"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." - J.R.R. Tolkien
When building a brand story, there are many parts that we often talk about - keywords, color schemes, emotional resonance and so forth. However, there’s another part that we do not often tie into brand-building and that is the analytics, the repeat patterns and the subtle trends of the way a product or products move in a brand.
This form of intelligence can help you build a strong brand using technology - to find a customer-friendly trend and build a story behind it. One of the masters of intelligent storytelling is J.R.R. Tolkien, so here are four ways to think about using an analytics tool such as Adobe Analytics as well as some of my favorite Tolkien quotes on how to transition data into insights to build your brand.
1. Insights About Community Are Telling
"For even the wise, cannot see all ends." - J.R.R. Tolkien
With any data, if there is no knowledge or end story you can pull from it, there’s no reason to digest it. Ian Gertler of Symplegades explains, “Today, it’s all about prescriptive analytics… This is the value of continuous intelligence, which Rita Sallam (research vice president at Gartner) calls both a grand challenge and a grand opportunity. A few years ago, analytics provided organizations with a competitive advantage. Going forward, failing to understand the people part of digital transformation will lead to the extinction of more companies.”
The people part of the brand story is one of the most crucial parts of building a brand story. Understanding the brand demographic’s journey through easily digestible charts and figures will help lead a brand to understanding and speaking to their customer base better.
2. Vanity Metrics Are Not Helpful
"Short cuts make long delays." - J.R.R. Tolkien
The term “vanity metrics” deals with numbers that are intended to inflate an individual or brand’s ego. Often, these metrics are not as relevant to understanding your community and brand because they are artificially inflated - through frowned-upon purchases of followers and likes. It is a short cut to inflate a brand to make it look larger with a more devoted following then it has in reality.
Sarah Evans, digital correspondent and consultant offers, "I have been privy to so many different analytics tools -- partially because it's a passion and because it's part of my profession. Adobe solves so many problems on following the customer journey, true analytics. They've evolved past vanity metrics and harness the power of machine learning, AI and modern data analysis. I can't wait to see what's next." It has been fascinating to see the increased use of AI in analytics tools to help predict where and why your customer base will make their next big decision.
3. Let Everyone Access The Data
"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." - J.R.R. Tolkien
As a marketing professional, I have seen customer and community data be siloed within a group of analysts who then sparingly dole it out (often for political reasons). Having a central hub that everyone can access is incredibly helpful so the entire company/organization can understand what is happening with the numbers and make a better team-based decision. Even a non-data driven employee can occasionally see a brand pattern that no one else has yet discovered.
Nait Gallego, Sr. Manager Web Development at Procore Technologies and a former Google Analytics user explains, “Ensuring optimal experiences, despite the medium, is a critical component to Procore website. Adobe Analytics gives us a more complete view of each customer and their journey on our web properties. We’re not only able to capture insights in real-time that matter to our bottom line, but also able to democratize that data across the organization.” Sharing data with everyone on the team (democratizing it) regardless of role will help all teams build a better brand story.
4. Track The Customer’s Journey From Beginning To End
As J.R.R. Tolkien once said, “ The road goes ever on and on.” The same is true for a customer journey with a brand - from brand awareness to landing page to (yay!) purchase. Thoroughly understanding the journey from beginning to end only helps a brand build a stronger story and purchasing funnel.
Joe Martin, VP of CloudApp offers, “The ability to connect a customers journey from blog visit, to email click through, to social engagement, to ad view, to ultimate purchase and post-purchase loyalty is really where the magic happens as a data scientist. Adobe Analytics with its machine learning, AI, and other modern data analysis tools are unmatched when it comes to capturing and delivering on this type of data and insight. Kelly Hungerford, a MarTech leader, includes, “Move past web only tracking and look for integration of all online and offline touchpoints. Adobe Analytics offers far more in-depth tracking of custom events and conversion.”
It is this knowledge of the beginning of a customer journey even from offline to an online context that will help grow a brand to better cater to and be in sync with their demographic.
Data analytics is the science of analyzing raw data to make conclusions about information. Many of the techniques and processes of data analytics have been automated into mechanical processes and algorithms that work over raw data for human consumption.
Data analytics is a broad term that encompasses many diverse types of data analysis. Any type of information can be subjected to data analytics techniques to get insight that can be used to Boost things. Data analytics techniques can reveal trends and metrics that would otherwise be lost in the mass of information. This information can then be used to optimize processes to increase the overall efficiency of a business or system.
For example, manufacturing companies often record the runtime, downtime, and work queue for various machines and then analyze the data to better plan workloads so the machines operate closer to peak capacity.
Data analytics can do much more than point out bottlenecks in production. Gaming companies use data analytics to set reward schedules for players that keep the majority of players active in the game. Content companies use many of the same data analytics to keep you clicking, watching, or re-organizing content to get another view or another click.
