from architecture to analytics: a look at simply business’s data strategy
TRANSCRIPT
Stewart DuncanDirector of Data Science, Simply Business
Revamping Your Data Approach
Introduction to Simply Business
● Amongst the largest business insurance providers in the UK
● Almost 300,000 customers (and growing fast)
● Using tech to make insurance simpler, easier and more
personalised
● Customer service is our beating heart
● Building a data-driven culture
The Simply Business Product
● Tailored quotes from a panel of 20 insurance providers
● 4 verticals and over 1000 trades
● Online and offline channels
● White label partnerships with large UK aggregators
● Proprietary rating engine technology
● Dynamic online journey - highly specific to a customer
● Highly agile technology
Unique in our market niche, but fast moving and therefore challenging to analyse
Our analytics team a year ago…
Alberto
DanieleAnthony
Imtiaz
Natalie & Emma
How had we got there?
Core OLTP platform migration
Single tool approach to our data warehouse..Siloed web analytics
Resulted in… Which meant we did a lot of this…
You can’t have it all
Volume Accuracy
Speed
Revamping Data CapabilitiesM
echa
nism
Opp
ortu
nity
Use data to optimise existing processes
Run The Business
Use data to optimise the creation of new business processes
Change The Business
Explore data to identify new opportunities
Find New Business
Best practice data warehouse
Scalable data exploration platform
Unified event processing framework
Automated event enrichment and loading
Twitch analytics for product owners
Analyst toolkit for discovery
Data syndication(in & out)
External analytics applications
Leverage Position
Use data to leverage position
in market
Make data visible to users as early as possible
Zendesk
Using Event Data to Inform Product Decisions
Zendesk
Chopin App
RabbitFeed
Ruby TrackerServer events
Snowplow EnrichmentClientJavascript
TrackerCustom Channel
Enrichment
Page view events
Redshift
Google AdWords
Clicks and cost reports
Post-process sessionising
Cross-channel ID stitching
ExactTarget Email Platform
Telephony Solution
Email eventsCall /
Service events
LookML Looker UIAPI
Excel KPIs
Aggregated Visitor Metrics
SQL Server
Mongo DB
BudgetsFinancial Transactions
Keeping tabs on our event system
A/B Testing
Empowering Teams
• Not just the data team
• Gold, Silver, Bronze events
• Events or it didn’t happen
• Easy to send into infrastructure
• LookML easily extended
Adding a new Silver Event in LookML
Leveraging derived tables
Redshift window functions to easily traverse event stream
Basic counts for simple engagement metrics
Logic can be promoted back into ETL when embedded
Incorporated into more complex models
New Silver Event
Empowering Teams
New events added to simple Explores, with more complicated funnel events incorporated using derived tables.
Roadmap
• Incorporating more events from different systems
• Developing a customer identity service
• Moving to real-time data enrichment for feeding back into core application
• Experimenting with Looker API for data syndication to other systems
Zach TaylorProduct Marketing, Looker
Revamping Your Data Approach
11 “Custom” Metrics
2 Centralize Data
3 Decentralize Access
3 Thoughts on Data Strategy
“Custom” Metrics
Too broad Too Much Noise
Not Actionable
The Problem with Vanity Metrics
Individuals are not empowered
Hard to isolate specific outcomes/behaviors
Don’t inform better decisions
What to Measure
Quantify with Data
Rally Around Better Metrics
“Custom” Analytics Instead
Identify what exactly you want to know
Use data to quantify and measure specific behavior
Empower individuals by tracking their impact
Venmo’s Product Redesign
Before: After:
Whoops…
Using Custom Analytics
“It was clear some users were
accidentally paying instead of charging, but it wasn't clear
how widespread the problem was and
whether it was worth prioritizing a fix”
Centralize Data
Merge Disparate Sources
Marketing DataAttribution channelAdwords
Transactional DataUser detailsSize of purchase
Event DataDuration on the siteFlow through app
RedshiftUnified model
Integrated Model:
• How much should we pay for a landlord insurance click vs business user click?
• Are our marketing campaigns delivering quality users?
“Our internal system showing adoptions and upgrades from Twitter ads. This wouldn’t be
possible without tying attribution data to our engagement data in a
central database.”
Funnels at Asana
Source: https://eng.asana.com/2014/11/great-data-delivery/
Decentralize Access
—TODD LEHRSVP Engineering, Dollar Shave Club
“We have a developer name Juan and any reports we needed would flow through him.”
—TODD LEHRSVP Engineering, Dollar Shave Club
“When he got backlogged, our team didn’t have access to the data immediately.”
Domain expertise
Allow them to explore
Create a unified model
Give Everyone Access
People with questions are running the business
As much data from as many vectors as possible
So that people can rally around agreed-upon data
Model-Based Workflow
UnifiedLookML model
Data Team
Product
Marketing
Support
Unified model of the data Interface to the data
Find metrics that drive decisions
Centralize disparate data sources
Provide data access to your full organization
Key Takeaways
Look & Tell London
What: Hear how our other innovative customers are leveraging their data
When: May 13, 6:30 pm
Where: Ace Hotel Shoreditch
