We asked 1,000(ish) marketing analytics pros their feelings about their job and their frustrations. The data shows that data is low on their list of frustrations. Let's dive into what they said, and what they didn't.

Every marketer wants to accurately measure the impact of their advertising spend. And “digital” was supposed to make that really easy (especially for digital advertising). But, that promise has rarely been realized---it’s becoming increasingly difficult to track users across touchpoints, thanks to privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.) and browser updates that block or aggressively expire cookies. In this session, we will review four different approaches to marketing attribution: heuristic modeling (first touch, last touch, linear, time decay, etc.), algorithmic modeling, media mix modeling (MMM), and randomized controlled trials (RCTs). As part of the review, we will venture lightly, but profoundly, into some foundational statistical concepts: we WILL use the terms 'counterfactual' and 'potential outcome,' and probably even 'unobserved heterogeneity!'

Simo explores the latest and greatest paradigm in Google's marketing stack: server-side tagging in Google Tag Manager. The benefits of moving data collection server-side are obvious – or are they? The same tools and mechanisms that help with data governance and oversight can be abused due to the opaqueness associated with moving data collections server-side. In this talk, Simo takes a honest look at just what problems server-side tagging seeks to address, and whether it actually manages to do what it’s set out to do.

In this session, Jeff Sauer, founder of Data Driven U is going to show you how to improve your marketing results while collecting less data, focusing your efforts, and simply following proven plans that work!