Everyone of you at one point has heard the saying “the data never lies” or “the truth lies in the numbers” these so called truisms sound logical therefore they must be true. Right?
In the book Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt (a great read BTW) the author surfaces a myriad of examples of how data (when misinterpreted) has driven individuals, societies, companies, and even governments into doing some really stupid things. In some cases these misinterpretations of data have made for some very wasteful, harmful or even tragic results. Can anyone say “weapons of mass destruction”?
Just yesterday I got my hands on a beautiful report consisting of 136 glossy pages, chuck full of beautiful graphs and charts. Some very impressive folks with some very impressive degrees delivered this report at the request of my client. Only problem with the content was their conclusions were 100% wrong.
Fortunately my client has grown to become a very savvy online marketer and he picked up on the flaws in the report immediately. This guy is frankly much smarter than most, so it got me thinking that in the hands of just about anyone else this report could be very dangerous. After reading it most marketers would set people and programs in motion to take advantage of it’s recommendations. Effectively rather than improve their business, they would likely paralyze it’s growth.
Given the complexity of this space, I suspect this happens quite often. The new hot shot with the fancy excel spreadsheet comes in touting the insight of the day, and you mobilize the troops. Let’s put this offer up, or take this banner down, or worse let’s change the price point.
You may be making a big mistake. Cross channel marketing is a messy problem and not a clean binary one that can easily be deciphered. The odds are you are not taking all variables into account. My advice is always try to poke holes in your data, look for interdependencies or other factors which may be influencing your data, test your hypothesis through agile methods, and please don’t forget to consult your experience and intuition. Strive to reach a balance between art and science.
