Tips for Too Much Data, Facebook’s A/B Testing and Breitbart Ad Update

What’s New This Week?

My Ads are Appearing on Breitbart, the Sequel
A few weeks ago I covered advertisers’ frustration (anger? annoyance?) with Google after noticing that their ads ran on Breitbart. Fortunately, there’s a follow up. Google is giving advertisers more control over where their ads appear. Details here in TechCrunch.

Water, Water Everywhere… But Not if Data Can Help It
Apparently, the world loses 30-ish% of its water due to leaks and bursts. With water use rising, water providers are trying to find new ways to reduce waste. One solution is using data to predict leaks, but that goes against the interest of water authorities. They love to look like heroes by fixing bursts. Interesting conundrum! Here’s Harvard Business Review on it.

A/B Testing Facebook-style
Facebook Ads have a new feature. (Yeah, I know I say that every week.) This time it’s pretty cool. With the new feature called “Split Testing,” you can run controlled tests without audience overlap. It works when you run ads with a website conversion, lead generation or mobile app install objective. Learn more here.

Care About Data, Pretty Please
Maybe we were all traumatized in 7^th grade math class, but it can be hard to get naturally creative communicators to care about data. Even though Buzzfeed has WAY more resources than your average nonprofit, this article about how they “democratized data” is an interesting read.

… And in More Links
That time Congress voted to let Internet providers sell our data.  Foursquare is back as “Google Analytics for the physical world.”  And

Advice of the Week

Dealing with Too Much Data?
Between Facebook Insights, Google Analytics and email open rates, it’s easy to collect spreadsheets upon spreadsheets of digital stats. But how can you use that data to shape your nonprofit’s communications strategy? For the answer, check out the recording of my recent webinar.

Cool Visualization of the Week

How True is a “Real Story”?
I am a person of many pet peeves. One of which is the “true story” movie that’s not actually very true. (Here’s looking at you Imitation Game)  This gorgeous visualization on Information is Beautiful breaks down the true-ish-ness of individual movie scenes.