There is no escaping data. Ever. As marketers, it’s a given that we have to learn about our data, create insights with our data, and overall, embrace our data. Well, it’s hard to embrace marketing data when you have about 15 tabs open on Chrome, trying to analyze everything from all your marketing systems. Honestly, gathering all your descriptive data would often take a full shift and a lot of café con leche.
Prior to starting my master’s program, that’s the kind of marketer I was. I’ll admit it. I work for a smaller firm, which means I’m left without software that aggregates all of my marketing data into one place for me.
Two semesters ago, I was introduced to Tableau, a data visualization software. At first, I only thought of Tableau as a way to make data look better than the standard chart in Excel, but recently learned of its ability to synchronize and display your marketing data into a single dashboard.
Truth be told, the cherry on top when it comes to Tableau is its ability to forecast different metrics/KPIs. Tableau uses exponential smoothing, which is a technique that calls for forecast algorithms to find a regular pattern in measures in the future. Forecasting is important for marketers as it helps in decision-making and reducing risk. And with free videos and tutorials, Tableau makes it really easy to build these insights.
So needless to say, I can finally cut back on my coffee and get some time back to spend on other marketing activities.
