Predicting the Present: Data, Analysis, and Forecast!
Third day at the Google Analytics conference at Google. The day started off with a talk by Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google. Hal is just at another level when it comes to analysis! He does a very good job at taking something complex and make it simple for the rest of us to understand :).
Didn’t take a lot of notes (I was mesmerized most of the time) but here are some takeaways:
Data is available and relatively cheap but we still need humans to analyze and make sense of all these piles of data
Check out this graph about the US recession, http://www.slate.com/id/2216238/, and I’m sure you’ll agree it is not a pretty picture!
I really liked his comment, “if you torture the data long enough it’ll confess to anything.”
If you haven’t already, check out this very cool and super useful tool, Google Search Insight. With this tool, one can assess patterns of search volume. you can select a specific region or categories, time frames, and properties. See seasonality impacts on keywords related to what you sell, compare search volumes, and more. Don’t forget to examine the “forecast data”.
Feras Alhlou
Chief Technology Officer
Feras Alhlou previously co-founded E-Nor in 2003 and served as President until its acquisition by Cardinal Path in 2019. Feras is passionate about his work with some of the world’s most recognized brands and public sector organizations to deliver data-driven marketing value. A recognized thought leader on the Google Marketing tech stack, he has traveled the globe educating businesses, practitioners, and consultants, and he’s also co-author of Google Analytics Breakthrough: From Zero to Business Impact. Feras received a Masters of Engineering Management degree from the University of South Florida and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tulsa. He is a Certified Web Analyst, Board Member for Red Cross Northern California, and a 3rd-degree black belt in Aikido.