Data analytics is important because it helps businesses optimize their performances. Implementing it into the business model means companies can help reduce costs by identifying more efficient ways of doing business and by storing large amounts of data.
A company can also use data analytics to make better business decisions and help analyze customer trends and satisfaction, which can lead to new and better products and services.
The process involved in data analysis involves several steps:
Data analytics is broken down into four basic types:
Data analytics underpins many quality control systems in the financial world, including the ever-popular Six Sigma program. It's nearly impossible to optimize something if you aren’t properly measuring it, whether it's your weight or the number of defects per million in a production line.
The sectors that have adopted the use of data analytics include the travel and hospitality industry where turnarounds can be quick. This industry can collect customer data and figure out where problems, if any, lie and how to fix them.
Healthcare combines the use of high volumes of structured and unstructured data and uses data analytics to make quick decisions. Similarly, the retail industry uses copious amounts of data to meet the ever-changing demands of shoppers. The information that retailers collect and analyze can help them identify trends, recommend products, and increase profits.
The average total pay for a data analyst in the United States was just over $80,000 in August 2023.
Data analysts can use several analytical methods and techniques to process data and extract information. Some of the most popular methods include:
Data analytics has rapidly evolved in technological capabilities in addition to a broad range of mathematical and statistical approaches to crunching numbers. Data analysts have a broad range of software tools to help acquire data, store information, process data, and report findings.
Data analytics has always had loose ties to spreadsheets and Microsoft Excel. Data analysts also often interact with raw programming languages to transform and manipulate databases.
Data analysts also have help when reporting or communicating findings. Both Tableau and Power BI are data visualization and analysis tools used to compile information, perform data analytics, and distribute results via dashboards and reports.
Other tools are also emerging to assist data analysts. SAS is an analytics platform that can assist with data mining. Apache Spark is an open-source platform useful for processing large sets of data. Data analysts have a broad range of technological capabilities to further enhance the value they deliver to their company.
Data analytics can enhance operations, efficiency, and performance in numerous industries by shining a spotlight on patterns. Implementing these techniques can provide companies and businesses a competitive edge. The process includes four basic steps of analysis.
As the name suggests, this step involves “mining” or gathering data and information from across a broad spectrum of sources. Various forms of information are then recreated into the same format so they can eventually be analyzed. The process can take a good bit of time, more than any other step.
Data requires a database to contain, manage, and provide access to the information gathered through mining. The next step in data analytics is therefore the creation of such a database to manage the information. SQL was a common tool used for this purpose in the early days of data analytics and it's still widely used in 2023. Created in 1979, this computing language allows relational databases to be queried and the resulting data sets to be more easily analyzed.
The third step is statistical analysis. It involves the interpretation of the gathered and stored data into models that will hopefully reveal trends that can be used to interpret future data. This is achieved through open-source programming languages such as Python. More specific tools for data analytics, like R, can be used for statistical analysis or graphical modeling.
The results of the data analytics process are meant to be shared. The final step is formatting the data so it’s accessible to and understandable by others, particularly those individuals within a company who are responsible for growth, analysis, efficiency, and operations. Having access can be beneficial to shareholders as well.
Data analytics provide a critical component of a business’s probability of success. Gathering, sorting, analyzing, and presenting information can significantly enhance and benefit society, particularly in fields such as healthcare and crime prevention. But the uses of data analytics can be equally beneficial for small enterprises and startups that are looking for an edge over the business next door, albeit on a smaller scale,
Implementing data analytics into the business model means companies can help reduce costs by identifying more efficient ways of doing business. A company can also use data analytics to make better business decisions.
Data analytics is broken down into four basic types. Descriptive analytics describes what has happened over a given period. Diagnostic analytics focuses more on why something happened. Predictive analytics moves to what is likely going to happen in the near term. Finally, prescriptive analytics suggests a course of action.
Data analytics has been adopted by several sectors where turnarounds can be quick, such as the travel and hospitality industry. Healthcare is another sector that combines the use of high volumes of structured and unstructured data, and data analytics can help in making quick decisions. The retail industry also uses large amounts of data to meet the ever-changing demands of shoppers.
Data analytics helps individuals and organizations make sure of their data in a world that's increasingly becoming reliant on information and gathering statistics. A set of raw numbers can be transformed using a variety of tools and techniques, resulting in informative, educational insights that drive decision-making and thoughtful management.
You may not realize it, but many of the data-driven insights in GA4 that you utilize daily are powered by AI.
Features like automated insights, custom insights, and personalized recommendations showcase the power of AI to guide better marketing decisions.
In a latest video on the Google Analytics YouTube channel, Google’s Developer Relations Lead, Matt Landers, provides a thorough overview of these features.
Here’s a recap of what the video covers.
One of the most prominent AI-driven features in GA4 is automated insights.
