Mark’s take on Stacked Analytics
Hi, I’m Mark McKelvey, a co-founder of Stacked Analytics, and I help companies use their data to make better decisions.
Unlocking the full power of data can be difficult, even for companies that have a team dedicated to analytics. Sometimes that happens because they have too little data collected, or it’s not set up in the right way. But, just as often, it’s because they’re not thinking about data strategically or they don’t know what is possible.
That’s where our team comes in. We help you identify the right questions to ask about your business, we share ideas about how to answer those questions, and then we build solutions that automate as much of the answers as possible. We seek to understand what your organization is trying to achieve then offer data powered solutions to help get you there.
How Stacked Analytics Helps Clients
One of our clients was a university that was marketing itself to potential students. Their campaigns were attracting a huge number of prospects to their website, but many of those visitors weren’t completing the “contact us” form. And that meant the university had no way to follow up.
How could we get more people to complete those forms?
To solve the problem, we built a model that used web analytics data to figure out which visitors were most likely to drop off. We sent those users to a shorter version of the form, which was quicker and easier to fill out. Then someone from the university’s call center would follow up and get the rest of the necessary information from the prospective student.
Everyone else, meanwhile, was funneled to a longer version of the form.
The solution worked perfectly. The short form was a great fit for the first group. In a lot of cases, they were filling out the form on their phones, and it had been hard to complete a long form with dozens of questions on a tiny screen. Plus, some of the prospects had questions of their own and benefited from speaking with a call center rep.
(Even better? We built the model to consider the call center’s wait times. If the call center was especially busy and reps weren’t available, all visitors were sent to the long version of the form.)
Our work frequently saves our clients significant time and money. Case in point: Another client was buying a thousand sales leads a day from an online vendor.
Every couple of weeks, he would look at how the latest batch of leads was performing. Then, using his best guess, he would try to optimize his targeting strategy by tweaking a variable or two. It was slow and time-consuming, and it wasn’t 100% effective.
He needed a better way to identify which leads were most likely to become a sale. What made the difference between a successful lead and one that didn’t perform?
So our team built a model that looks at each incoming lead, compares it to my client’s successful deals and then decides if my client’s company should buy that lead. The model also determines how much should be spent.
Instead of waiting for human intervention every few weeks, that model is now looking at lead performance every single day and refining its buying strategy on its own.
Unlike a human being, the model can consider every variable for each lead to determine its potential to turn into a sale. That’s the great thing about models — they can find patterns that we as human beings usually can’t see.
The result: Our client can now buy three times as many leads for the same amount of money while maintaining its conversion rate.
Analytics as a system serving your business
That project is a great example of something that our team excels at – automating insights and decisions. By understanding lead performance, our model was able to identify the right kinds of leads and buy them, saving the client a ton of time.
When you’re able to get to a place like that, when you’re not fiddling with spreadsheets or duct-taping an ETL process together, something awesome happens. You’re able to focus on higher-value, more rewarding work and tackle more important questions.
One thing that sets our work apart from other consultants: We view analytics not just as a stand-alone project or tool, but as part of a larger system for running an organization. We always look for ways to build solutions that are so easy to use, they become a natural part of your decision-making process.
I'm a systems thinker, so I don't want to build these things and then put them on a shelf and let them collect dust. I want to build them as a system that continues to power your organization and provides ongoing value.
What Kinds of Businesses Do We Help?
We assist all kinds of clients with all kinds of projects. Sometimes it’s marketers (in a previous job, I helped develop a platform for aggregating and cleaning marketing data) but we’re just as likely to work with ecommerce, inventory, sales and other departments. The type of data doesn’t really matter. It’s really about understanding and solving the problem you’re facing.
That’s what our team loves about our work — solving problems. It can be a thrill showing people something they didn’t know about their business. A lot of times, they get excited about what they’ve discovered, and soon they’re ready to tackle another intriguing question.
If you don’t have a data team right now, no problem. Stacked Analytics sets up companies’ data for basic, functional reporting. Or we can undertake projects that give your existing team even greater insight without eating up their bandwidth. Our team often becomes an ongoing resource for our clients, helping them continue to develop and refine their use of analytics.
If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, reach out — let’s see how we can start working together.
