In order to thrive, publishers must master their data
Unfortunately for online publishers, the result is often lots of data without much insight. This is no small matter — data is fast becoming an integral part of what separates successful publishers from the rest, and publishers must get a handle on their data if they want to stay competitive.
The process of harnessing your data to make better business decisions can be broken down into three distinct phases: collecting the data, structuring and presenting the data and, finally, extracting actionable insights from the data.
Collecting the data
The first phase, pulling all your data together, isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. The data governance process — collecting data from each system, ensuring that it is clean, accurate, structured and normalized — is extremely resource-intensive. Over the past few years, entire businesses and cottage industries have emerged to facilitate this process. As you start to bring your data together, be mindful to include data from every area of the organization. Operational data, campaign data and user data can all help publishers understand how best to run their businesses.
Dashboard your data
Once the data is collected in a reliable and consistent way, the next phase is to make it digestible in a single dashboard. A unified dashboard will provide a centralized location where all of your stakeholders can access and, as appropriate, interact with your data. When set up effectively, a dashboard can serve as a summarizing tool, offering an at-a-glance view of your top business metrics. This is the first step in turning your data into insights your team can use to guide their decisions.
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