Net Conversion

Background

Grant’s been working with the guys at Net Conversion since they were a two man shop in a shared office. Now an office of 12 (and growing!) located in the heart of downtown with an office that puts Google to shame, we’re on the 4th generation of an entirely unique approach to reporting and data automation dubbed Conversionomics.

Net Conversion’s reporting challenge is relatively simple at face value. Pull data from multiple sources, mash it together, generate trends and aggregate it to show results. But look at it closer and you start to see why commercial applications didn’t cut it.

• Multiple sources means different systems entirely, from Google Analytics to Bing’s Ad Center. Each with its own rules and definitions for data, how do you make it all mean the same thing?
• Businesses typically have their own fiscal calendars for reporting revenue, so how do you make Google AdWords report previous fiscal year earnings based on your clients calendar?
• It’s not just AdWords though, you need Google Analytics, Bing’s Ad Center, Site Catalyst, and Custom CSV’s all with their results lined up.
• Now, automate all of that so an analyst starts his/her day with the data they need immediately available for analysis in Excel.
• Take it further and apply common analysis and lookups to the data.

Are there commercial tools out there that do this out of the box? No.

Are there tools out there that can do this with the right configurations and development? Yes.

Are those tools insanely expensive to develop, run and operate? You bet.

What We Did

We created a custom web application that manages an automated suite of reporting and analytical tools.

Shared Credential Management

Users can enter credentials for various services and share them across their reporting.

Client Specific Calendars and Configuration

Reporting is organized by client, and each can have a completely different fiscal calendar configured. These calendars include unique groupings like 4-4-5, 4-5-4, and 5-4-4. Custom calendaring goes beyond fiscal calendars and includes campaign based calendars and regular calendars with date shifts (First day of the week might be Tuesday).

Historical Data

When Net Conversion on boards a new client, they can create historical data sets for analysis essentially allowing them to go back in time.

Any Data

The system is set up in a way that any data source can be added with no change to their workflow. When a new source is added, they simply see a new dropdown. This allows Net Conversion to go beyond traditional reporting and include any offline data they need to.

Automated Updates

Each data source attached to the platform automatically updates itself with new data using rolling intervals. This ensures the analysts always have up to date and accurate data.

Automated Analysis

Analysts can apply multiple types of dynamic formulas and calculations (including VLookups for Excel types) that are automatically applied as data updates in the system.

Automated Results

Analysts don’t actually log into the system on a daily basis. The platform delivers results right to their email or a synced folder so they can share.

The Results

In its current release Conversionomics is handling automated reporting and analysis for over 50 clients. With each client normally requiring on average 5 reports, Net Conversion is getting 250+ automated datasets for analysis each week and it’s only growing.

As for the analysts, they estimate they save easily a couple of hours each day since they aren’t pulling data anymore.

The system itself runs on Amazon’s EC2 allowing the platform to scale up and down as needed.