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3 Steps To Visualize Analytics In Excel
The document outlines a presentation by Timothy Gillman on how to effectively visualize analytics using Excel, emphasizing three key steps: getting the data, organizing it, and visualizing it. It provides examples of data organization and visualization techniques, and discusses platforms like Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics. Additionally, the presentation highlights resources for learning Excel and enhancing data visualization skills.
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3 Steps To Visualize Analytics In Excel
- 1. March 5th, 2015 3STEPS TO VISUALIZE ANALYTICS IN EXCEL Timothy Gillman Analytics Strategist – Portent Inc.
- 2. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D WHO IAM • EXCEL WIZARD • SPECIALIZE IN BUILDING DATA TOOLS • MOHAWK
- 3. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D I WORKHERE IN SEATTLE
- 4. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D DO YOUUSE DATA? DO YOU SEND OUT REPORTS?
- 5. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D GOAL: THEY DON’THAVE TO ASK YOU QUESTIONS
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- 8. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 1 -GET THE DATA 2 - ORGANIZE IT 3 - VISUALIZE IT BONUS – HIGH END STUFF!!!
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- 10. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D PLATFORM 1 ADOBEANALYTICS AKA: OMNITURE
- 11. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D PRESENT YOURDATA! WHO TEAM MEMBER WHAT TOP 10 BLOG POSTS TIME JANUARY METRIC UNIQUE VISITORS
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- 14. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D GO TOTHE PAGES REPORT
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- 16. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D PRACTICE MAKESPERFECT (EVEN FOR DATA NERDS) CUSTOMIZATION: RAW DATA > PLATFORM DATA
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- 20. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D Page UniqueVisitors sports 5531 cooking 3520 romance 2049 architecture 1986 travel 1877 origami 1845 tv 1493 gaming 1488 theatre 1474 fitness 1275 literature 1215 astronomy 1207 law 1106 music 1027 community 1021 sales 1015 parenting 935 nature 919 politics 874 movies 784 marketing 715 transportation 713 THE BASICS
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- 31. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D Page UniqueVisitors sports 5531 cooking 3520 romance 2049 architecture 1986 travel 1877 origami 1845 tv 1493 gaming 1488 theatre 1474 fitness 1275 literature 1215 astronomy 1207 law 1106 music 1027 commnity 1021 sales 1015 parenting 935 nature 919 politics 874 HIGHLIGHT
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- 36. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D EDWARD TUFTE EXPERTON DATA VISUALIZATION
- 37. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D TUFTE’S RULE MINIMIZETHE RATIO OF INK TO DATA COLUMNS = DATA EVERYTHING ELSE = INK
- 38. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 Blog PostUnique Visitors - January
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- 40. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 5531 3520 2049 19861877 1845 1493 1488 1474 1275 Blog Post Unique Visitors - January
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- 43. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D Page UniqueVisitors sports 5531 cooking 3520 romance 2049 architecture 1986 travel 1877 origami 1845 tv 1493 gaming 1488 theatre 1474 fitness 1275 literature 1215 astronomy 1207 law 1106 music 1027 commnity 1021 sales 1015 parenting 935 nature 919 politics 874 ORGANIZED IT
- 44. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 Blog PostUnique Visitors - January VISUALIZED IT
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- 46. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D PLATFORM 2 GOOGLEANALYTICS AKA: GA
- 47. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D PRESENT YOURDATA! WHO CEO WHAT ALL CHANNELS TIME Q4 OF 2014 METRICS SESSIONS GOAL CONV. RATE
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- 55. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D CLICK DATATO ACCESS PIVOT TABLES
- 56. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D CLICK PIVOTTABLE SELECT MANUAL OPTION
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- 62. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D Row LabelsTotal Sessions Goal Conv. Rate Direct 88584 0.04% Email 976 0.31% Organic Search 155848 0.05% Paid Search 32477 0.01% Referral 36428 0.15% Social 17076 0.02% PIVOT TABLE!
