Google Analytics Spreadsheet Add-on [Chrome]
If you spend more than 15 minutes per week in Google Analytics and you care about data, this is a must. It’s one of the tools you always wished for but didn’t know existed.
In Google’s words:
The Google Analytics spreadsheet add-on brings you the power of the Google Analytics API combined with the power of data manipulation in Google Spreadsheets. With this tool, you can:
- Query and report data from multiple views.
- Compute and display custom calculations.
- Create visualizations and embed those visualizations on third-party websites.
- Schedule your reports to run and update automatically.
- Control who can see your data and visualizations by using Google Sheets’ sharing and privacy features.
Common use cases:
- Querying data from multiple views
- Creating custom calculations with your Google Analytics data
- Creating dashboards with embedded data visualizations
- Automatically updating your data and visualizations
You can finally feel in control of your data. I’ve always felt that Google Analytics has a lot of data but lets you do too little with it.
(If the link in the article for the add-on doesn’t work for you, try this one).
213 Marketing Dashboard Templates for Tracking and Measuring Your Marketing Performance [databox]
Continuing with the data theme: marketing dashboards. Literally hundreds of them.
In this article, you’ll find 213 marketing dashboard templates that you can use right away to create your own informative reports.
Dashboard categories:
- SEO Analytics Marketing Dashboards
- Paid Search Marketing Dashboards
- Social Media Marketing Dashboards
- Paid Social Marketing Dashboards
- Web Analytics Dashboards
- Email Marketing Dashboards
- Ecommerce Marketing Dashboards
- Marketing Automation Dashboards
How the New York Times A/B tests their headlines [TJCX]
NYT does in fact A/B test their headlines. Roughly 29% of articles have multiple headlines, and the most headlines observed for a single article (so far) is eight.
A lot of these headline changes are pretty minor—it’s common for the NYT to fix a capitalization or punctuation error after an article has been published.
Other times, the NYT changes headlines as the story evolves. Here’s a great story told in headlines:
But most headline swaps are clearly A/B tests looking for more clicks. Here’s an article about Biden’s governing style, with a pretty dramatic headline switch:
- Speak Softly, and Carry a Big Agenda (7%)
- Biden is the Anti-Trump, and It’s Working (93%)
But does it work? It turns out that A/B-tested NYT articles are 80% more likely to rank on a “most popular” list. And—not surprisingly—more headline testing correlates with more engagement. What was surprising that relatively few articles were A/B tested. The majority wasn’t tested at all, and of those that were tested, had only two headlines.
How China plans to circumvent Apple’s new privacy rules and why it’s a disaster for Apple [Twitter thread]
In short:
- Apple will introduce privacy rules that will make tracking impossible or very hard
- Chines tech companies are coming up with a solution to fingerprint devices and to effectively sidestep Apple’s privacy rules
- Now Apple has a problem: block Chinese giants and get in trouble there or not block them and essentially allow everyone else to do the same, defeating the purpose of introducing the privacy rules.
How to Utilize Your Instagram Profile at Every Stage of Your Sales Funnel [SocialMediaToday]
Used well, Instagram can provide an extra boost in each step of the funnel:
- Top of the funnel: Create Instagram stories that build relevant clicks
- Middle of the funnel: Use Instagram to curate & display social proof
- Bottom of the funnel: Use Instagram retargeting
Lots of examples for each step.
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Until next Thursday!
Radek Sienkiewicz
PS. I wish I had the resources for testing 8 headlines for this article. Instead, you get one. Not pretty, but informative. At least that’s what I like to tell myself.
