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Dashboard Burnout, Fixing Bad Surveys and Facebook’s Latest Ad Problem

What’s New This Week?

Google Analytics Gets a Facelift, Part II
An update to the old adage: nothing in life is certain but death, taxes and Google constantly changing its products. On that note, here’s more about the looming changes to GA’s interface. I can’t weigh in on the update because it hasn’t rolled out to my account yet. (Hey, Google are you listening?)

So Tired of Dashboards
If you are feeling overwhelmed by dashboards, (Lots of numbers! Lots of charts!) you aren’t alone. This article contains good points to consider when building your next dashboard. Pro tip: answer the business question and don’t add unnecessary complexity.

Facebook’s Teen Problem
It’s the latest in a long line of Facebook ad PR disasters. This week, media reported on a leaked presentation from Facebook, which described the social platform’s ability to target vulnerable teens. By monitoring posts and photos, Facebook can determine when young people feel “stressed,” “defeated,”  “overwhelmed,” “anxious” and other great feelings.

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Why Fewer People See Your Facebook Posts and What Teens Find Cool

What’s New This Week?

Must Be the Algorithm
The Chicago Tribune chronicled the decline… of their Facebook post reach. This detailed case study (so many charts!) portrays a conundrum faced by many publishers: their content isn’t being surfaced by Facebook’s algorithm. (And we learn that Facebook formally recommends “24 to 48 posts per day.”)

#Resistance’s Data Love Affair
This newsletter has talked a lot about the role of data in political campaigns. And, yes, this is yet another article on the topic. But this Wired piece feels empowering, making the claim that data is the solution to finally understanding our elections process. Or as the article puts it: “Donors have no way of knowing whether it’s polls, personality, or backdoor politicking leading the party to back one candidate over another… founders want to bring transparency to the process.”

Big News for Google Analytics Nerds
I have been working in Google Analytics for a long time, so this is a big one. GA is getting a new homepage dashboard and will no longer open to the “Audience Overview” report. Bounce rate is gone! Here’s the update with screen shots.

And on a Lighter Note
I have to love any article that complains “the nerds have taken over marketing.” This Forbes fluff piece cracked me up, even though it contains zero actual information.

And in other links….
An adult coloring book features climate change data. (Color in maps of land loss and graphs of rising temperatures.)  Google asks 10K people to contribute their health data, so they can calculate “normal” human health. And finally, the “mother of all ad blockers” is coming for us.

Advice of the Week

#StopMakingEverythingaHashtag
Social media agency Scribble Social gives their hashtag pet peevesand how to correct them. Tip #1: The point of hashtags is to help your content get discovered.

Cool Visualization of the Week

Kids These Days
What do teens think is cool? Well, Google found out for us. (Thanks, Google!) And the answers are: YouTube, Oreos and reading. And the least cool? Wall Street Journal, Sprint and Yahoo!

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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.

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Facebook Forbids Snooping and Crafty (Pun Intended) Advertising

What’s New This Week?

Stop Spying Everyone, Says Facebook
Facebook is explicitly telling groups to stop using their data for surveillance, writes TechCrunch.  You can thank the ACLU for forcing the issue. Back in October, one group was caught compiling protesters’ posts from social sites and selling the data to law enforcement. Twitter also forbids this practice.

“Very, Very Fictitious” Data
Remember that time the Obama administration manipulated jobs data to make the unemployment rate look lower? Yup, it’s another story about “fake” data in the Trump Administration. Thanks FiveThirtyEight for breaking down why this claim is so absurd.

The State of the Social Media Union
I see so many one-off stories about social media trends (Twitter is over! Facebook use is down!), that it’s hard to keep track. I appreciate Forbes’ mile-high overview of what’s up with each main social platform.

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Battle of the Donation Forms, Facebook Benchmarks & Cool Data Gifs

Election Data Saga, Take 10
I’ve reported before about the Trump campaign’s use of Facebook data to target voters with messages designed to appeal to their personalities. The New York Times says, yeah, it was exaggerated. Not sure if this is a big deal? Well, the Times would have you think otherwise: “At stake are not merely bragging rights, but also an emerging science that many believe could reshape American politics and commerce.”

And, in other Facebook data Trump news, this algorithm, which was designed to determine your marital status from your social posts, thinks Trump is a bachelor (surprise!).

Battle of the Donation Forms
Behave.org features an A/B test of the week and asks viewers to guess which one won. This week’s test is a donation form. Answer A has the typical suggested donation buttons; B has an open field. Which did better? Well, you have to click through and see.

Oops! New Search Pages’ Bad Data
Last week, this email talked about AMP pages, Google’s new mobile-friendly search results. Well, they are probably making a mess of your Google Analytics. Here’s Marketingland.com on that.

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