- 63. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000 140000 160000 180000 Direct EmailOrganic Search Paid Search Referral Social Total Sessions Goal Conversion Rate VISUALIZE… UH OH!
- 64. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000 140000 160000 180000 Direct EmailOrganic Search Paid Search Referral Social Total Sessions Goal Conversion Rate WHERE’S THE GREEN?!?!
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- 70. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.25% 0.30% 0.35% 0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000 140000 160000 180000 Direct EmailOrganic Search Paid Search Referral Social Total Sessions Goal Conversion Rate ALMOST THERE…
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- 72. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.25% 0.30% 0.35% 0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000 140,000 160,000 Direct EmailOrganic Search Paid Search Referral Social Sessions & Conversion Rate by Channel - Q4 2014 Total Sessions Goal Conversion Rate
- 73. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.25% 0.30% 0.35% 0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000 140,000 160,000 Direct EmailOrganic Search Paid Search Referral Social Conv.Rate Sessions Sessions & Conversion Rate by Channel - Q4 2014 Total Sessions Goal Conversion Rate AXIS TITLES
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- 77. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D Row LabelsTotal Sessions Goal Conv. Rate Direct 88584 0.04% Email 976 0.31% Organic Search 155848 0.05% Paid Search 32477 0.01% Referral 36428 0.15% Social 17076 0.02% ORGANIZED IT
- 78. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 0.00% 0.05% 0.10% 0.15% 0.20% 0.25% 0.30% 0.35% 0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000 140,000 160,000 Direct EmailOrganic Search Paid Search Referral Social Conv.Rate Sessions Sessions & Conversion Rate by Channel - Q4 2014 Total Sessions Goal Conversion Rate VISUALIZED IT
- 79. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D 1 -GET THE DATA 2 - ORGANIZE IT 3 - VISUALIZE IT
- 80. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D WANT TOBECOME AN EXCEL WIZARD?
- 81. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D PAID RESOURCES LYNDA.COMEXCEL COURSES EXCEL FOR DUMMIES FREE STUFF YOUTUBE MICROSOFT OFFICE SUPPORT
- 82. searchmarketingexpo.com @TimGillmanDrums #SMX #33D HERE’S WHATI DO WITH ANALYTICS AND EXCEL
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Editor's Notes
- #2 If you’re someone like me who works with data you might think you’re a pretty big deal. Data analysts get to be a part of the “big data” movement and have access to vast amounts information right at their fingertips. I know this because, well, I’m one of you!
- #3 I’m an analytics data nerd who also loves to work with Excel. I love to build tools for analyzing and visualizing marketing data. And of course I have a mohawk.
- #4 I work in beautiful downtown Seattle. This means I’m a Seahawks fan, so if anybody would like to buy me a shot after this panel, boy I could use it. That Superbowl pain still hurts. Now let’s focus on why you’re here.
- #5 Analysts may get cocky while nerding out in our reports, but at some point we have to acknowledge that the world doesn’t revolve around us. At some point we need to present our findings and reports to someone else. Regardless of who that person is, we have one goal when we hand over the data:
- #6 Make it so they don’t ask you questions. You want them to look at it for a few seconds, and then reach that epic moment of understanding, which usually looks like this (nod). That’s the moment every analyst strives for! Think about a resume – you look at it, and if everything checks out you go “Hmm, okay.”
- #7 When you give them something like this, they’re going to have a lot of questions, like “Who the hell pays you to do this?” Or they’ll be speechless.
- #8 And give you the confused face. Not a great look. Luckily we have Microsoft Excel to help us clearly present our data.
- #9 Today I want to show you how to get your analytics data, organize it, then visualize it, all in Excel, no matter which analytics platform you use. Even if you aren’t in the analytics field these tips can help with any data sets in Excel. As a bonus I’ll also provide you with an example of high-end reporting should you decide to become an Excel wizard.
- #10 As a quick note I’ll be using Excel 2011 on a mac, but if you’re using PC or a different year no worries. These steps are easily transferrable and I’ll point out any differences along the way.
