Funnel Reboot podcast

Episode 193 Those of us in the digital economy think a lot about growing our business, but we don’t think as much about the tech that enables customers to interact with our business. When our sites don’t run smoothly or aren’t available, our customers suffer and it stops working as our sales and marketing engine. Terms for these episodes: the site crashed or it croaked, give us a perception that sites are either alive and well or completely dead, when its health really resembles our own human health. Meaning, a website can give off  warning signs that can be diagnosed and treated before anything really bad happens. It doesn’t take invasive tools to catch these; monitoring services that run without any special site access can detect issues.  These tools that take a site’s pulse are also good to gauge the site’s fitness - its ability to handle business growth.  Our guest has always called Ottawa Canada his home. He has also always had an entrepreneurial spirit, supporting the local startup scene since the 2000s, which is where I first met him. After earning his computer science degree, he began his career working at local web tech firms. A stint at a design agency stoked his enthusiasm for websites, and in 2010 he joined the parent company of Internet Service Provider and web host Rebel.com, and domain registrar Internic.ca.   He took on the role of CEO for both companies, where he saw first-hand how the internet fueled communication and value-creation. In 2013 he took on additional responsibility as a Director of the not-for-profit Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), where for the last decade more or less he has staunchly pushed for the internet to be used as a force for good in Canada. Workwise, after stepping away from Rebel and Internic, he returned to his technical and startup roots. Based on his observation that while websites were getting easier for non-experts to build, they could make mistakes hurting their user’s experience of their site with equal ease. That led him to launch ONIK, a product that monitors website fitness.  Let’s go talk with Rob Villeneuve   Chapter Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:03:06 - Welcome Rob 00:09:19 - Monitoring site health 00:29:09 - PSA 00:29:59 - How much access is needed to monitor a site 00:41:01 - Holding different patrs of site to different standards 00:42:12 - How alerts help 00:45:21 - Knowing when enough is being measured 00:49:50 - How large sites do monitoring 00:53:09 - About ONIK.IO, how to contact Rob Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

We've all heard of 1970's Apollo 13 mission that was supposed to send a 3-man crew to the moon, but once NASA became aware of an on-board explosion, it became all about rescuing the crew.  Ron Howard's 1995 movie gives a glimpse of how mission control staff in Houston reacted to information about the explosion.  When an alarm on the command module flashed, signaling a power drop, Flight Director Gene Kranz (portrayed by Ed Harris) turned to the mission controller in charge of emergencies and said "is this an instrumentation problem, or are we looking at real power loss here?" That officer, named Sy Liebergot and played by the director’s brother Clive Howard said "It's, it's reading a quadruple failure - that can't happen! It's, it's got to be instrumentation." But by following their procedures, NASA confirmed it wasn't an instrumentation problem, the ship had actually suffered a devastating explosion, and at that point they swung into rescue mode.  NASA aren't the only ones who, on seeing data put in front of them, are so quick to dismiss it. Dashboards - and the work it takes to implement them - isn’t trivial. Yet many of them fail…meaning that once they’re built they never get looked at.  There are those who blame technical problems for this, but just like in Apollo 13, the main failures are due to people problems. The technology can be used to visualize  exactly the operational data that people literally  asked for…and present them with self-serve solutions, but they ignore the data, waving it away as some sort of instrumentation problem Our guest is going to tell us the right way to pull off dashboard projects.   He’ll show how to engage the stakeholders to express what metrics they really need, ones that show how the organization is tracking towards reaching its vision. Nicholas Kelly, currently the principal consultant and trainer at G&K Consulting, holds a Bachelor of Computer Science from University College Cork. Formerly a Deloitte Analytics Senior Manager, he specializes in designing and developing dashboards for major global companies, including banks and Formula 1 teams. Nick is a frequent speaker at international conferences, having trained thousands of professionals in data visualization and analytics adoption. As a management consultant, educator, and author, his focus is on teamwork, inventive methods, and bridging technical gaps to increase data literacy. He is also the creator of business board games and the author of the book "Delivering Data Analytics." Let’s go to Seattle where I caught up with Nick Kelly.    Chapter Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:03:57 - Welcome Nick 00:08:18 - Why dashboard projects fail 00:34:46 - PSA 00:35:35 - Building the dashboard 00:57:12 - Where to get book; contact Nick   Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for Episode 190.

