Take a quick demo tour of Connect to see the added benefits you’ll have when you partner with Adswerve. Get access to hundreds of training videos, the latest industry news, your account and billing information and proprietary tools and applications to help you get more done—plus, so much more!
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get the latest updates in your inbox
“Data visualization is effortless.”
“I never have problems finding, interpreting and communicating the data I need.”
If you can say this, you’re one of the lucky few. But, if you read the statement and thought, “Why can’t that be me?”, you’re in the right place. It won’t happen overnight, but we can work toward that goal.
As you know, there are varying levels of complexity within tech stacks, datasets and data visualization. Teams often desire simple reports that, unfortunately, are anything but simple to create. They often require advanced data cleaning, joining, manipulations and visualization functionality that isn’t available out of the box.
That simple report request? It can quickly turn into a complex project, often getting shelved. Even with platforms that simplify data management, you still need strong business and data expertise to succeed. But the payoff is huge: clean data and effective visualizations unlock valuable insights. Here's three key areas to help you move your data visualization efforts in the right direction.
1. Know Your Audience
As we noted in our last data viz blog post it always helps to start with who the report is for. Consider who will be using the report and its intended purpose: Will it be used for summarizing information, making decisions, analyzing trends, comparing performance, or something else? Knowing your audience and the report's objective allows you to focus on the data that matters most to them.
Note: You can generate the same report in multiple ways to allow for deeper understanding or answer more specific business questions. For example, you can add additional details to an Executive Summary to make it a Monthly Report or vice versa. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time unless the datasets or audiences are entirely different.
With a clear understanding of your audience and the required level of detail, you can take it a step further with wireframing. Your wireframe doesn't need to be highly detailed, but it should help you visualize the dashboard's optimal layout and design. We strongly recommend sharing these wireframes with stakeholders to gather feedback before building the actual reports. It's much easier to adjust shapes and placeholders than to rework live charts, filters and calculations.
Streamline Wireframing with Looker Studio (Alex): Use Looker Studio's built-in shapes and placeholder charts to quickly and easily create wireframes for your dashboards. For alternative tools, explore options like Lucid Chart or Canva to experiment with different design elements.
Simplify Collaboration with Visual Mockups (Emmilly): For a quick and simple wireframing approach that facilitates stakeholder collaboration, experiment with basic shapes in Google Slides or PowerPoint. You can even use fake datasets in Google Sheets to create visual mockups of the dashboard. This allows stakeholders to easily visualize the design and provide feedback before you invest time in building the actual reports.
2. Know Your Source of Truth
Every platform tracks data differently. Be sure to identify your "source of truth"—the data you trust most. You might have different sources for different data points and that's perfectly normal. The key is to map these sources and their respective platforms to create a consolidated view for reporting.
That said, even with data points identified, your reporting can still be limited by the capabilities of your chosen platform. Many reporting challenges stem from platform limitations rather than skill gaps. For example, the variety of capabilities between Google's Looker/Looker Studio ecosystem alone highlights why some platforms are a better fit than others for specific needs. A trusted partner can help you understand these limitations, whether it's recognizing that your current data visualization platform might not be the ideal tool for the job or identifying potential workarounds within your existing setup. With experience across a multitude of platforms, a partner can guide you toward alternative solutions if needed, ensuring your reporting reaches its full potential.
The Power of the Data Warehouse (Emmilly):To truly know your source of truth, centralize your data from various sources—like call center metrics, web analytics and direct mail impressions—into a robust data warehouse. This opens the door to leveraging technologies like BigQuery and LookML to create a unified and insightful data foundation. From here, you can use a data visualization platform like Looker Studio to bring that data to life and create a suite of reports tailored to different teams and highlight various insights, ensuring everyone is working with the same trusted data source.
3. Know Your Potential
Having an understanding of your audience and source of truth goes a long way. It improves your data collection, accuracy and quality for more advanced use cases. Now it’s time to take your data to the next level and look at potential.
With a solid foundation, exciting possibilities open up. Here are some common projects we recommend for clients who have reached this level of data maturity:
Forecasting/Prospensity - Predict the likelihood of certain actions to inform e-commerce inventory, expected revenue, media and personalization opportunities and more.
Media Mix Modeling (MMM) - Analyze spend and conversion across platforms to determine how incremental increases or decreases will affect performance.
Online + Offline Data - Understand the full customer journey online and offline (in-person, in-store)
Custom Attribution - Build custom models to find more accurate attribution insights
Audiences Clustering - Identify audiences based on machine learning
Unlocking Omnichannel Insights (Alex): Don't let siloed data limit your understanding of the customer journey. Integrate your online and offline data to gain a complete view, enabling deeper analysis and more effective marketing strategies.
Media Mix Modeling (Emmilly): MMM can help you understand the impact of your marketing spend across different channels. By analyzing this data, you can optimize your budget allocation and improve your return on investment. With new tools like Google Meridian now available, MMM is more accessible and insightful than ever before.
Whether you have a small team with jacks of all trades or a large team with pockets of deep knowledge, Adswerve is here to help. If you have any data visualization questions or want to consult with our experts, please reach out to start a conversation!
