Datalicious Blog - Data Driven Marketing

Research: Google Ad Planner data on website user demographics could be wrong by up to 20%

A quick analysis we did today revealed that Facebook user figures reported in the Google Ad Planner platform can differ by up to 20% from the actual Facebook data.
 
Most online marketer probably know the Google Ad Planner platform and love the data it provides but might have wondered how accurate the user figures and demographics actually are for each website. Well, Google is not exactly open when it comes to revealing its data sources or methodology but it occurred to us that the Facebook ad targeting service would provide a perfect sanity check, at least when it comes to user data on Facebook.com.
 
Summary of key findings
1. Total user numbers are very close
2. Google might have the genders wrong
3. User might not be as old as Google thinks
 
Although the Google data seems to be pretty accurate in terms of total user numbers by country when compared to actual Facebook data (numbers differ less than 0.05%), there seem to be significant differences when comparing user numbers by gender and age groups. 
The gender split between male and female users only seems to match in the US, whereas in Australia and the UK it is actually reversed, i.e. Google thinks there are more male users on Facebook than female users which according to Facebook data is exactly the other way around (user numbers differ by up to +/- 9% here). 
A similar pictures presents itself when looking at users by age group across Australia, the UK and US. Google seems to think that Facebook users are on average much older than they actually are across all three countries according to Facebook profile data (user numbers differ by up to +/- 19% here). 
Now don't get us wrong, we love the Google Ad Planner and the data it provides but we hope that this simple analysis will get more marketers to actively question the data they're looking at (and maybe even get Google to provide a little more transparency in the future).
 
You're welcome to repeat the experiment by extracting the data yourself from the below sites or just download the raw data we collected as well as the Tableau workbook we used to analyse and visualise the data.
 
Facebook ad targeting service
http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/
 
Google Ad Planner platform (now DoubleClick)
https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile#siteDetails
 
 
(download)
(download)

Datalicious: Talk data to us

I'm not sure why but the rest of the team refused to wear their shirts and pose with me. Thanks for shirts Tableau!

Register for local Tableau business intelligence and dashboard event in Sydney on April 28th

Are you still looking for better analytics, dashboards and business intelligence? Tableau is hosting a local event you might be interested in attending and the Datalicious crew will be there as well!

An Introduction to Business Intelligence and Dashboards

When: Wednesday, April 28th, 9:00-11:00 AM (Check-in starts at 8:30 AM)
Where: Sydney Marriott Hotel, 36 College Street, Sydney (map)
More info: http://www.tableausoftware.com/sydney-bi-dashboards

Attend this in-person event and learn how to

  • Leverage new technology to spot trends in data and react quickly
  • Provide business users at every level the information they need to make better decisions
  • Focus more on analysis and less on collecting data
  • Create and deploy brilliant executive dashboards 
  • Cut the backlog of change requests by building an environment where users get what they want, when they want it
  • Breakfast will be provided but space is limited, please register today to confirm your seat.

CFO magazine called Tableau “the best piece of software in years” and Microsoft said it was “bringing analytics to a completely new level.” But you don't have to take their word for it. Come see for yourself.

Also check out our earlier blog post on some sample multi-channel marketing dashboards and Australian prices for Tableau if you want to find out more.

 

Automated marketing dashboards with data from multiple channels including web, retail and call center

Are you and your team still spending more time compiling reports in Excel than actually analysing them and taking action? Would your company benefit from an automated dashboard solution that mashes up and visualises data from all your various channels including online, retail and call center?

Check out the screen shots of our sample multi-channel marketing dashboard below and you will get an idea how powerful single source reporting with data from multiple channels can be.

Email us at insights@datalicious.com if you would like to get access to our live sample dashboard below and we will email you the login details (and maybe a polite follow-up later on).

Please note: The data and reports are currently still hosted on a demo server which is also used for data crunching so load times might be a bit slower sometimes. In a live scenario the dashboards would be hosted on a dedicated server to guarantee optimal performance at all times.