My sister-in-law Janice works at the forefront of Medical Sonography. You may know it by the name Ultrasound, where non-invasive sound waves are sent into the body, which bounce off tissue and get displayed on a monitor. It has the ability to evaluate anatomy in an increasingly wide range of structures such as abdominal organs, the heart, vasculature and muscles in patients of all ages as well as the most commonly known purpose of obstetrical ultrasound. In the past 35 years, ultrasound has changed from a tool that was used solely by Radiology and has now expanded into being used by almost every medical disciple: cardiology, emergency medicine, anesthesia, nursing, physical therapy and more. Training these non-traditional users had a huge boom, and now ultrasound is being taught in the first year of medical school as it is known that no matter what type of medicine one chooses, ultrasound will play a part. Janice and others have shared their love and knowledge of ultrasound to help and aid the expansion of ultrasound into new realms in all areas of healthcare. In a similar way, to be better marketers, developers, or website owners, there are aspects of web behaviour that we need surfaced: specific user conversions, page views, scrolls and many other interactions. These aren’t visible to Analytics tools out-of-the-box. Our equipment must be configured to highlight them, and that’s done with tags that fire and alert our analytics software of specific interactions, the same way that medical monitors show the echoes of specific sonar frequencies. We’ve evolved from coding tags right on our sites to operating them with tag management systems, the most common one being Google Tag Manager. Without these tagging tools, our visibility into site performance would be limited the same way that doctors before ultrasound couldn’t see what was going on inside their patients. Another similarity these tools share is that they both come with ethical and safety considerations, and laws covering user privacy and data protection. Gathering insights, whether by ultrasound or tag technology, must respect the digital autonomy and privacy of users. We have a guest to take us through all facets of tag management and I hope that after hearing him, you won’t think of tagging as just some machine that should be relegated to technicians, but a tool you can use on the front-lines, as something you yourself should get hands-on with. So let's talk about tag management with Ricardo Cristofolini. With a background in Tourism and Hospitality Management and International Trade, Ricardo Cristofolini's Analytics professional journey began when he arrived in Canada in 2015 to study at Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology, where he earned an Ontario College Diploma in Computer Programming, Networked Environment, and Programming Languages from 2015 to 2017. There, he had the opportunity to put together previous professional knowledge with brand new one exploring multiple subjects, from Web and App Development to cloud computing, Database structure, and much more. Transitioning to the workforce, Ricardo served as a Web Developer at FilmFX from December 2017 to December 2019, gaining two years of experience. In March 2018, Ricardo expanded his skills at Pondstone Digital Marketing, specializing in WordPress, Content Management, and other relevant areas until February 2019. At this point, he had already fallen in love with Analytics and Data Tracking. His expertise continued to evolve as he took on the role of Senior Data Analytics Implementation at Bounteous Canada from July 2021 to October 2022 He currently holds the position of Napkyn Senior Implementation Specialist Data Solutions, a role he has been dedicated to since 2022. In his spare time, when not reading about Analytics and developing his knowledge (and earning a badge from Linkedin as Top Web Analytics Voice), Ricardo supports others' new adventures in this field on multiple social media platforms answering questions and providing guidance. Originating from Brazil, Ricardo Cristofolini's professional trajectory reflects a dynamic and progressively challenging path within the realms of web development, digital marketing, and data analytics implementation. Chapter Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:04:55 - Ricardo on GTM and Google Tag 00:27:40 - PSA 00:28:30 - All about Server-side Tagging 00:49:06 - Where to contact Ricardo Links to all People/Products/Concepts Mentioned in Show #189 is available at the Funnel Reboot site.

Episode 188 Dana DiTomaso embarked on her digital marketing journey over 20 years ago, initially working in tech support for a CRM before founding a web design company in 2002. In 2000, clients sought her expertise in increasing website traffic, propelling her into the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). By 2012, Dana became an active participant in the SEO community, sharing insights on technical and local SEO topics. Dana, having typed her first line of code in 1982, consistently demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit and started delivering talks and presentations since 1998. Recognizing the potential of digital-first marketing, she founded three businesses that educate entrepreneurs and organizations. As the founder and lead instructor of KP Playbook, Dana teaches the "Analytics for Agencies" course and manages a thriving learner community, emphasizing proven principles over quick tips. Notably, none of her clients have faced Google penalties to date. Dana lives in an old growth forest near Victoria BC.   Chapter Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:03:01 - Welcome Dana 00:08:18 - The unvarnished view of data given by GA4 00:16:33 - Using custom reports and exploration tab 00:22:41 - Giving other users access to Reports 00:26:39 - PSA 00:27:25 - Reporting through Looker Studio 00:35:08 - Why knowing some UX helps 00:38:54 - Pulling other data sources together with GA data 00:44:01 - Looker studio tactics 00:53:18 - Where to contact Dana   Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for Episode 188.