- #11 So let’s dive in with our first analytics platform - Omniture. Who here uses Omniture for their analytics platform? Omniture is the 2nd most popular analytics tool out there next to Google Analytics. It has more bandwidth to report larger amounts of data than most of its competitors. In my opinion that power comes at the sacrifice of usability, as the interface can be hard to navigate and the setup is quite complicated.
- #12 I want to base my examples off of scenarios that, while fictitious in nature, are likely to happen should you work in the digital marketing field. Here I have a team member who wants to know the top 10 blog posts from January measured by Unique Visitors. Let’s login to Omniture to begin our first step -
- #13 Getting the data. As we login to Omniture here is a glimpse of the home dashboard. We can see the basic overall metrics here, but we want to look specifically at blog posts.
- #14 First check to make sure your date range is correct, then click on View All Reports in the top left corner and search for Pages.
- #15 The first option there contains the report we want, so click on the Pages report already highlighted in blue.
- #16 This report shows all of the site’s pages, so we go to the report filter and type in “blog” to update the report. Now some of you may be thinking “They already have a chart here. Why the hell is this guy making me use Excel?” There are two reasons why I’m encouraging the use of using Excel.
- #17 One – practice makes perfect, so you might as well perfect your Excel skills. Two – Customizing your raw data is beneficial when you pull in different types of data. No matter what type of data set you have, Excel can bring uniformity to all of your quantitative reports.
- #18 Now we’re ready to get the data. On the top menu bar click Download to see all of the exporting options.
- #19 Csv is the standard across all analytics platforms for raw data. Excel format does work, but it comes with unnecessary formatting, especially from Omniture. We want the raw stuff.
- #20 Now we’re in the next step – organizing your data. Let’s clean out the unnecessary stuff right off the bat. You can delete everything from an Omniture report except for the two columns you need.
- #21 Now that we’re down to our necessary data we can make a basic table. This has several benefits, one of which includes its own enhanced visualization. But before we get there I want to quickly point out the specifics of how analytics data is interpreted through Excel.
- #22 In Omniture almost every report has two components. There are the dimensions on the left, which are the names of the component you’re interested in. Examples would be pages in a page report or domains in a referral report. It’s the names of what you’re looking for.
- #23 Then the remaining columns are metrics, the numbers for the components. Examples here are the number of unique visitors or the bounce rate ratio. For the most part - Metrics are the numbers, Dimensions are the words.
- #24 These have equivalents in Excel. Omniture’s dimensions are known as Categories in Excel, while the metrics are called the Data Series. These equivalencies are important to remember as you begin playing with data in Excel.
- #25 Let’s see how this equivalency looks in Omniture. Since my company does not use Omniture for our internal tracking I am using someone else’s data, which I cannot show you. Instead of leaving each blog post with no title I’ve given them random names of topics a blog post may be written about.
- #26 The report layout is really quite simple. In Omniture, on the left you have the blog names, those are the dimensions. On the right you have the number of Unique Visitors, the metrics.
- #27 Now this is what these same columns will be named when we place them into Excel. The dimensions are now Categories, the Metrics are now the Data Series. Again, keep these names in mind as they will be helpful when building our charts and graphs. Speaking of which, let’s get on to our 3rd step –
- #28 Visualizing our data. With the cells highlighted, it’s time to build a proper table and chart.
- #29 To begin this process click on “Tables” up in the top menu bar. Again, make sure your cells are highlighted before doing this.
- #30 Now select a style from the ribbon that catches your eye. There are plenty of options available.
- #31 You can get all sorts of color schemes, so as a company you can quickly decide which one fits your style best. Personally I’m a fan of the light vs. dark blue combo here at the top, as it matches the colors of my company, Portent, and blue is my favorite color.
- #32 With the entire table formatted we only want the top 10 results for our finished product. Simply highlight the rows down to the 10th result. Now we’re ready to create a chart.
- #33 With those top rows highlighted, go to the charts tab on the menu bar. This will give us access to the many different visual designs you can produce in Excel.
