Knowing if your campaign is successful and why is not as easy as it seems. Even in ideal conditions, there are plenty of factors beyond your control, such as competitive action, sales investments, product quality, and customer-specific issues.

Digital channels have added layers of complexity, while also providing the means for getting to the bottom of the attribution question. Clearly, data and marketing analytics are crucial to showing the full picture of all the factors that play a role in sustaining success.

Enter the data scientist - part superhero and part nerd, this new marketing persona brings formidable skills to the table.

I had a chance to work with two data scientists from Dell recently on a webinar produced by MarketingProfs to hear their approach to figuring out what drives the success of their campaigns. Natalie Kortum (who has since left Dell and is now at Humana), and Jack Y. Chen shared details of their approach to attribution and their masterful use of analytics to figure it out. Along the way, they revealed:

• How setting expectations can make or break an analytics-driven project.
• Practical guidelines for modeling and knowing the possibilities and limitations of models.
• Tips for marketers to engage with data scientists to arrive at the best decisions.

I captured the discussion and produced a conclusions paper called, How Dell Optimizes Marketing Decision-Making. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Their structured approach to knowing why their campaigns are successful is a good step toward optimizing your marketing.

As always, thank you for following!