In numerous companies, the approach to content strategy appears to be nonexistent, marked by haphazard content creation and dissemination. A notable absence of a cohesive plan to align content with overarching marketing objectives is evident, leading to a disjointed and less effective approach. In light of these challenges, it becomes imperative for companies to recognize the critical significance of implementing a robust content strategy. The upcoming discussion will delve into a methodology that not only addresses these shortcomings but also promises to elevate content creation to a level where flawlessness becomes a tangible outcome. As we navigate through the intricacies of this approach, you will discover how a well-crafted content strategy can serve as the linchpin for achieving marketing goals and fostering a more impactful and cohesive online presence. Purna Virji is a globally recognized content strategist. She grew up in India, when her family came to the US they settled in  Philadelphia. She did her masters at Cardiff University, but returned to Philadelphia where she was a journalist and then a producer at the local TV affiliate for PBS. That experience is where She picked up expertise in creating content. She ported this communications flair into designing Pay Per Click ad campaigns for ecommerce companies and then when Microsoft’s own ads platform needed a trainer, she transitioned to working there, training both internal Microsoft teams and external groups on Microsoft ads. She went on to speak at conferences like MozCon and SMX Advanced and was ranked as the #1 Most Influential Expert in the world by PPC Hero.   She is currently the Principal Consultant for Content Solutions at LinkedIn. In 2023 she came out with the book “High Impact Content Marketing” which we’ll talk about today.   Timestamps/Chapters: 0:00:00 - Intro 00:02:42 - Welcome Purna 00:10:32 - the AGES model 00:20:38 - PSA 00:21:46 - Practical tips for high Impact content 00:35:26 - Identifying what your audience's needs are 00:46:41 - Where to get book; contact Purna For all the people, products and concepts mentioned, go to Episode 187's page on the Funnel Reboot site.

Increasingly, many Marketing teams have been forced to transform their own teams, or the Business as a whole has had to start transforming itself.  But no matter how technically sophisticated they are, no matter how many consultants they have or how many Project management meetings they hold, most companies struggle through these transformations. At best, when transformations succeed, they leave heart-ache and sore feelings  Most of them revert to the status quo they tried so hard to shake. Those leading the initiative end up demoralized, marginalized or downsized. People who say they can make transformations successful are treated with skepticism. But when that someone has skills that are so multifaceted and has pulled off this feat in multiple industries, you ought to lean in & hear them out. Susan Odle is someone whose life's journey and heritage spans three continents. Born to Guyanese parents moved first to London England, then to Toronto, Canada where she went to high school; it happened to be the same school where I went. Anyway, she moved to Ottawa to study music at University. The musician in her has been strong from then until now, evidenced by a solo project she released in 2017. Our paths crossed again years later when I moved to Ottawa. In the interim Susan had been holding pivotal roles in high tech firms, leading channel & direct sales, professional services, and ops which helped several to successful exits. Susan was honored In 2020 as one of the top 50 women in SaaS by the Software Report. She’s also owned several businesses as well. Currently, Susan specializes in operationalizing change through her consultancy, 8020CS. She’s taken her understanding of navigating successful change and literally wrote the book on it. "Successful Change," was released in 2023. Chapters & Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:47 - Welcome Susan 00:06:46 - The chaos that comes with transformation 00:11:50 - The 8020CS Blueprint 00:21:46 - Break change down into four dimensions 00:29:38 - PSA 00:30:32 - Moving through 'gates' toward successful change 00:48:59 - Overcoming resistance 00:53:45 - Susan’s coordinate and other resources For all the people, products and concepts mentioned, go to Episode 186's page on the Funnel Reboot site.

