Jim Does Analytics

For quite some time, Puma was in trouble. The German brand had fallen well behind its more “exciting” competition and sales were stagnant. However, in 2015, the company did something extraordinary: it made more in revenue than its well publicized competitor, Under Armour.   As Bloomberg noted, “the German sportswear maker is in comeback mode. Its profits are reviving and its shares are surging -- a mirror image to its similarly sized U.S. rival, which is reeling from a sales slowdown and a stock slump” (Weiss 2017).   What accounts for this improvement in sales? Certainly, the brand associates itself with world class athletes like Usain Bolt and popular figures such as Rihanna, which helps matters a great deal. However, there is a great deal of work that the brand did behind the scenes to help improve e commerce sales, and that work begins and ends with Google analytics.   At the end of the day, web analytics are just one more tool to help us understand ...

If I have learned anything from studying data analytics, it’s that information is the best friend a marketer can have. Just inside Google Analytics, there’s a tremendous amount of information that can give you a better look at your website and how it’s performing. Who’s clicking on what? How much time are users spending looking at your content? Did your users end up signing up for your newsletter? Where are the people located who are looking at your website? Unfortunately, one of the things that Google Analytics does not provide is a sufficient explanation of who your audience is. In marketing, targeting an audience is of the utmost importance. If nothing else, understanding your audience is the key to formulating a successful communications strategy. Let’s say, for example, your website is extremely successful among men aged 30 to 45. Wouldn’t you want to start tailoring content specifically for that market? Unfortunately, Google Analytics does not give us any indication of...

Having spent just a little bit of time with Google Analytics, I must admit that I am impressed with the offerings that the site can provide. However, surely, there must be other analytics software out there, and it would be be negligent on our part as a data analytics team to ignore these other options to, at the very least, see how they compare to Google Analytics.   To begin this journey, I searched for analytics software for measuring traffic on, ironically enough, Google. Upon observing the staggering amount of options available, I began to tailor my search a bit more. I began to think about what I wanted to actually observe, and the solution became clear: I want to be able to better monitor my readership’s activities. With that in mind, I came across Chartbeat, an analytics tool that is used by the New York Times, Vice, and the Harvard Business review. If it’s good enough for them, I could probably use it for my little blog.   Of course, as I began to sign u...

Social media is an invaluable piece of the puzzle for any worthwhile marketing team. After all, with social media, a brand can directly address their customer base, creating lasting impressions that will lead directly to a better relationship between customers and a company.   However, with that knowledge, there is an issue of where, precisely, one should expend their efforts. Should a brand focus on one main platform for social media interactions, creating a more tailored approach, or should they try to cast a wide net, allowing them to reach as many people as possible? Before that discussion, it is worthwhile to think about what companies are really trying to achieve with their social media platforms. Ultimately, as the writer Chris Lake puts it, we are trying to “[drive] engagement and interaction. The goal of any social optimisation strategy is to provide the right tools so that people can engage with your brand / people / products / services onsite and offsite” (Lake 2009...