Category: Modeling
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Waiting For The End Of The World
I’m not a fan of doomsday cults. It always seems so arrogant to think that of all the people who have been born, and will be born, you will happen to have secured a seat at doomsday. It seems unlikely. Remember, the guy running the cult in your hometown isn’t going to usher in the…
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Random Forests and Machine Learning
Scott Hartshorn has some useful accessible advice on all things analytics. Today I’ll look at his advice on random forests and machine learning. Machine Learning He starts by giving us a clear intuitive, rather than a formal, view of what machine learning (ML) is. He says that at their heart a lot of different ML…
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Costs Of Not Experimenting
Today I’ll look at the work of Uri Gneezy and John List. Specifically their book, The Why Axis. These are very well respected scholars and they are strong proponents of more real-world testing. Today I most want to highlight the idea that there are very sizable costs of not experimenting. Business Managers Under-Experiment The authors…
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Spoilers And Movie Box Office
What is the relationship between spoilers and movie box office? It is easy to tell a story that spoilers reduce anticipated enjoyment and so lower attendance at movie theaters. (I write during times of Covid so it is hard to imagine how anything reduces attendance further but you get the general idea). Is this the…
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Finding The Right Marketing Metrics
It is extremely challenging to get marketing metrics pieces published at top marketing journals. Indeed, a piece on finding the right marketing metrics isn’t a typical article. One challenge is that often journals want something “new”. Investigating what managers do doesn’t seem new enough. This is a real shame. I worry editorial decisions encourage the…
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Marketing Metrics Must Add Up
Marketing metrics can get a bad reputation. This sometimes for good reason. A key, unsurprising, idea is that marketing metrics must add up. To Build Trust Marketing Metrics Must Add Up Kevin Lindsay discussed why this is: why do marketers (and people working with marketers) sometimes lack trust in the numbers they are being given?…
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Confusion In Attribution
Attribution is one of the most important topics in marketing. How does one give credit for a sale to the medium that caused it? Did the TV ad generate the sales, or the online advert, or even a sales clerk in a physical store? There is much confusion in attribution. Last Touch Attribution Last touch…
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Predicting What Image Works For An Individual
One of the central challenges of marketing is that people differ. Marketers would love to create marketing communications that work for everyone. While some communications do pretty well nothing has universal appeal. Some images work fantastically for some people but turn others off. How can we predict who will like what? What helps us in…
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Leadership In Politics
Real-world examples often provide concepts that apply in business. I worked in politics for many years and I think that there are lessons for educational and commercial leadership. Good political leaders try and seize temporary opportunities. Their dramatic actions make for exciting highs when successful and dramatic lows when not. So what can we learn…