One thing that professional services and solo subject matter experts struggle with is building an audience and influencing their purchases. Creating a content marketing engine that achieves this can take agonizingly long - years even. But virtual events that are properly marketed seem able to shorten that timespan.  My guest, Michael Tucker, has refined a program that develops virtual events for clients, and over the past 3 years it has accelerated post-event prospect discussions and sales success. Graduating from Campbellsville University in Kentucky, he now calls Florida home  Chapters/Timestamps: 0:00:00 Intro 0:01:14 Welcome Michael 0:03:44 Virtual events are good for leadgen 0:29:09 PSA 0:30:17 Running virtual event that embeds call-to-action 0:32:30 Seeding the CTA into event 0:54:50 Michael's coordinates Links to all People/Products/Concepts mentioned in the show is available on Episode 185’s page on the Funnel Reboot website.

You could say that the marketing field is going through exciting times right now. But you shouldn’t say that everything’s rosy. Here are examples of issues we’re grappling with: The use of SaaS by Marketing may have freed us from being chained to the IT department, but after 25 years of binge buying all these point solutions, we’re saddled with loads of Technical debt, and the order to repatriate customer data from all these servers.  CMOs are tasked so much with explaining technology out there, much of their time is used up by the C-Suite’s questions, leaving little time for them to manage marketing. There’s the question of whether the agency-client relationship will survive with AI. Some say brands won’t need an agency as they will generate their own creative. Agencies like Publicis, who’ve poured huge sums into their media-platform CoreAI that monitors billions of consumer signals and can inform what ads should be made, when & where.  Because our field doesn't have standardized accreditation, our terminology isn’t  uniform, and we make dialects for our company or industry. How’s that working for us? About as well as it did for those building the Tower of Babel. My guest is Myles Younger, Head of Innovation and Insights at U of Digital. Since graduating from Northeasters 20 years ago, he’s been up and down the marketing industry block. He was a client-side marketer in the tech and financial services sectors, He founded and led an adtech company, Canned Banners, that was acquired. He worked as a VP at data consultancy  MightyHive which became Media.Monks.  He is in a new role now at U of Digital, spearheading this education thought leadership to expand the company's educational offerings across different formats, learners, and markets  To me, he’s something of a modern-day David Ogilvy, who wrote his thoughts on his industry back in the day, in a book called “Confessions of an Ad Man”. Myles is just as outspoken on digital media and advertising topics, and the opinions he voices in trade publications and podcasts can come across as prophecies about this industry and sometimes pleas for how it could be better.  I caught up with him in Portland, OR, where he lives with his wife and three kids. Timestamp/Chapters 0:00:00 Intro 0:03:25 Welcome Myles 0:04:55 Continuum of approaches to privacy 0:07:58 Our reliance on ad tech; its future 0:20:56 We can only go as fast as our people can 0:24:53 Tech debt we've brought on ourselves 0:31:50 PSA 0:32:37 Changes impacting platforms & ad agencies 0:42:44 Platforms exploiting advertisers in the name of Al 0:48:27 The good & bad of using their Cloud offerings 0:52:32 Best reaction is educating ourselves 1:00:00 How to reach out to Myles   Links to all People/Products/Concepts mentioned in the show appear within the Funnel Reboot site on Ep 184's shownotes page.