- #34 Select the chart style that you think best suits your data set and your audience. Personally I’m a fan of the regular column chart. It’s tried and true and usually is easy for your audience to examine quickly. [SLIDE]
- #35 Let’s select the Clustered Column option. Be sure to avoid any 3-D options, I’ll explain why in a moment. [SLIDE]
- #36 Yes! Our chart is created, but it could use some cleaning. Our work isn’t quite done yet. [SLIDE]
- #37 Quick question - Are there any Edward Tufte fans out there? Edward is one of the biggest names in data visualizations and presentations. He’s been hired on for countless projects, including some directed by the White House.
- #38 One of his biggest rules is to minimize the ratio of ink to data. In our example here this means minimizing everything that isn’t the actual columns – those are the data. But gridlines, axes labels, even the legend for one data series – all of those are unnecessary ink to Tufte.
- #39 With Tufte’s rule in mind we can make an excellent visual aid to your data. Notice there are no shadows, no 3-D graphics. Just pure data. It takes mere seconds to find that the sports blog post is the champion of this scenario. You can also change the formats of these charts to fit the best needs of your company.
- #40 Some other options include horizontal lines like we saw earlier, a line graph, or even bubbles. I’ve never seen those used in a professional environment, but maybe someday they’ll break out.
- #41 If your team member needs specific numbers you can present them with your colorful table, or right click the bars here and add data labels.
- #42 Now let’s quickly look back at how we got here. Remember the process:
- #43 We got the data from Omniture through downloading the csv file,
- #44 Organized it into a beautiful table,
- #45 Then we Visualized the data with this awesome chart! When you hand your teammate those sparkly clean visuals they will be ecstatic!
- #46 Yes! Look at how excited they are? Isn’t that exactly how clean and perfect your office looks everyday! Now let’s go through another example of presenting your data, this time from Google Analytics.
- #47 Who here uses Google Analytics? Perfect. Aside from being the most popular analytics tool today, Google Analytics is free and has a very friendly UI to navigate. If you use GA or you’re terrified of pivot tables this will be a nice introduction for you.
- #48 For our reporting scenario in GA your CEO wants to see the number of sessions by Channel over the previous quarter. They also want to see the conversion rate for each channel. That second round of metrics can make things tricky, and we’ll see why in a moment. Let’s go to step one – getting our data.
- #49 When you login to Google Analytics you immediately see the Audience Overview. Make sure to set the right date range, then head to the channels report, since our hypothetical CEO wants that as our category.
- #50 Just like in Omniture, go up to this search box and type the word channel. Select the 2nd option here, as we’re not interested in the benchmarking section of GA’s reports.
- #51 What makes this report different than our previous example is the number of different data series. While we have sessions and conversion rate, there are several other metrics here as well. We’ll deal with those later. Now that GA provides the information we need, it’s time to export this data.
- #52 Go to the top of any report, click export, then select csv. Open it in Excel, then we can go to the next step – organizing the data!
- #53 Here is what a general report from Google Analytics looks like in Excel. When GA provides raw data they also give a daily measurement of sessions. We’ll ignore that piece and just stick with the report data we want. Once again I want to bring up how Excel reads analytics data.
- #54 Just like Omniture, Dimensions equal categories and metrics equal data series. We will use this information a bit more on this round, so I wanted to point it out again. Now back to the data.
- #55 Highlight the table as shown here. Leave out the bottom row since it represents totals of the metrics - we don’t need those right now. It’s time for the moment of truth – making a pivot table!
- #56 With these cells highlighted, go up and click the data tab. One you’re in there,
- #57 Click the PivotTable icon. Select Manual PivotTable, as I find they are far easier to create from scratch.
- #58 Now you have a blank table with this black box giving you options of where to place each column from the raw data. Since this report won’t need filters or anything fancy I want you to focus on what we need to build our visual.
