How to Brief an Analyst

Cut through the noise and get what you need

Analysts* are not mind readers. The purpose of a brief is to establish what the analyst should be trying to achieve. Often people ask questions that have no real yardstick to measure by so get a response the analyst thinks they can support if questioned, which is raw data**.

Examples of these types of questions are: how is my site doing, is our marketing effective, what happened last week? Which is like a complete stranger saying "I just ran across a field in 49 seconds is that good?" and then refusing to provide any more information.

If an analyst receives these types of questions, without explanation, context or an end goal  they’ll probably spend a lot of time pulling a lot of data in the hope that some of it sticks.

* by Analysts I mean anyone trying to turn data into insights whether they have the word data in their title or not

** data can be quantitative (numbers) or qualitative (words) - ideally both

Develop good foundations

A data programme needs a good foundation. Without a Measurement Framework, data capture process and someone experienced in working with data trying to conduct analysis will get stuck in the mud of no or unreliable data. 

 

A good brief draws insights from your decisions and outcomes to power the next set of decisions and outcomes.

Building on your foundations

With well documented, reliable data and an experienced person ready to analyse it you can start to turn data into insights and optimisation.

 Before we get into that, it is important to cover two things that stifle performance optimisation programmes.

The business must have a clear direction and be willing to adapt. Without a North Star to aim at the analyst will be forced to try and map the whole ocean.

Without change there can be no magic in the data, any brand who thinks their market, customers and organisation should stay the same has no need of analytics, only status reports. These two things often lead to dissatisfaction with the insights programme and high analyst turnover.

With this in place you can start to think about what you want from your analyst and how best to get it from them. 

 

The Why & the How

The goal of a good brief is move on from the 'What' e.g. how is ROAS, how is the new product selling? To do this you need the Why and the How.

  • The Why is the context behind the numbers
  • The How is the recommendation of how to change the numbers

 

Analysts can generally only measure what has already happened and will often need qualitative data to discover the 'Why' so get as much of it as possible to avoid being trapped in a more detailed level of description.

 

The best way to reliably produce successful 'How' recommendations is to reduce this is to write down as many of the variables and assumptions made about an action or initiative before it is done then make sure these things are being measured.  Get information and hypotheses out of people's heads and into shared docs, this will help you figure out what you know vs where you are guessing. 

The best brief + analyst in world can’t magic insights from empty spreadsheets and transcripts.

 

How to create the brief

Below is a template you can use to ensure consistent briefs to your analyst. 

Situation:  (Provide background and direction for the analysis)

We are focused on growing our profits without requiring additional sales

Objective: (The analyst should know the broad targets but recommendations should be as focused as possible)

Increase the Purchase Transaction Conversion Rates from Mobile Sessions Landing on our Homepage

Task: (Frame the parameters and key areas of the analysis)

  • What was  the impact of adding Pop Up on the 6th Feb. Last major update was on the 15th Jan (See linked Calendar for details of changes). 

  • To understand what is having the biggest effects on performance from a Traffic source and New/ Return customer perspective

  • Are there any obvious issues with the Conversion Rate

  • If so, what?

  • How confident are you and why?

Insight & Hypothesis: (provide background context and learnings to prevent double work)

  • The Products we show on the page don’t entice our users because they are not relevant to the Ad that brought them there

  • The Checkout Flow breaks on some Mobiles/ Browsers

  • The page loads slower than average causing users to Bounce

  • We recently shifted to a more aggressive Acquisition strategy and are maybe getting lower quality traffic

  • We are thinking about changing the menu as we think users struggle to understand the groupings

  • We cannot change the information required in the checkout or product pricing

  • We have capacity to test Pop Up designs and Product pages. The category page design is fixed for the next two months, due to backlog bug fixes

Answer Format:  (Just like AI don't make them guess)

  • A number or feedback - Email/ DM 

  • Trends, Dashboard -  Excel / BI Tool 

  • Recommendations backed by quantitative + qualitative insights - Powerpoint

Final thoughts

Create benchmarks for current performance then targets to help you reach your objective.

Create a log of what you are trying on your channels. Daily is best. It can be linked to the Marketing Calendar but should show all your acquisition, Site, CRM, CS, Operations efforts. Even better if you can add market or competitor movements. If a competitor launches a splashy new discount campaign it is likely to affect you in ways that can be seen in the data but not easily explained. 

Trying to get numerical data to explain the absence is often a futile exercise. Asking real world people like actual/ prospective customers and your peers will give you a much better reason why your product or blog failed. Do this on repeat and you will start to get some great benchmarks and explanations around the charts and conversion rates the team trots out at every meeting.

 

Key takeaways

  • A surprising amount of what gets called "analysis" is just description
  • This is because most briefs are for what happened? not what should we do next?
  • A useful brief names the decision, what can be changed and the differential that will actually inspire change.

 

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