This month, a special issue, with the top 10 articles since we launched in November 2011. Selection was easy, I picked the articles that were most read, which of course would favor older ones. However, a few were recently published, showing how much interest they attracted.
I would like to thank all contributors for sharing with us all their ideas and insights. Every week, someone tells me how they like the newsletter.
And thank you to you too, dear readers, for your interest and engagement.
For technical reasons, the articles below are shown as per their publication date. So, the Top 10 positions are as follow:
1 – Why Most Dashboards Fail by Stephen Few
2 – What Are Actionable Insights? by Jacques Warren
3 – Everything You Know About Digital Measurement Is Wrong by Gary Angel
4 – Guidelines For Sharing Analytical Insights? by June Dershewitz
5 – Don’t Trust Analytics Vendors by Mathieu Llorens
6 – How To Measure Those Seemingly Immeasurable Marketing Goals by Stacey Barr
7 – Transforming the Context Measurement by Dr. Dean Spitzer
8 – Interactive Marketing Maturity and Web Analytics by Ron Shevlin
9 – The New Era of “Goldilocs Marketing”: Real-Time is Right-Time by Alex Yoder
10 – Expert Wrongness and The Streetlight Effect by David H. Freedman
A FINAL WORD
After 24 issues, and two years at it, I decided to end the WAO/FACTOR newsletter. I received many very positive feedbacks throughout that period, thanks to all our great guest writers, and one or two articles of mine.
The reason for ending the newsletter is a complete overhaul of my company, WAO Marketing, which will be launched in 2014. New high-value services, and especially new ways of delivering them.
So, when that hapens, this newsletter will too be reborn. I will contact you again, and ask you if you want to be part of that experience by re-subscribing to what I hope will be even better content.
In the meantime, allow me to simply end this message with a very big thank you…
I am French, therefore morose, and I like to wallow in bad news. But this state of mind may offer some genuine lucidity. Not my words but those of the New York Times. In brief, I am French, which gives me a good excuse to continually complain and ruin the atmosphere of the slight euphoria … Continuer
Have you ever heard of ‘the Goldilocks principle’? It’s the reason you’re breathing right now. And, it could significantly impact your email marketing conversion rates. According to the Goldilocks principle, our distance from the sun, 92,960,000 miles to be exact, is just right for supporting life. Any hotter or any colder and we’re either a … Continuer
As the measurement of marketing effectiveness has shifted from something of a black art to an increasing reliance on analytics, the field has opened itself up to some new and considerable risks of providing misleading guidance to marketers. These dangers stem not merely from problems unique to marketing analytics, but rather from booby traps that … Continuer
Marketing might just be the most measured dimension of business performance. There is a herd of popular marketing metrics that dominates the landscape of marketing and sales plans. Just a small sample: Online advertising cost-per-click % leads from social media New website visitors Active subscribers Promo email open rate Promo email click-through rate Marketing cost … Continuer
I have devoted my entire professional life to helping organizations improve their performance. For years I consulted and wrote on organizational motivation, but found that no matter how powerful the rewards were, they were no better than the measurement system upon which they were based. About seven years ago, after years of study, I had … Continuer
One of the most interesting and valuable aspects of my job as an analytics practitioner involves sharing analytical insights with people throughout my company. My audience spans the gamut from interns all the way to C-level executives. As a manager and mentor, I often coach analysts on the presentations they’ll deliver to business stakeholders. Here’s … Continuer
The Rise of the Dashboard Dashboards can provide a powerful solution to information overload, but only when they’re properly designed. Most dashboards used in businesses today fail. At best they deliver only a fraction of the insight that is needed to monitor performance. This is a travesty, because effective dashboard design can be achieved by … Continuer
Dashboard Disinformation – Best-Practices it’s best NOT to follow Here’s a few simple, oft-repeated best-practices in digital measurement dashboarding that you may already know: Focus on a small set of site-wide actionable KPIs Measure your overall Site Satisfaction and compare it to your industry Trend your NetPromoter scores to track your efficiency in creating brand … Continuer
It is almost a cliché to say that metrics should be actionable. No, it is an actual cliché. Books and consultants like myself usually say that so people will avoid measuring, and reporting, on stuff that has either very little value to the business (think hits), or that is very hard to impossible to influence (the weather if you sell umbrellas). So, we all agree that analytics should deliver actionable insights, i.e. new knowledge susceptible to generate action.
How good is your company at marketing online? Or, more broadly, at marketing through digital or interactive channels? As a Web Analyst, you track, analyze, and report on a host of metrics that help answer the questions of how well your company did online, and how well it may do in the future. But how … Continuer