Automated insights appear front and center on the dashboard in easy-to-digest graphical formats. No advanced expertise is needed to benefit from the date.
Powered by machine learning algorithms, automated insights continuously analyze your data to detect unusual changes or emerging trends.
For example, if organic search traffic suddenly accounts for over 50% of conversions, GA4 will surface this anomaly as an automated insight.
Unlike a human analyst endlessly combing through metrics to spot variations, the AI looks for statistically significant changes likely to impact your business. It cuts through the noise to show you what matters.
The system learns over time to provide insights tailored to your business based on your feedback. Thumbs up or down on each insight train the algorithms on what’s valuable to you.
While automated insights focus on detecting anomalies, custom insights allow you to define the exact metrics and thresholds you want to track.
With up to 50 custom insights available per property, you can fine-tune them to track what you care about.
For example, you may want to be notified if mobile traffic drops below 25% of visits to avoid overreliance on desktop.
Or if transactions from a particular country exceed 20% of revenue, indicating fast growth in a new market.
The flexibility makes it easy to configure custom insights based on your unique goals.
Email notifications allow you to investigate and respond appropriately when an insight is triggered.
For more on creating custom insights in GA4, see Google’s help page.
Rounding out the AI capabilities is a personalized recommendations feature.
Much like having an analytics assistant at your side, it suggests ways to fine-tune marketing initiatives to reach goals.
The AI might recommend lowering your ad bid for a keyword if your acquisition cost is too high, allowing you to Boost campaign performance. Or expand your reach by targeting similar audiences to your current best customers.
Clear steps are included with each recommendation so you know exactly how to implement the suggestions. The AI does the analytical heavy lifting to serve up optimization opportunities on a silver platter.
Analytics 4 provides marketers with a sophisticated AI toolkit to uncover growth opportunities.
Automated insights surface meaningful changes in your data. Custom insights allow granular tracking of key metrics. And recommendations provide an analytics assistant to guide better decisions.
Featured Image: Primakov/Shutterstock
Here are the top tips and tricks that you can use to view, annotate, sign, and work on PDF documents in Adobe Acrobat Reader more effectively.
These are the top tips and tricks using which you can Boost the experience of working with PDF documents in free Adobe Acrobat Reader:
Adobe Acrobat Reader allows you to perform some standard editing tasks on your PDFs. These include adding comments to the PDF, inserting sticky notes, highlighting important text, adding text boxes, etc. You can also create drawings in your PDFs and add shapes like lines, circles, arrows, rectangles, ovals, text callouts, and more. It also lets you perform some basic text formatting such as underline text, strikethrough text, etc.
To use these tools, go to the Tools tab and click on the Open button present under the Comments tool. It will then open up the related toolbar that you can use to edit or annotate your PDF.
You can also add audio recordings to your PDFs in Adobe Acrobat Reader. It allows you to add voice comments in PDFs. To add audio recordings to PDFs, choose the Tools > Comments > Open option and click on the Add a new attachment option. From the drop-down menu options, select the Record Audio option. Now, record audio through your microphone and then attach it to your PDF.
You can even add a pre-recorded audio file to the PDF. It supports WAV and AIFF audio formats to do that.
One of the most important tools in Acrobat Reader is its Fill & Sign tool. Using this tool, you can fill out PDF forms and electronically sign your PDF documents. This tool can be accessed from the Sign menu or Tools tab. It lets you draw your signatures or add initials to the PDF. You can also browse and add an image of your signature from your PC.
You can also request recipients to digitally sign and validate the PDF. To do that, you can click on the Request E-Signatures button and then enter the name or email address of the recipients to send them the request. However, in the free version of Acrobat Reader, you can send e-signature requests to a limited number of users only.
TIP: Adobe Fill and Sign not working.
Stamping PDF is quite a regular PDF annotation task. In Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can easily insert stamps into your PDF documents. These stamps can be Confidential, Approved, Rejected, Modified, Final version, Draft, etc. You can use these and more stamps by using the Tools tab > Stamp option.
Adobe Acrobat Reader lets you use some keyboard shortcut keys to quickly perform a specific task. Some of the important Acrobat hotkeys that you must know are as follows:
You can also use single-key shortcuts to quickly access tools and enhance your workflow speed.
To do that, click on the Edit > Preferences option, and from the General tab, tick the checkbox associated with the Use single-key accelerators to access tools option. Finally, press the OK button to save changes. You can now use the following shortcut keys:
Read: Cannot edit PDF files on Acrobat Reader DC.
If you want to quickly revert to a previous version of the opened PDF document and undo all changes, you can do that too. Just click on the File menu and choose the Revert option. On the prompted confirmation dialog, press the Revert button and it will undo all the changes and restore a previously saved version of the PDF.