Or check out our recent article on open source column based databases if your company still needs a high performance data warehouse solution to power its business intelligence platform.

             
Click here to download:
Tableau_marketing_dashboards_t.zip (1057 KB)

Australian pricing and local support for powerful Tableau Business Intelligence platform

 
You might have heard the recent buzz about Tableau, but are wondering how to get hold of a copy for your business and whether the platform is supported in Australia?
 
Datalicious has recently entered into an agreement with the US based company and is excited to announce Australian prices and local support for the powerful platform.
 
In case you're not fully convinced yet, read Gartner's recent BI tool comparison and some of the feedback including "customer survey data shows that Tableau was chosen more often for functionality than any other vendor in the survey, with one of the highest overall product functionality scores."
 
Check out our sample multi-channel marketing dashboard or the official Tableau website for some sample visualisations.
 
Tableau Desktop Personal 
 Data mine flat files and create stunning visualisations.
AUD 1,000 (excluding GST)* 
 
Tableau Desktop Professional 
Data mine live databases and publish dashboards to the Tableau server.
AUD 1,900 (excluding GST)*
 
Tableau Server
Publish customised dashboards for up to 10 corporate users online.
AUD 10,500 (excluding GST)*
 
View the Tableau product tour or visit the official product pages to get more information and detailed technical specifications.
 
Please email us at insights@datalicious.com for volume discounts and education pricing as well as local support options.
 
*Prices may change anytime without notification.
 
           
Click here to download:
Australian_prices_local_suppor.zip (715 KB)

Free download: All Australian postcodes geocoded ready for data mash-up visualisation

As the analyst geeks among you probably know from experience, geocoding address data is pretty easy but sometimes it can take a while especially if you have a lot of addresses to process and clean. 

To save time we have downloaded the latest postcode file from the Australian Post website and geocoded it for you. Using the below file you can now at least visualise data on a postcode level, not ideal but at least something.

ZIP file containing all Australian postcodes geocoded
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10822/Datalicious/All-Australian-Postcodes-Geocoded.zip

Australia Post download website for latest list of postcodes
http://www1.auspost.com.au/postcodes/index.asp?sub=2


New Gartner BI tool comparison gives Tableau one of the highest overall product functionality scores

Our new BI partner Tableau was recently included on Gartner's Magic Quadrant and recognised as one of the key challengers to the  major players. 

Gartner wrote about Tableau: 

"Customer survey data shows that Tableau was chosen more often for functionality than any other vendor in the survey, with one of the highest overall product functionality scores."

"Tableau's strong performance, even during the recession, is driven by its ability to meet the increased market demand for easy-to-use and intuitive, interactive BI tools that are easy to deploy without IT assistance."

"It was the only vendor in the survey for which customers reported below-average issues (albeit for a small number of users and small data sizes) across all issue categories measuring product quality, functionality, usability, performance and scalability."

We haven't taken the survey but agree that Tableau is awesome to explore, mine and visualise data, very powerful and user-friendly!

Check out our Australian Tableau prices and local support options or email Chris at cbartens@datalicious.com if you would like to find out more about Tableau and how it could help to make your data more accessible.

Find out more about Tableau here
http://www.tableausoftware.com/

Read the full Gartner report here
http://www.gartner.com/technology/media-products/reprints/tableau/article1/article1.html

Tableau: Powerful but cost-effective business intelligence and data mining solutions

Datalicious is proud to announce that we have just joined the Tableau reseller program after having evaluated and used the business intelligence platform for several months.

Explore, discover, visualize and publish: Tableau delivers rapid-fire business intelligence that requires little more than drag and drop (ok, and an analytics mind). Whether you just want to crunch data from various different databases and files or publish your annotated dashboards and reports online for everyone in your company to see, Tablea makes BI fast and easy at a fraction of the cost of traditional business intelligence software.

Check out our Australian Tableau prices and local support options or  email us at insights@datalicious.com if you want to find out more.

For more in-depth product information visit the official Tableau website.
http://www.tableausoftware.com/