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The Value Of Nothing
When is nothing worth something? Turns out, just about all the time. Whenever you look at your metrics, consider that a metric is, in virtually every case, designed to measure a specific outcome. It...
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8 Ways We Deceive Ourselves With Metrics (And How To Avoid Them), Part I
“Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice To (Self) Deceive” With apologies to Sir Walter Scott for my mangling of his most popular turn of phrase, I’d like to take some time now to...
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8 Ways We Deceive Ourselves With Metrics, Part II
This is a follow up to my previous article “Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave” which discusses eight common ways we practice self-deception, particularly in the context of metrics, analytics, and...
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Polls And Testing: When Is Close No Cigar?
Now that the 2012 U.S. Presidential election is over, there’s a bit of buzz around why some folks thought the election would be close and others who, using some solid statistical techniques, predicted...
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Treating Your Conversion Symptoms, But Not The Disease
Many organizations get fixated on metrics data, without thinking of where it comes from. But, what if your metrics indicate a problem which originates somewhere else? Huh? What I’m asking is, “why...
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Continuous Metrics Optimization: I Before E, Except After C
“I Before E, Except After C” — do you remember that from 4th grade spelling? Well, it works just as well when you’re concentrating on your metrics and optimization program. What do the letters mean for...
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Thinking About Your Negative Metrics
“Negative” metrics — you might prefer the term “De-optimization Metrics” — can be just as important to your continuous optimization efforts as your positive ones. The purpose of a negative metric is to...
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Keep An Infinite Memory For Your Metrics
Image via Shutterstock Often, you want to look at your metrics over a longer time period than usual in order to identify long-term trends. This is especially true if your metrics are “jagged” and move...
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‘Tis The Seasonality Of Your Metrics
A few posts back, I examined a simple technique for using an exponential moving average (EMA) on your time-series metrics. This has the advantage of smoothing out the metrics while at the same time...
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Thinking Inside The Boxplot
In a previous post describing a simple approach to de-seasonalizing your data, I covered how marketers can examine, at a rough level, the impact of seasonality on metrics. Obviously, your data science...
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