A Tableau Use Case from Online Marketing Tableau Conference On Tour - Munich David Müller, Head of Data Science Munich, 28.05.2014
Intro David Müller» 2 years in data science with an online advertising focus at intelliad» In charge of a team of 5 data scientists and analysts focusing on Advanced approaches to attribution modeling Prediction of online user behaviour Visualization of customer journey specifics Abstract» Agenda not up-to-date» Tableau use-case from an online advertising perspective» Focuses on how Tableau Desktop is used at intelliad to Visualize online customer journeys Attribute the success of online marketing activities to advertising channels» Experiences made transitioning to Tableau 2
About intelliad Performance Marketing Platform» A neutral technology provider since 2007» A company of Deutsche Post DHL since July 2012» Software to measure and improve the performance of all online marketing activities Bid management Multichannel tracking» Around 90 employees» More than 38,000 managed Google AdWords accounts worldwide» Tracking of more than 400 million clicks and conversions per month 3
About intelliad Data Flow (simplified) standard product events APIs user x clicks ad a user x views ad b user y clicks ad b user y buys product Data Science reports custom analyses for clients 4
Tableau at intelliad Tableau Users» Tableau at small scale» 5 users using Tableau Desktop for daily work Data Science Consulting» Tableau since 1,5 years = No Jedis just yet» Packaging workbooks to share with clients (automated)» External Clients Large German advertisers requiring further insights into their online advertising campaigns and user behaviour tracked with intelliad Retail, Travel, Telecommunications» Tableau Server not feasible yet and several drawbacks (Windows Server!) 5
Tableau at intelliad Data Science at intelliad and Tableau» Exploratory data analysis Get a quick understanding of how the data looks like» Reporting Standardized on-demand reports on top of tracking data and beyond capabilities of web frontend» Data Storytelling Interactive data presentation in workshops Sharing results of custom data analyses with advertisers 6
Tableau at intelliad Old Reporting» Visual Excel reports» Data aggregated and written to Excel report template» Required initial manual run after automatic generation for VBA code to adjust graphs» Mastered the art of overly-complicated and unmaintainable Excel reporting» Sample 7
Tableau at intelliad Problems / Requirements» Interactivity Filters and drill-downs implemented in Visual Basic Hardly customizable without changing the whole underlying code» Maintainability Difficult to keep track of changes in code base implemented in Excel» Development Several weeks to implement complex report None of our software engineers wanted to code VBA» Usability Excel report implemented in Excel 2010 did not run in Excel 2011 Mac User needs to work with macros 8
Tableau at intelliad New Reporting» After trying available tools on the market we settled with Tableau Desktop for Ease of use Simplicity with which drill-downs and filtering can be added to dashboards Easy packaging and sharing Free access to packaged files (Tableau Reader)» No code to maintain except for data aggregation logic» No coding in Tableau required» Easily customisable» Short time to great results 9
Tableau at intelliad Tableau Desktop Reporting Workflow Data Aggregation csv csv report Data Access Layer Data Aggregation Data Aggregation csv csv csv csv report report Data Aggregation csv csv report - streaming user events and build user journeys to attached reports - underlying logic in SQL - prefilter streamed data - Each new report has a template and a custom aggregation unit - Data gets written to CSV files and independently accessed from report templates data warehouses atomic user events 10
Tableau at intelliad Transitioning to Tableau 2 Years Ago Now Tool Excel Tableau Workflow Maintenance - Access and aggregate data in code - Write data to Excel template from code - Implement interactivity over VBA in Excel - Rather error-prone and difficult to maintain - Customized analysis and reports mainly in Tableau Desktop - Data aggregation in code and CSV export - Report access CSV files - No code to maintain except for data export / aggregation Workload - About 20 man-days for complex report - 3 man-days for a complex report 11
Use-Case: Attribution Modelling The question of attribution» User interacted with many advertising channels before a purchase on a website» Which channel contributed to which extent to the sale?» A set of common models exist to attribute conversions (sales) to advertising channels» Which model does best reflect the advertisers specific user journeys?» Interactive model comparison adjusted to clients needs in Tableau» There is no optimal choice Display Banner Newsletter Type In Search Engine Type In 12
Use-Case: Attribution Modelling Common attribution models Display Banner Newsletter 1 Type In Last-Click-Wins Search Engine Type In Display Banner 1 Newsletter Type In First-Click-Wins Search Engine Type In Display Banner Newsletter 2/7 1/7 2/7 Search Engine Type In 1/7 1/7 Type In Bathtub 13
Use-Case: Attribution Modelling» Tableau live example» Simple comparison of the impact of different models 14
Tableau Learnings CSV File Handling» The correct handling of CSV files in Tableau is a hassle» Underlying Microsoft Jet (?) Engine often assumes incorrect data types E.g. double becomes a date Should be fixable by adjusting Schema.ini file, but we never managed» Write double values with a. and seven decimal places» Learn to design CSV Files for best filtering in Tableau Channel Model Value Channel A Model A 100 Channel A Model B 150 VS Channel Model A Model B Channel A 100 150 15
Tableau Learnings Further Learnings» Not all clients have the possibility to install Tableau Reader» A twbx file is a zipped twb including data extracts CSV files inside twbx can easily be updated from code (replace file in zip)» Formatting capabilities limited Just found out about custom colour palettes» No Auto-Save» Some measures difficult to calculate Weighted measures (median, SSE)» 2-Step Filtering often missed (disable 1 filter if second is set to a special value) 16
Questions & Answers Vielen Dank für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit! intelliad Media GmbH David Müller Head of Data Science Sendlinger Str. 7 80331 München T +49 (0) 89 / 15 90 490-21 E Mischa.ruerup@intelliad.de W www.intelliad.de 17
Wolfhart Fröhlich Geschäftsführer / CEO intelliad Media GmbH Sendlinger Str. 7 80331 München T +49 (0) 89-15 90 490-20 E wolfhart.froehlich@intelliad.de W www.intelliad.de Mischa Rürup Geschäftsführer / COO intelliad Media GmbH Sendlinger Str. 7 80331 München T +49 (0) 89-15 90 490-21 E mischa.ruerup@intelliad.de W www.intelliad.de Tobias Kiessling Geschäftsführer / CTO intelliad Media GmbH Sendlinger Str. 7 80331 München T +49 (0) 89-15 90 490-10 E tobias.kiessling@intelliad.de W www.intelliad.de