Episode 183 As a Disclaimer, note that there’s no sponsor or affiliate relationship with the vendor interviewed here. They're simply on the show to give their perspective on our topic. As trite as it sounds, the way that we look at the world affects our understanding of it. Let me tell you about a time I noticed this. When I was a kid, I would go to school, walk into my classroom, and see my teacher there. She was such a constant there, I imagined that she never left the classroom, she was a fixture of the room, part of the furniture. It’s like the teacher didn’t persist as a person who had a life outside of the classroom. So when I was out at the grocery store with my parents and I saw my teacher, not dressed in their teacher clothes, not ensconced in their teacher setting, my brain just melted.  While this might be laughable, those of us using marketing analytics tools could be guilty of falling into the same trap. Credit for making this concept clear in not 1 but 2 great books must go to Avinash Kaushik. Think about it. According to Classic web analytics, visitors who hit our website had started  an imaginary timer that we called a web session. We imagined in this race against the clock, they were viewing a sequence of pages which ferried them to forms we used as gates. We told ourselves that the gate-crossers had completed a successful session, converting from visitors into leads or customers. Stepping back, there are a few things wrong with this picture. Users don't only exist inside of a session, just like the teacher didn't only exist in the classroom—they roam about as they please.  Today’s users aren’t confined to marketing content. The experience they have straddles our marketing sites, to sites  and apps where their identity persists through being logged-in, where the interactions even span multiple devices - as we see on Slack and Discord for messages we’ve already read. The user’s state changes - sometimes they complete a purchase, or become a paid subscriber, but at other times they may opt for a free plan or abandon their cart.  We need analytics for all of these actions. We need to step back and view the entire experience that people have with us over time. This is something that classic web analytics just can't measure. This is why the new generation of tools allows us to analyze complex trends and behavior of our users. They are collectively known as event-based analytics tools, and they excel in portraying the way that users experience a product. The foremost product-oriented analytics tool out there is called Amplitude, and today, we are speaking with its product evangelist. Since 2021, Adam Greco has been Amplitude’s  Product Evangelist, guiding clients in understanding their tool through workshops, blogs, and videos.  He got into this field in 2005 when he joined analytics platform Omniture where he was a customer advocate for four years until Adobe acquired them and rechristened them Adobe Analytics. He then worked at consultancies for 15 years, showing people how to get the most out of Adobe’s tool,  authoring over 200 blog posts along the way.  Lately Adam’s speaking and advising on analytics has had him splitting his time between Chicago and Amsterdam (where he was when this was recorded). When he’s in the states and not working, he enjoys restoring and going for drives in his 62 convertible corvette.  Timestamps/Chapters 0:00 - Intro 5:00 - Meet Adam; why event-based method works better than session-based method 24:00 - PSA 24:45 - how to get value out of recent analytics tools, including warehouse-native apps 56:20 - Adam’s coordinates and free resources Links to all people and products mentioned are available in Ep 183's shownotes page on the Funnel Reboot site.

Today's episode looks at how pervasive voice technology is, and how marketers can make better use of it.  After spending over twenty years in marketing agencies, Susan Westwater became cofounder and CEO of Pragmatic Digital. Susan has talked and written on the role voice & conversational AI plays in marketing and business strategy.  Susan is coauthor of Voice Strategy: Creating Useful and Usable Voice Experiences. Recently, she co-authored the book “Voice Marketing”  Chapters & Timestamps 0:00 Intro 2:30 About Voice marketing 27:15 PSA 28:00 Susan’s process for enabling voice technology in your marketing  59:30 Where to find Susan and the book All people, products and concepts are linked in episode 182's shownotes page on the Funnel Reboot site.

When a person interacts with their device or goes online, who owns their data? Today’s guest says they do, and marketers should be paying them for the privilege. Right now, you might think this person wears hats made out of tinfoil. It may surprise you to learn they are the Global Head of AI at (EY) Ernst & Young, having also been an analytics executive at Gartner and CSL Behring and graduating from DePaul with an MBA.  John Thompson has written four books. I found out about him through his 2020 book Building Analytics Teams, which led to him being a guest on this show back in 2023. He recently released his book “Data for All” which spurred this repeat appearance - which has only happened with a handful of people.  Timestamps/Chapters: 0:00 - Intro 1:39 - How we came to giving our data for free 24:55 - Public Service Announcement 25:49 - Getting paid for our data 44:26 - Getting to John & his books For links to all persons and concepts mentioned, go to Ep 181's notes page on the Funnel Reboot site.

If you go to Wikipedia and type Zero-sum game, it’ll describe it as “a situation that involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other. In other words, player one's gain is equivalent to player two's loss, with the result that the net improvement in benefit of the game is zero” Many think that’s how privacy regulations are affecting marketing. Anytime client privacy is upheld it’s at our expense. We’re losing; they’re winning. Zero-sum game. Siobhan Solberg disagrees.  She says you can effectively market to your client in a way that does right by them and is privacy-compliant.  She calls herself a protector of privacy, while also being a marketing consultant, the founder of a marketing agency. She has over a decade in the measurement space, having created CXL’s course on personalization. She’s also been a speaker at conferences like Superweek and The Copywriter Club. She also writes on privacy and marketing on her blog and is host of a podcast whose name is spelled out in the shownotes but which I’ll call Marketing Unf*d. She is currently enrolled in the Master of Laws program for Privacy, Cybersecurity, and Data Management at Maastricht University.  When she’s not not pushing these boundaries, Siobhan loves to get outside and test her physical limits.  Chapters Timestamps 0:00 – Intro 0:46 – About Siobhan  2:11 – What marketers should know about Privacy 20:56 – PSA 21:53 – Privacy across the organization 39:59 – Siobhan’s contact details For links to everything mentiones, visit the shownotes on the FunnelReboot site.