To work on documents, you can customize PDF settings as per your requirements. You can customize the page display preferences like page layout, resolution, rendering options, show/hide large images, use smooth zooming, use logical page numbers, show reference XObject targets, etc. Apart from that, you can also set up other preferences like multimedia, accessibility, screen reader options, search options, forms, enable spellcheck, etc.
See: Fix Adobe Reader error 109 when opening, reading, or saving PDF.
Adobe Acrobat provides a dedicated Measure tool to find out different statistics like distance, area, and perimeter of objects in your PDFs. It also lets you find the location on the map or select an area to view the respective longitude and latitude values. This tool is really helpful in analyzing a geospatial PDF document. Besides that, you can also view object data.
To use the Measure tool, go to the Tools tab and select the Open option under the Measure tool.
It also lets you share your PDF documents with other users who can read the PDF document as well as add comments and sign the PDF. You can go to the File menu > Share File option or click on the Tools > Share > Open option to share your PDF file with other users.
You can also add a deadline for the document by clicking on the Add Deadline button and then choosing a due date.
Read: Adobe Acrobat Reader DC not showing bookmarks in Windows PC.
You can also save your PDF document as a plain text document in Adobe Acrobat. To do that, click on the File > Save as Text option and enter the filename of the document to save it.
The PDF tips and tricks about Adobe Acrobat that we shared above are applicable to the free version. If you have a Pro edition, there is a lot more you can do with PDFs using Acrobat. This includes combining files into a single PDF, converting PDFs to Excel, Word, or Powerpoint, compressing PDFs, and more.
To optimize or compress a PDF document in Adobe Acrobat, you can click on the File menu and choose the Compress File option. Alternatively, move to the Tools tab, scroll down to the Compress File tool, click on the Open button, choose the input PDF, and follow the prompted instructions to compress the PDF.
You can create a PDF more interactive and interesting by adding interactive elements to it. These elements may include PDF form elements, clickable links, buttons, multimedia items, audio comments, and more. All these options are provided in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
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If you're a visual artist of any kind, it's a good bet that you've used one or more of the software tools in the Adobe Creative Cloud. If you're a working artist, you might even use them every day. Many creators take these platforms for granted, but Adobe has evolved its software by leaps and bounds with each new update, to the point that even everyday users might not be seeing their full potential.
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In this post, we will explain what is AcroTray and how to remove or disable AcroTray.exe from Startup. ActoTray.exe is a service from Adobe Acrobat used for various purposes, including monitoring genuine use of the Adobe Software. However, because the service keeps running in the background, it slows down the Windows Startup and makes PC slow as it takes up CPU resources. This post will look at various methods to disable Adobe AcroTray.exe from starting at a startup.
You can disable it from the Windows Startup or disable the service, so it doesn’t load. However, if you launch Adobe Acrobat, it will automatically launch it.
There is no harm in disabling Acrotray from Startup as it will be launched when you launch any of the adobe software.
While Adobe offers it has a startup service for various reasons, including ways to launch Adobe software faster, but then it doesn’t need to be running all the time. Even if disabled, the service can be launched when Adobe requires it. In simple words, the service doesn’t need to be part of the Startup. These are suggested methods to disable it.
One of the biggest problems disabling AcroTray.exe is that it can be invoked by other programs and even the context menu. It makes the PC even slower because first AcroTray.exe is started, and then you get the complete right-click menu. That’s where the ShellExView comes into the picture. It removes the menu that is associated with Adobe, and the program will no longer be triggered.
Next time your PC restarts, it will not load the program, and it will not run in the background unless you or any other program launches it.
Similar to disabling from the Startup, the service can be manually invoked, and if you do not want to use it, you can manually stop the program using the Task Manager.
Autoruns is a popular freeware from Microsoft that offers an advanced view of programs set to run as the computer boots up automatically. Once you have the utility, locate any Adobe Related programs, including the Adobe Updater, Startup Utility, Adobe Acrobat Synchronizer. and the Acrobat Assistant (AcroTray)
ShellExView a free startup manager program from NirSoft which allows you to remove items from the context menu. As you install the software, each adds its own context. The same applies to Adobe Acrobat. So when you right-click on a file, this launches the AcroTray.exe.
So the best way to resolve this is by downloading the program and then disable Adobe Acrobat Create PDF from Selection, Adobe Acrobat Create PDF Helper, and Adobe Acrobat Create PDF Toolbar. If you see anything else, then you can disable that too. It’s a small sacrifice you need to make to get rid of the problem.
If you are getting AcroTray.exe has stopped working or AcroTray.exe not loading, or AcroTray.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close, you can restart the and then launch any of the Adobe applications on your computer.
It is recommended not to, but if it’s taking a lot of resources on your PC, then you can. It’s a tool that is part of Adobe Software Integrity Service validation testing. If there is a licensing issue, it can figure it out.