2022 Update
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 3 years since my last published blog post (1). The world looks very different now, but I was fortunate to be at a few high growth companies fueled by stay-at-home environments: Daily Harvest and Peloton. Since last week, I have a rare chance to take a break from nonstop cycling and reset; to look back at the challenges I tackled and look ahead to see what I want to do next…
Marketing x Data Science
I found that Marketing Data Science or Marketing Analytics can a pretty niche field where I can list a bunch of nouns and acronyms to show what I’ve worked on in the past 6-7 years: measurement, incrementality, experimentation, optimization, personalization, analytics engineering, MMM, attribution, multi-touch attribution, forecasting, CDP, customer segmentation, yada yada yada… and well iykyk.
But what makes this field really fun is that the challenges are always different. Well, the business questions we’re answering is usually the same:
- How can we drive more awareness
- How can we drive more response
- How can we drive more sales
- Are we doing it efficiently and effectively?
- What should we do next?
But the circumstances and the analytical approach are always different. There isn’t one model or solution to easily answer all of these questions! It really is a combination of understanding marketing, behaviorial economics, and analytical methodologies to narrow down the answer.
Over the next few weeks, I want to look back at past problems I’ve solved (maybe with made up scenarios) and dive into an exciting field of causal inference to measure the results of a specific business action. In other words, it’s a statistical method to try to prove that correlation can be causation and subsequently, what can we learn and repeat from the test!
Well besides doing Wordle everyday and continuing my NYT crossword puzzle streak (1,480 days or 4 years!). I plan on using the down time to reset and think about what matters to me the most (and beneficial for my career). Who knows, I might start constructing crossword puzzles too!
I had the opportunity to sell everything from baseball tickets, streaming video, mattresses, smoothies, and stationary bikes. But I also loved when I got to use data for good through a number of pro bono projects with DataKind and a non-profit organizations (blog post coming soon).
Stay tuned or feel free to reach out!
Notes
(1) I had started blog post in March 2020, but before the world locked down overnight. I might bring those series back though.
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