Standard Definitions of Metrics: Creating a Culture of Analytics
Lack of standard definitions for the metrics causes people to report different numbers for supposedly same metrics, leading to confusion and total lack of trust in data. No trust in data means that nobody is going to use the data to make strategic decisions and there goes all your efforts to create a culture of Analytics. Having standard definitions is not as easy as it sounds. It starts from you and your team having a clear understanding on how to calculate various metrics. Some seemingly simple metrics can be calculated in various different ways and all of those ways might be right but getting one standard way of calculating those removes any confusion and gets everybody on the same page. Let’s take an example and see how many ways you can calculate “COST”. How do you calculate cost? In case of Search Marketing, I am sure you are taking actual amount paid to Google or Bing. Right? So that is actual media spend. But what about the cost yo...