Are You The Next Analytics Idol?

It’s that time of year again when we begin our search for the next Analytics Idol! If you’ve attended Adobe Summit over the past few years, you might have witnessed this fun, fast-paced, and informative breakout session where real Adobe Analytics users share their top tips and tricks. We have some new twists that we’ve added to this year’s session to make it even more fun!

Is 2018 the year you decide to climb up on stage to share your own special tips and tricks? If you’re chosen as one of the presenters for this popular breakout session, you’ll receive a free pass ($1,895 value) to this year’s Adobe Summit (March 25–29) in Las Vegas, the opportunity to win some seriously sweet prizes, and plenty of bragging rights as an Analytics Idol.

Throw your hat in the analytics idol ring

To be considered for the Analytics Idol panel, you must use this online form to submit your two best tips. To provide some context for the types of tips we’re looking for, I’ve shared what each panelist presented at last year’s Analytics Idol session.

Brad Millett, senior analytics strategist at Blast Analytics & Marketing

• Tip 1: Use data from your Activity Map to automatically fill in data gaps. Brad recognized that customer data occasionally drops off the map and was able to leverage data that is automatically populated by the Activity Map to fill in the gap. He then showed how to leverage a combination of calculated metrics and segmentation to resolve the issue. It works so well because the data is captured simply by having a recent version of your Adobe Analytics code.
• Tip 2: Define and visualize your customer’s journey. At Blast A&M, Brad has identified that not every customer journey is the same, and every business uses different levers to enable their customers along the many stages of this journey. Brad suggests a framework for identifying these stages — mapping them to KPI’s, then visually representing each stage using Analysis Workspace. In addition to mapping the KPI’s to each stage, Brad highly recommends creating segments that can be easily applied for deeper analysis. Finally, it’s important to act on this data – which means empowering your teams to interact with the data via workspace curation.

Hila Dahan, co-founder and principal analyst at 33 Sticks

• Tip 1: Connecting the disparate dots along a customer’s journey is difficult. Hila showed a strategy for linking activity across several different platforms to track a customer’s journey from end to end. First, Hila suggests bringing your offline data into Adobe Analytics — this is done by creating a handshake between your offline database and Adobe. Then, take advantage of Customer Attributes in Adobe Analytics to map your most important characteristics. Connecting this data allows for analysis, as well as personalization with a customer journey that is more properly stitched together.
• Tip 2: Democratizing analytics data with an integration with Slack. Hila and her team use Slack, a workplace communications tool that is enabling companies all over the globe to stay in touch. Hila recommends using this brand new integration with Slack that she has built to empower your team to be better informed of data anomalies. This is made possible by accessing the website, installing the Slack application, and enabling it for Anomaly Detection. The value here is that analysts are alerted in a tool they’re already using to openly communicate with others. In addition, anomalies that are especially difficult to understand can be “starred” in Slack for follow-up.

Rob Adams, senior digital analyst at W.W. Grainger

• Tip 1: Rob’s group is a heavy user of Adobe Target-driven product recommendations and focuses deeply on analyzing the success of these algorithmically presented products. In doing this analysis, Rob and his team needed to directly attribute each product recommendation to actual 1:1 revenue. He was able to do this with a merchandising eVar (bound to Add To Cart) — a classification file to identify location and experience information — and report builder for extremely granular analysis. For even more details, check out the video.
• Tip 2: How many times has your company looked at month over month data? Well, maybe it’s time you break up that data in a way that’s a little more fair. Rob suggests that companies take advantage of the time-parting functionality they already have to also break up “business days” from “non-business days.” Doing that may just help explain why a 2.4-percent drop in revenue in February was actually a 2.5-percent increase in revenue in comparison to January — all because there were more days to do business in that first month. A combination of your time-parting eVar, classifications rule builder, analytics sub-classification, and report builder all make this possible.

Prolet Miteva, senior manager of web analytics platforms at Autodesk

• Tip 1: Prolet’s team noticed a problem — her marketers were not excited about data. To solve this, she decided to go where her users were and give them data there. At Autodesk, Prolet chose to build an in-house extension for Chrome that brought the data to their fingertips. She decided to start small — focusing on basic traffic and scroll information, navigational sources, and firmographic and technological data. Her marketers were then able to have access to each of these data types at the click of a button right in their browser. Prolet found that this drove adoption of data, better questions from her marketers, and further interest in Adobe Analytics deployment.
• Tip 2: Understanding potential audience size for a Target offer is a requirement for choosing your segmentation wisely. Prolet has identified a slick way to do this – leveraging Adobe Analytics segmentation and the integration between Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target. First, define your Marketing Cloud audience, evaluate the audience size, create a sequential segment to handle the transfer of audience data between systems, then create a comparison workspace. The benefit here is that you get the power of Analytics segmentation with the verification of your population size all before you deploy your test.

(2017 Winner) David Bressler, analytics lead at Net Conversion

• Tip 1: When event data is missing — leverage statistics, page views, and correlation analyses to fill in the gap. David knows that “things happen” with data, and sometimes you have to get creative to resolve those things. David suggests simply using a combination of pageviews and an additional calculated metric to fill in the gap. When this doesn’t suffice, David showed his process for leveraging correlation analysis and linear equation to empower your calculated metric with even more accuracy.
• Tip 2: Create a calculated metric that truly shows average page load time. David walked the Idol attendees through a valuable and arduous process to better understand how page load time affects conversion. Based on his analysis, a 1 second improvement in page load time helped drive a 3-percent increase in conversion. David then showed his secret sauce — a combination of an app measurement plugin, classification rule builder, a few segments, and one massive calculated metric to get the data he needed.

The Analytics Idol format got a remix

During the second half of 2017, Adobe organized several Analytics Rockstar events, where local Analytics Idol events were hosted, and where customers had yet another chance to show off their analytics skills. The winners of those events will compete on the national stage at Summit for more prizes and bragging rights — but don’t worry, there are plenty of spots left for you. In addition, we’re adding some fun ways to engage the audience — you won’t want to miss it.

Even the simplest ideas could be more valuable than you realize

Hopefully, these tips spark some potential ideas that you could submit. Essentially, we’re looking for tips that would help your digital-analytics peers uncover new, deeper insights or perform their daily tasks more efficiently or effectively. Ultimately, your judges will be the session attendees in the audience, as they will vote for their favorite tips live during the session. If you’re debating whether your ideas pass muster, please submit them — you may be underestimating how valuable they could be to others. Remember, they don’t have to be overly complicated or technical to be well-received.

Initially, we’ll be screening your tips by how innovative, practical_,_ and valuable they are, as well as how broadly they could be used by analysts at other companies in different industries. Participating in Adobe Summit will be a great opportunity to establish your personal brand within the industry and share your expertise with grateful peers.

All submissions must be received by Friday, Feb. 2, and we’ll reach out to all the applicants the following week with the next steps. Submit here today!