Tech & Data Diary - Entry #002: Data Visualization & Storytelling

Today's data-driven world requires effective visualization of data to make informed decisions and effectively communicate insights. Media agencies, in particular, must perfect these techniques as communication between agency and advertiser is paramount. Whether you're visualizing performance, understanding audience behavior, or optimization strategies, the way you visualize this data will have a big impact on how your information is received and interpreted by key decision makers.

This article explores the basics of data visualization, focusing on ten common types of charts and their applications within a media agency.

1. Bar Chart

When to Use It: Compare quantities across categories.

Example Use Case: A media agency might use a bar chart to compare the performance of different advertising campaigns. For instance, they can compare the number of sales and ROAS received by each campaign in a given month. This visual makes it easy to see which campaigns are performing well and which ones need adjustments. These look particularly nice when paired with a line graph for metrics of a different scale but you must make sure that you are taking advantage of both the primary and secondary axis.

2. Line Chart

When to Use It: Show trends over time.

Example Use Case: Line charts are ideal for displaying trends and relationships over given time period. A media agency can use a line chart to track the ROAS of our campaigns to a client's website each month in relation to the Avg. CPC paid, helping to identify seasonal trends and the impact of specific marketing activities. These relationship visualizations are key to storytelling - but more on that come in future entries. ??

3. Pie Chart

When to Use It: Highlight proportions and percentages.

Example Use Case: A media agency can use a pie chart to illustrate the breakdown of sales by channel in a marketing campaign. This visual can show how much of the sales is allocated to different channels, such as social media, search engine marketing, and display ads, helping to rationalize spending. I personally like to use these to represent these figures as percentages, using another format later to visualize actuals.

4. Scatter Plot

When to Use It: Represent relationships between variables.

Example Use Case: Scatter plots are useful for identifying correlations between marketing metrics and business goals. A media agency can plot the amount spent on different campaigns against the ROI to determine which strategies yield the highest returns. I like to add a linear trendline into these graphs to help focus the eyes on the overall direction of the correlation - using the R2 value as reference point.

5. Histogram

When to Use It: Visualize the distribution of data.

Example Use Case: To understand the age distribution of survey respondents, a media agency can use a histogram. This chart helps in visualize the average number of sales by hours of the day for a website. It is important to remember that they needs to be a link between the datasets for histograms to be relevant.

6. Radar Chart

When to Use It: Compare multiple categories across dimensions.

Example Use Case: Evaluating the performance of a product in various areas can be visualized using a radar chart. A media agency might use this chart to compare different attributes of a campaign, such as CPM, CTR%, conversion rate (CVR%), and others against the ongoing benchmarks to visually show how a campaigns ranks. this is my personal favourite for benchamarking as I think its very easily understood for advertisers about the effectiveness of campaigns.

7. Map

When to Use It: Visualize geospatial data.

Example Use Case: A media agency can display regional sales performance on a map. This visualization helps in identifying which geographical areas are generating the most sales, allowing the agency to tailor regional marketing efforts accordingly.

8. Treemaps

When to Use It: Visualize proportional representation a given market

Example Use Case: Treemaps can be used to show how a given market is proportionally split between different contributing factors. I like to use this one to show advertisers their Share of Voice (SOV) against their competitor set in a given market.

9. Bubble Chart

When to Use It: Represent three-dimensional data.

Example Use Case: A media agency can use a bubble chart to compare revenue, cost, and profit in three dimensions. Each bubble can represent a different campaign, with the size of the bubble indicating the amount of ROAS, the x-axis showing sales per day, and the y-axis showing Avg. CPC. This helps in visualizing the financial performance of multiple campaigns simultaneously.

10. Donut Chart

When to Use It: Emphasize specific parts within a whole.

Example Use Case: Similar to a pie chart, a donut chart can show the distribution of marketing expenditures. A media agency might use this chart to highlight the planned spent throughout, emphasizing the parts within the overall spending. Great for showing the different spend levels in a linear way.