‘1 to 1 Marketing,’  sounds wonderful. Don Peppers & Martha Rogers wrote a series of books in the 1990s called this. We have thrown all kinds of technology, content, and persona construction at it over the last 25 years. But it still eludes us. Architecting communications that converses with each person, at their own point in a conversation with our brand is hard.  Is it marketing’s job to actually have 1:1 conversations? And with  what’s at stake if we  screw up personalization, can we implement or maintain it without losing our jobs?   Today’s guest is here to help answer that.  Since getting his M.A. in Information Studies from Aarhus University, our guest has lived at the intersection of data and communications. Since 2020 he has been the Chief Experience Officer at Agillic, an omnichannel marketing software, where he works primarily with large companies involved in omnichannel marketing, customer experience management, and customer lifecycle projects.  He’s on a mission to ensure that the end user gets consistent, timely and relevant communications across channels - be it web, email, app, text, social - or even in-store. He often presents keynotes on Omnichannel Personalization and sits on the jury for that at the Danish eCommerce Awards. His first book, written  together with Colin Shearer, was a bestseller on Omnichannel Marketing. We’re talking with him about his book “Hello $Firstname,” which came out in 2023. Joining me from Copenhagen, let’s welcome Rasmus Houlind. Links for all people and products mentioned are in the episode's page on the Funnel Reboot site.    Chapters & Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 2:30 - Book's Main Theme  37:48 - Public Service Announcement 38:41 - Quantifying the value of Personalization 1:00:25 - Rasmus Contact details

Today’s talk is with a technology vendor, as a Disclaimer, please note that there’s no sponsor or affiliate relationship here. They're simply on the show to give their perspective on our topic. Today we’re going to talk about leveling up beyond KPIs to data that visualizes our full-funnel. Comedian George Carlin knew how complicated things get with marketing technology. Or, you can imagine that when you hear him talk about stuff. This is the feeling we can get watching our Marketing technology evolve before our eyes. As our  software tools grow, so does the complexity. We’re beyond the point of logging into each of them to see individual KPIs. They have just become too specialized, and now we need meta-tools, crafted solely to connect with the specialized marketing systems, to extract and roll up streamlined data that we can analyze or see on a dashboard. It’s against this backdrop that I invited today’s guest.  Jacob Varghese hails from India, having graduated with a BA from University of Mumbai. Since moving to Canada in the 1990s, he’s focused on building marketing machines and crafting go-to-market strategies that yield repeatable, predictable, and scalable revenue.  Following experiences as a senior executive at numerous  B2B SaaS outfits, he’s now the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at AgencyAnalytics.  His passion for augmenting marketing and sales through data and automation comes through in the insights he shares on his blog. Links to all things mentioned will be in the shownotes on Ep 177's page on the Funnel Reboot site.

If your job involves numbers, you likely spend time graphically plotting it.  Whether it’s for analyzing or presenting, we usually toss our datasets into our visualization tool (mainly because it takes one button click) and start visualizing it. The problem here is that we’re making content before knowing our intent, we’re making the software master over us instead of being its master.  Today’s guest says the visualizations that come from this won’t be intelligible, won’t make them motivated to act and won’t yield good decisions. However, he does passionately believe that when people who know how to read numbers, see it presented the right way, it’ll motivate them to make the right decisions.  Lee Feinberg graduated from Cornell University with a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering. In 2012 founded a consultancy to help data leaders create armies of trustworthy decision makers.  He has worked in the analytics and data visualization fields for 20 years. He is associated with Data Science programs at both NYU and the University of Chicago. When he’s not talking about visualization, Lee likes experiencing concerts - from the front row,  and also hanging out with his wife and kids. All links mentioned are in the show notes page on the Funnel Reboot site.

