Augmented Analytics is a software, automating the steps of taking the data that you receive from your business and operations, and finding actionable insights to improve upon. A constant assistant through the use of artificial intelligence and intelligent learning programs, augmented analytics can help a business by saving them time and money hiring expensive data scientists. Su, (2017).
Benefits to augmented analytics are the constant work on finding actionable insights in the business that a data scientist, business analyst, or employee would tire of and possibly miss some important details. Another benefit is the fact that the software does eliminate the need for a data analyst by doing more than just supporting the analysis, it goes further and finds where the company can improve.
Augmented Analytics can take some time to work but they do take the boring part out of the work for employees. Labeling, organizing and defining the data so work can be done faster and more efficiently. The actionable insights generation of the augmented analytics can help any business improve on their operations so that they can become more profitable and efficient in the future.
I find this to be positive trend as it further simplifies the work for the employees and business overall. The concern would be training data analytic employees on how to use the new automation software, and how to use and apply the new information to the business. As with any technology there is of course a learning curve, once that is crossed then the benefits will speak for themselves.
An augmented analytics software I found, Tellius offers their users through their Genius AI Engine, machine learning, natural language processing, personalize recommendations and is set up to run at scale. Tellius, (2021) They connect the data from outside sources, prepare it for use in their leaning machine, and then explore, discover and predict how the data can work for your business.
Key Performance Indicators or KPIs are useful in digital marketing to measure the success of a campaign and performance for an organization. The importance of defining your KPIs is to use specific performance measurements that relate to the data you need, to help your company move forward and have quantifiable data to use in your company strategies. Jackson, (2020). For example, if you are new company that sells women’s clothing you may want to focus on KPIs that show customer performance on your site, or demographics of who your most visited customer is. Then you can take this data and use it to target this specific customer in marketing campaigns or tailor ads to them specifically through content. This new women’s store would likely want to focus less on the financial indicators or people indictors like employee turnover, considering it is a new company and still growing they would don’t need to use this type of data yet. Therefore, focusing efforts into collecting data that is helpful to the immediate growth of the company.
Using KPIs is so beneficial that there are many softwares available to companies who need accurate reports on them. Software like GeckoBoard allows a company to gather their data, share it with members of their organization and scale with the data. Haije, (2018). Using this software gives companies the opportunity to clearly plan out and define the KPIs they need, use them but then also adjust and add more as their needs change.
The Hub and Spoke Method can be defined as a central product or idea (the hub) which is added to with complementing ideas or products (spokes) to increase effectiveness or sales. Jackson, (2015). This hub and spoke method can be modified for many different fields. In this post we’re going to discuss how it applies specifically to digital analytics and how using different departments can add value and develop a full marketing campaign.
The Importance of Considering the Needs of Multiple Departments in The Development of Digital Marketing Campaigns
Digital Marketing has many areas of focus to create a fully informed and quality campaign. There is of course the product that the company is marketing first of all. That product information will need to come from the sales department and will need their collaboration to understand the features and information about the product that can be used to show to customers. Then there will be a need for understanding the demographics of the consumer targeted with the product. This would require some input from an analytics team and a little research which could be found with the help of an analyst within the company. Then the creative part of the campaign would involve a meeting of the marketing team to develop ideas of how to properly identify the target market and show the product to them in a captivating and enticing way. Another spoke in the campaign would be from the social media team which might also be the marketing team. From their input the campaign can be better optimized digitally to attract a larger audience. There will be input from the finance department on the budget, and as well how much sales could be brought in with the campaign. Each of these departments have a specific role to play in the hub and spoke method and one without the other doesn’t really give a digital marketing campaign team the ability to fully process and prepare for a proper campaign. When needed outsourcing is an option for a spoke if there is something needed but yet unknown to the team.
The Value of Sharing Results Across The Organization
There is always value in sharing. We are taught that from a young age, to make friends and become generally nice people, but in an organization sharing results is a necessity. The value of sharing across the organization is that every team in every sector has the information needed to push on and succeed. Growth is inevitable in an informed organization and problems can be manage extra quick when the entire organization is aware of any problems. They always say two heads are better than one and in an organization the more people who are putting their brains to a project the better the possibilities for success. There is concern for overwhelming options but if the organization is properly organized and has strong team leaders, this can be managed well with input and ideas from all spokes of the hub. Sharing results can be the analytics team sharing with the product development team which products customers respond better to, so that more of that product can be designed, fulfilling demand. Alternatively the sales team can share results with the finance teams to increase ad spend or campaign budgets fro a new product based on past sales history and campaign performance.
Reference
Jackson, S. (2015). Cult of Analytics. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781317561880/
The next five years for digital advertising are going to much different than they have ever been before. With this sudden pandemic crashing everyones 2020 plans, companies have had to make sudden and extreme adjustments to their day-to-day operations to sustain their businesses. A prediction for the next coming five years is that there will be a rise in online visitors. It is predicted that by 2021 52% of media consumers will be consuming through the Internet. G3MediaWorks, (2020). We might have actually already beat this prediction for 2020, with everyone stuck at home for most of this year.
Location based services are something that I believe will be trending harder in the future. With smartphones and their constant access to customers locations. Businesses have the ability now to tailor ads based on wheres customers are. Goodrich, (2018) So, for example if you’re near a McDonald’s, you might start seeing advertisements for a Big Mac when you never previously have. This is going to help businesses attract more customers for sure. By bringing in new interested customers and putting this interest in customers minds for them Like if a Mcdonalds ad popped up on my phone and I was already within a few miles of one, I might be more inclined to just make a quick stop for some of my favorite french fries.
Another digital advertising trend and also technology that is notable is the use of Artificial Intelligence or AI simulated adverts. There are already some popular AI characters that are being heavily used in digital advertising like, Lil Maquela with over 2.8M instagram followers. Katz, (2018) She has already had huge brand deals like with Prada, and used her following to support causes like the BLM movement. The use of these AI celebrities will help businesses in the future with their advertising by reducing costs associated with generating attractive ads. They can cut the costs for the entire production, focusing just on the graphic design aspect. Companies can also create a character who is free of flaws. Not visible flaws per se but the flaws that come with hiring celebrities for brand deals. Not knowing how they might behave in their free time that could reflect poorly on the brand. AI solves this issue by having a virtual character for whom free time literally doesn’t exist.
@lilMiquela
Social media marketing seems like an obvious trend to watch out for in the next five years. Maybe thats because I am a millennial and have grown up watching this all unfold? Any way you look at it, social media is the most profitable and has the highest ROI in terms of marketing costs. Previously, it was thought that social media is the best way to build what they call “soft leads” but in 2020 we are seeing that change. Mars, (2019) It could be the sudden pandemic, but conversions are becoming clearer through the use of social media. There are options for tracking the ROI, like with Facebook Ads, but the results seems skewed for most companies at the moment. Other options to track sales from social media are the use of influencer marketing and discount codes. Influencer marketing is the new way to utilize social media and hit a more engaged target audience. Influencers themselves however do want to know how much they should be getting paid for this reach and audience they have created. Advertisers now have the ability to track conversions when people use the influencer’s specific discount code and they can then pay the influencer a percentage of sales form that. Ladd, (2016) Going forward in the next five years, I see this trend really exploding and becoming something widely used by many online businesses. The benefit of using this is that aside from companies being able to directly reach their target audience, they can do so at a smaller cost.
ByBonnieSue 