Marketing Analytics Problems (Solved)The main reason companies give up on analytics is because they do not get the proper results out of all their hard workSometimes analytics initiatives fail because they are defined wrong, because you didn’t ask the right business questions first.Asking the right questions also helps to avoid death by KPI. Too many KPI’s cause businesses to be indecisive on what to measure and what actually impacts their businessThere needs to be a culture shift, from the top down, to commit to analytics and think of the future not the past when making decissions and investmentsWhat follows is a lightly edited transcript of Episode 18 of the Inevitable Success Podcast.Transcript:Damian Alright, so today we thought we would touch a topic that is very near and dear to both of our hearts, and it is, “Why is it that some businesses struggle to commit to using analytics in their marketing?”Stephen There are many reasons. Um, the number one reason, that comes to my mind, is that well, one is that they don’t get the proper result out of all these analytical endeavors, if you will. So they have this notion that, yea, this thing is complex…it’s expensive. It takes a long time, and you know, “I talk to analysts and they are talking about things that I don’t understand, so I just automatically hate it.” Another thing is that a lot of successful companies, they think that they have been successful without analytics, so to introduce this new element, it’s bit of a cultural war. Like your gut feeling versus actual numbers. It’s a bit of a training on the non analytical people as well, meaning, you cannot just hire a bunch of analysts and say “Hey, you’re an analytical company!” You have to have a culture of consuming such analytics, without that, it fails. There’s no question about that. Damian So, you know, when we say the word, you know, “use analytics,” what does that actually end up meaning? Stephen You know, I think of it in one way, you may think of it another way. I think we’re probably thinking about it more similarly. When I think of it, it is, you know, informed decision making, but maybe there’s a few different angles that might mean different things to different people.I look at it from the timeline point of view. And that scares people to say, “Oh we’re talking about predictive analytics.” Yes I am, but it’s not the scary thing. Most interesting notion is what they call prescriptive analytics.Damian That’s interesting. What is that anyway?Stephen It’s totally bogus. It’s just that you know some people, who are probably some stat geeks, made up this chart, and it’s a pyramid chart. At the bottom, they have business analytics and reporting. Ok, fine, it seems relatively simple, but is it that simple? I don’t think so. Number two is a descriptive analytics.Damian It’s like a food pyramid for…? Stephen Yea, it’s kind of like a pyramid….Exactly. At the bottom you have a BI and…Damian Got it. So we have an analytics pyramid scheme. Stephen Second tier, is what they call descriptive analytics. That’s where segmentation, profiling, clustering…those wonderful things fit in. In other words, I know what’s going on. The BI reporting will tell you… that yeah, “What is the best time to blast e-mail? Thursday morning is the best time.” Or “What are the things that are happening right now? What is going on right now?” So I blast this e-mail. There’s a clickstream open…All those wonderful things. That’s BI. Now descriptive analytics is, “Who’s behind all these actions? What do they look like? How many groups of people, how many pockets of people, am I dealing with here?” For example, we just consulted another company yesterday,