- #59 The left-most column of your data is the dimension, so we want that to be the row label. In this case the dimension is the Default Channel Grouping, also known as just Channels. You can simply click on the box next to Default Channel Grouping
- #60 And drag it into the Row Labels box. Be warned that when you click the field it will likely land in the Values section, so just drag it into the Row Labels box highlighted here.
- #61 Next we need to include our metrics, the sessions and conversion rates. These will need to go in the Values box, next to where we just placed our Row Labels. Click on Sessions and Goal Conversion Rate,
- #62 And place them into the values box. This is part of what makes Pivot Tables so incredibly useful. If I needed to change the report to show two different metrics like New Users and Bounce Rate, I can just click and drag those into the values box and update my report.
- #63 Congratulations, you now have a PivotTable! We’ve now accomplished what countless excel users are absolutely terrified of. Seriously, if you ask some people if they’ve used Pivot Tables they’ll say “Ahhh no thank you, scary stuff”. Our final step of course is to visualize this, but if we highlight everything and produce a chart…
- #64 Uh oh. See the problem here?
- #65 The conversion rate isn’t visible. It’s figures are too small. We should be seeing bars of green but they’re not visible.
- #66 Yeah, this totally sucks, but we can fix it!
- #67 I only have time to show you the process for a Mac, but the process is exactly the same on PC - the buttons are just in different spots. First step - Click on that purple Format button up in the menu bar.
- #68 On the far left there is a Current Selection dropdown menu. From that menu you want to select the series to place on a new axis, so in this case it’s Goal Conversion Rate.
- #69 Next you’ll click on Format Selection under that previous dropdown to bring up the chart format menu. This will allow you to edit your 2nd data series however you like.
- #70 Now go to the Axis category, select secondary axis and Save. Not so bad right? It’s 4 quick steps – Click Format, Select your series, click format selection, then select secondary axis.
- #71 But before we can celebrate let’s clean this up a bit. While we still have the conversion rate data series highlighted we can change the chart format. This will only change the format of the current data series, not the entire chart.
- #72 Just like in our previous example, click on Charts and select a new style. Let’s try the line graph option and see what we get.
- #73 Ah, much better. This is a very clean example, clearly showing both metrics without hiding or overlapping over each other. If need be you can add axis titles to specify which data series each one measures.
- #74 These labels can be helpful when comparing metrics with similar axes. In this example they may not be required, but it’s nice to have them there just in case. When you present this to your CEO they will not only be able to quickly read this presentation, they will be glad you gave them something so clean and concise.
- #75 You might even win an award for greatest report ever submitted! Clearly this is how business is done in reality.
- #76 Alright, one more time let’s remember the process of how we got here:
- #77 We got the data from GA through exporting the csv file,
- #78 Organized it into a pivot table, which is no small feat,
- #79 Then we Visualized the data with this dual-wielding chart!
- #80 So remember, when it comes to presenting your data in Excel use the three step process. Get the data, organize it, and then visualize it. Decide which formats you want to use within your company, then begin producing all of your data visualizations in the same format.
- #81 If you find yourself wanting to learn more about pivot tables, vlookups and visualizations, here are some great resources to get started.
- #82 Lynda.com and Excel for dummies are both fantastic, and both cost a bit of money. Lynda.com is especially nice as it provides step-by-step walkthroughs in video format, so you can always rewind and pause the complicated parts. If you want to go cheap you can always search Youtube for your specific issues or search the Microsoft Office Support site. Remember, just about every company needs someone who knows their way around a pivot table.
- #83 I’ll leave you today with a glimpse into why I’m here talking to you about Excel. I love to geek out on analytics reporting, and here’s an example of a report I’ve built.
- #84 We call this the Executive Dashboard, and it reports on all of the main channels of your site on a monthly basis. This is all based off data pulled from Google Analytics, and with Pivot Tables and Vlookups it only take a few button clicks to refresh an entire account’s information. Building tools like this is a great passion for many analysts in digital marketing today, and I’m no exception.
- #85 If you ever need help or input in building your own tools feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or come hassle me after this panel. Thankfully with the mohawk I’m pretty easy to find. Thank you!