In the movie “Memento”, the main character tattoos notes all over his body to retain key pieces of information because he has no short-term memory. It’s a severe solution to a severe problem, but it gets the job done for him. Fortunately, we don’t suffer from that same problem, but in the corporate environment we tend to suffer from a different kind of memory problem, and without the right solution, it can lead to false insights, wasted time, frustration and flawed recommendations.
The insights that drive our businesses ultimately come from a combination of data + experience + context. The data can be made available to all. The experience is a personal capability that varies from person to person. That leaves the context, and this is where our corporate memory tends to fail us.
As the business grows more complex, it becomes impossible for any one person (or even any one team) to remember all of the details of what was happening inside and outside the company on a given date. Without those details, it is all too easy to misinterpret what you see in the data.
Was a spike in sales due to to the big marketing campaign the company launched that week, or was it partly driven by outside press coverage? Is a drop in conversion rates a result of website changes or more a reflection of a promotional partner driving increased (but less qualified) traffic? Why this metric or that metric is up or down vs a year ago is a constant question, but often the real answer isn’t in the data itself.
Here’s an example. While working with a major media company with a nascent streaming service, we saw a sudden spike in weekly churn rates from a major partner. Alarm bells started ringing as we dug into the data to 1) validate that these churns were real and 2) figure out what was going on.
We eventually discovered that several TPR (temporary price reduction) promotions just happened to have been running at the same time of the month for two consecutive months. This timing essentially created a “rogue wave” of churns. Nothing was really wrong, but we could have figured it out faster if that extra context (promotional timing) was more readily available.
How many times has this happened to you? You spend hours trying to figure out what you’re seeing in the data, and then finally after talking to a dozen people, someone says “Oh yeah, that’s because of THIS thing that happened, so it totally makes sense”. Then you just sit there for a few minutes thinking “I wish I had known that a week ago!”
This problem comes in two flavors: What you knew and forgot, and what you never knew in the first place. The solution for both is the same: Annotations.
Annotations can save the day, and they can save a huge amount of wasted time. In this case, annotations means a set of date-coded notes about factors affecting the data that aren’t visible in the data itself. They give you the extra context you need to put your data insights in perspective. They can include just about anything that has a material impact, but here are some common examples:
- Product and pricing changes
- Marketing campaign and promotion launches
- Season premieres and finales
- Major press coverage
- Relevant news and events
- Major competitor or industry news
The two top web analytics platforms: Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics both support annotations, but many people don’t realize this, and even among those who know about it, many don’t use it the way they should. Why do so many people ignore such a valuable feature? Most likely because they don’t realize how important their annotations can be to OTHER people in the organization.
If you don’t have a clear place to keep annotations right now, that shouldn’t stop you. Set up a shared Excel file and encourage your team members and peers to record annotations in it as part of their regular process. You’ll be amazed at how helpful this can be for the people already working in the company as well as any new hires you bring on in the future.
Don’t let your memory fail you. Keeping track of the past is the best way to profit in the future!