There were a lot of books covered on the podcast in 2023 - 44% of this year’s shows were with book authors. Combined with previous years’ book episodes, we have reached the 60-book mark on this podcast - you can sift through them all on our site by clicking on the “books” category on the right-hand menu.  But I’ve had the chance to read books outside of these, and found even more I’d like to feature. I’m not saying all all biz books that come out are good.  To be honest - a decent portion of them aren’t good at all. But since I set out once per year to make a special show, I felt it time to review some of the business books that shouldn’t slip by unnoticed.  After you hear brief reviews of these 6 books, you’ll hopefully put one or two on your To-be-read pile.  Shownotes with links to these books is available on the Funnel Reboot site's page for episode 175.

There are websites and then there are websites. Some give User Experience short shrift, slapping together generic templates that look pretty... generic. Others use experts to make interfaces that are optimized for mobile and PC environments, and anticipate what users want and present their content in engaging ways.  Some with so little security, they’re susceptible to cyber threats. Others invest heavily in cybersecurity - protecting not only themselves, but visitors as well.  Some sites have clung to technology that’s become atrophied and prone to crashing. Others are kept up to date, and are upgradable as the company’s needs change. Some have a backend that craters when traffic spikes,while others keep humming because of their scalable infrastructure. Some expect visitors will come back on their own initiative, others use email smartly to coax visitors back. Our guest is going to show us how to see the difference that well-developed websites can make. He knows how the value of our online presence can be unlocked to  produce experiences that lead to revenue. Josh Garellek is co-founder & CEO of a full-service web development agency that's spread across North America. He grew up and started his studies in Montreal, then went on to study at New York’s Yeshiva University. He did stints in the food service industry and e-commerce before starting  a game development studio, until he and a business partner teamed up, switching it into a web dev company called Arctic Leaf. He’s gone beyond this and started other ventures too. The drive to do all this, he’ll tell you, is probably  rooted in ADHD, or being a natural entrepreneur, or his chutzpah; probably all of these. But after knowing him for over a decade, for questions about what to do with your website, he is THE person to listen to. Links to all items mentioned can be found in the Episode 174 shownotes on the Funnel Reboot site.

Today, we’re talking about the future of data with Google Analytics 4.   It’s been about 6 months since we all had Universal Analytics. It’s good to talk to others who use GA4 to do their jobs, to compare notes. Although GA4 is here to stay, it still has gaps that need bridging.  That’s why I spoke with Jason Hackenberry, Head of Partnerships from web development agency Arctic Leaf. Prior to Arctic Leaf, he held Digital Marketing and operations roles at Weatherby and Save Khaki United, along with roles in Merchandising.  What you’ll hear is from a virtual event he and I did in December 2023, on topics including How Google is migrating users of its free version differently from its 360 version  How to capitalize on the information provided by GA4 The data  you actually need vs. what you THINK you need Tips on finding insights, reporting, conversion tracking and data retention New GA4 features that can help your lead generation or e-commerce website.

GA4 is now our de facto analytics tool. Regardless of how familiar we were with the previous  tool, GA4 is here to stay so we may as well get good at using it.  I’ve got just the person to make the transition relatively painless for us.  Our guest’s love for analytics was a happy accident after she worked in a company where the sales director was making a move to take my budget and remove people from my department to fund new sales people. The work we were doing was having an impact, and she needed to prove it, show the evidence, and going into a board meeting with a warm fuzzy feeling in your tummy won’t cut it. You need to show our craft in all its creative beauty, but we also need to show the numbers to justify it and continue with our work. As head consultant at The Colouring In Department, she has completed close to 230 audits now, and has trained thousands of people on GA.  Joining from London England - here is Jill Quick Links to all things mentioned in episode 172 can be found on its shownotes page at the Funnel Reboot site.

AI won’t end up being one thing, it will be present in many little applications - hopefully that will help us in our marketing. But what kind of AIs do we want? Are we looking at the ingredients that go into them?  Those are the kinds of questions innovations our guest considers as he makes AI models for healthcare and the retail marketing sectors. Yash Gad is a data scientist, education advocate, and foodie. Founder and CEO of RingerSciences and Chief Data Scientist of Next Practices Group. He earned his PhD from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Computational Biology, Neuroscience &, Biophysics and received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins. He joins me from Austin TX.  Links to all things mentioned can be found in Episode 171's shownotes page on the Funnel Reboot site.