E160 – Why You Should Always Question Data

Dave isn't quite sure how he came across this thread on Twitter but lucky for us he did. Here is the thread that promoted Louisville over Florida State and other ACC schools.

What jumped out to him was that someone had picked 2014 as the starting year for the graphic. Why 2014? This was posted in 2020 so why not go back one recruiting class (4 years) or a decade (10 years). Why did they pick 2014? There must be some motive and data that skews in favor of Louisville with that date right? And he was correct!

Recruiting Data for Colleges

Below are links to all the recent draft picks for the three schools in the graphic. Note how from 2000-2013 Louisville didn't have many draft picks, let alone first rounders!

Florida StateClemsonLouisville

Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly Reporting

With COVID you may be changing how and when you report. Know how trends, holidays, and just changes in the world outside of your business can impact reporting.

Also question those that choose certain time frames to report on. Is that a business decision or are they doing it to make their team/campaign/project look better than they should?

Internal Reporting

To get more budget for a project, campaign or channel you need to know your own data. There needs to be a report of "truth" and understanding between teams and people how data is pulled, calculated and reported.

Spend 30 minutes a week in Google Search Console & Bing Webmaster, Google Analtyics and in your CRM/Backend. Learn the data. Know the data.

Reports From Agencies

Does your agency present data you care about or do they make up metrics and data points? Are you all on the same page on what matters and what is a sale, lead and so on?

In the end you are responsible and need to know the data better than your consultant and agencies. Always ask for the raw data with reports and be sure to look at reports and data from PPC Agency, Social Media Agency, PR Agency, SEO Agency or anyone!

Full Transcript

Matt Siltala: [00:00:00] Welcome to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your host, Matt  and Dave roar. Hey guys, excited to be here with you on another one of these episodes of the business of digital podcast. Um, we're going to have a unique one for us today. We get to talk sports, Dave. Well, not just for,

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:25] I mean, when I saw it.

When I saw the tweet that started all this, I was like, that would be fun. And an excuse for us to talk college football.

Matt Siltala: [00:00:33] I mean, we need to talk about something sports related right now with no sports going on or at least like barely starting up again. I don't know. Anyway, I think we're going to go with the title of a always questioned the data or always questioned data

Dave Rohrer: [00:00:49] like that is better.

Matt Siltala: [00:00:50] All right. Always question the data, but, uh, yeah, go ahead. And, uh, And, uh, start us off Dave and let us know what, what prompted you to this? [00:01:00] And we'll go from there.

Dave Rohrer: [00:01:01] I don't think this is a real Twitter account. It's the Vil? Nine six four zero seven two zero six four. Oh. I didn't even realize that before. Uh, what kind of account is that?

Is that like your, your phone number or something?

Matt Siltala: [00:01:18] I don't know.

Dave Rohrer: [00:01:19] That's weird,

Matt Siltala: [00:01:20] but I can't think that there's that many people wanting the Ville

Dave Rohrer: [00:01:24] now. No, but what started this? Isn't I don't even remember how I went down a rabbit hole, but there

Matt Siltala: [00:01:33] was for us to do that.

Dave Rohrer: [00:01:35] Yeah. I know. I don't spend that much time on Twitter these days.

So the fact that I got down this rabbit hole also shocked me, but it was something about some recruit. And actually it was like, some of it was from a year ago and then people were talking about it, yada, yada.