There is such a rich and vast network of analytics professionals out there. I have taught classes designed around an analytics bootcamp structure, where students get to interact and work with their own data in an environment that allows them to test ideas and put practical things into place for their OWN businesses.
During those courses, I try hard to give students additional resources that they can use or explore when they return to their individual positions. Not all tools should go in each individual toolbox, let alone be used at every business. It is about defining the key business questions that someone has within their OWN business and applying the understanding around that via tools designed to help deliver insights.
Here is my most recent list of Analytics Resources. Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think. I am here to help if I can. Good luck and happy hunting!
Tips & Best Practices:
- Hubspot has great post on 9 Key Resources/Tools for Marketing Analytics all in one spot
- Adpush also has a list of 34 Key Resources/Tools for Analytics
- Moz has amazing blogs and info around analytics, data, and marketing. Here is one about Beginner Google Analytics
- Data Science Central is THE repository for anyone looking to find information or further their understanding of analytics, data science, big and small data
- Within Data Science Central, they actually have a specific page dedicated to ONLY analytics called Analytic Bridge
- Forbes has wonderful article from 2016 talking about the 18 Analytics Tools business managers should know and understand
- Gartner Research puts out yearly analyses around which analytics and business intelligence tools fall within their “magic quadrant” – you can usually get it free via a vendor (in this case like Tableau). Take their Tableau discussion with grain of salt, but look at the quadrant and compare potential solutions you may be interested in using
- More about applying the scientific method to data science/analytics
- Data Driven – free eBook that can be downloaded as PDF or electronically – written by two amazing data scientists – explaining how to get your organization to become more “data driven” – only 20+ pages – very easy and understandable. I actually use to make all of the new folks at former employer read it and understand it basically
- The King and Guru of all Digital Marketers – Avinash Kaushik from Google – has a blog you should subscribe too and many resources to help you think about the business question (aka scientific question) and some of the goals (hypotheses) you should be looking at
- Jeff Sauer – Google Analytics Master and Instructor – amazing content and information on his site
- Data Science Dojo out of Seattle does an amazing job with teaching folks the key skills of a data scientist within its data science bootcamp
Tools:
Remember, often you do NOT need a technology solution that someone trying to sell you. It is about how you are setting up your questions and getting the answers, and more importantly, insights you need. Be careful to not get too many analytics tools. It is about wielding the tools for your specific business.
- Google Analytics
- Excel
- Tableau
- Chartio
- Analytics Edge
- Next Analytics
- Power BI
- Looker
- Birst
- Mode
- Optimizely
- Hotjar
