POPSUGAR teams produce editorial content via POPSUGAR.com and also offer online fashion shopping through ShopStyle.com, their e-commerce platform. The company works with brands on both ends, including P&G, Unilever, Revlon, Neiman Marcus and Macy’s. POPSUGAR brands reach a global audience of over 85 million consumers and drive over $1 billion in annual retail sales through ShopStyle.
With the breadth of their audience and the size of their product catalog (over 30 million pieces), POPSUGAR is faced with a mountain of digital events. In order to remain industry leaders, they need to identify the data trends that can inform specific actions, produce content that will get the most clicks and deliver an optimal online shopping experience. For instance, POPSUGAR editors closely observe which content pieces are trending and getting the most social shares. Earlier this year, the team noticed that Halloween began driving consumer interest as early as the month of June. Coupled with data around Taylor Swift’s popularity at the same time, they created the popular editorial content, “17 Ways to be Taylor Swift this Halloween.” Data-driven creativity has helped POPSUGAR fuel growth. Leveraging Analysis Workspace in Adobe Analytics, they will be able to do this faster and easier moving forward, in a way that’s intuitive for users.
POPSUGAR and their use of Analysis Workspace strikes the perfect balance between art and science, leveraging data analytics to deliver the kinds of digital lifestyle experiences that resonate best with their audience. It’s a customer-centric approach, one that defines strategies and tactics based on hard numbers, as opposed to gut instinct alone. They’ve seen great success by having technology power their content and commerce efforts.
Analysis Workspace – Highlights:
- Simple, Photoshop-inspired workflows: In our new Analysis Workspace, we made it simple and quick for users to create and share useful reports. They simply drag and drop dimensions, metrics and segments into a flexible data “canvas.” Manipulating complex data sets and sharing “curated” workspaces becomes highly instinctual, without the need for extensive training. Then they can manipulate the data on the “canvas” using a number of powerful tools, similar to the way Adobe’s creative tools like Photoshop and Illustrator work.
- Intuitive data visualizations: Seeing data in easily understandable and simple visuals (of the user’s choosing) is as important as building the workspace. Whether it’s a bar graph or a donut chart, visualization is a key part of the analysis and reporting process and it happens instantaneously, allowing users to quickly interpret the information. Data sets large and small can instantly be rendered and easily manipulated, allowing for interactive resizing, renaming and swapping between different chart and graph types.
- Unprecedented power, flexibility and speed: Analysis Workspace allows users to compare and dissect data in ways not previously possible. For the first time, it includes powerful industry-leading tools such as Anomaly Detection, Contribution Analysis, Calculated Metrics and a new Cohort Analysis tool. Leveraging our experience with tools for creatives, we make the complex simple, making it possible to understand data sets that encompass hundreds of dimensions and metrics, thousands of segments and millions of data combinations**.**
Analysis Workspace is available today. Please visit here for more information and check out our demo video.