Data has a pulse: using data to inform and design marketing

Start with a question,
then choose the message.

“Make a nice animation” is a fairly loose brief. “Help people understand what they’ll leave this workshop knowing” gives us somewhere to go. Search terms, customer questions, support requests, product use and properly collected feedback can all help find that starting point.

In the campaign planner, choosing creative makers or business teams changes the headline and workshop brief. Choosing a website or venue screen changes the composition. These are authored design rules using invented inputs, rather than a machine deciding what people must want.

In a real campaign I’d check the sample, the date and what the question actually asked. Seventy-two per cent of twenty-five respondents is different evidence from seventy-two per cent of five thousand. Clicks can suggest curiosity; they don’t tell you whether someone understood the offer or had a useful experience.

The evidence helps choose the story.
The design helps someone understand it.

Give the artwork
a reliable source.

A product name, a price, an event date, a colour and an availability figure can be fields in a shared record. Once those fields have clear meanings, the same record can populate a landing page, a motion graphic, a printed card and a social carousel.

The campaign planner binds the headline to the audience and adapts the layout to the placement. The output studio below extends that record into flyers, adverts and screen graphics. The design supplies the rules; the data supplies the values.

Change a record and you can regenerate the materials without retyping everything. You still need someone to approve the message, check awkward text lengths, confirm image rights and review the finished export. A video already uploaded to a social network won’t update when the source changes; it needs a fresh export and a deliberate replacement.

A little Matrix energy.
With a reason behind it.

The Feedroom view shows the publishing status of workshop availability, venue access and artwork. Filter to records needing review, then refresh the sample to see the access record become publishable.

That distinction matters in the less glamorous part of the job. Stable IDs stop two products being mistaken for one another. Shared units stop pounds becoming pennies. Timestamps tell us whether a number is still useful. Validation catches missing values before a confident-looking animation turns them into misinformation.

Zero places means sold out. Missing availability means we don’t know. The game lobby disables a full world, while the evidence-review queue keeps missing measurement separate from known zero traffic.

The same record can
build a small world.

The Worlds lobby gives each destination a small illustrated island and an explicit number of open places. Selecting a world updates its join state. Joining uses one demo place, while a full lobby cannot be joined.

That same principle can drive a game’s inventory, a progression map, an event installation or a stream overlay. In a game, state changes should happen in the game’s rules, with the animation showing the result. A pretty effect should never secretly become the source of truth.

The Customer view is a workshop booking interface. Ticket quantity changes the total and remaining places. Reserving updates the demo booking and prevents overbooking; it does not take payment.

Not every question
needs a spinning jewel.

The useful thing about combining design with data work is being able to choose the view that suits the question. A map tells you where. A chart tells you what changed. A funnel makes a sequence visible. A graph shows how records relate to each other.

These examples borrow the kinds of problems I work on across events, community platforms, websites and hosting. The records below are invented for this article. They are not customer metrics or extracts from those projects.

A map for “where?”

Working on Sheff Events means thinking about place as well as time. An event listing needs a usable location, a consistent category and a date that means the same thing everywhere. Here, a schematic map lets you choose a fictional venue, inspect its availability and filter for step-free access. It is not a directions service.

For a council, the map needs to answer a real question.

A service finder brings together location, opening hours and access information. Filter this fictional map for step-free locations and choose a pin to inspect its details. A real service needs an owner, a last-checked date and a way to report incorrect information.

A chart for “what changed?”

A campaign report needs a consistent time interval, named measures and a visible scale. This example compares six fictional weekly counts of enquiries and qualified enquiries on the same zero-based scale. Chart segments grow in time order so the sequence remains understandable.

A funnel for “where is the friction?”

Website visits, offer views, enquiries and bookings are different events. Define them before putting them in a funnel, and use the same cohort and period. Here the visible planning choices change the assumed booking rate applied to 108 qualified enquiries. The final count is a projection, not a measured campaign result.

A graph for “what depends on what?”

A shared event record can connect a venue, campaign, website and customer message. Switch the source record below: the website, email and venue-screen summaries all use the same saved information. Shared content avoids retyping facts into unrelated materials.

Community work such as Together is also a reminder to think carefully about what connections should be exposed. A useful visual should have a clear purpose and respect the permissions of its underlying records.

Measure what the
creative was meant to do.

For this imaginary workshop, the first question might be whether people understand the outcome. The next might be whether suitable visitors book a place. I’d choose those questions before deciding which dashboard numbers to celebrate.

Keep a record of the creative version, audience, placement and dates. Compare equivalent periods and account for changes in budget, seasonality and audience mix. If you test two headlines, keep the rest as consistent as you can. A spike after launch is a reason to investigate, not proof that the animation caused it.

Aggregated evidence is often enough to improve a piece of marketing. You don’t need someone’s name falling through an animated display. The operational examples use fictional records; the ESPN sports hub labels its real source separately, and the visual rules are visible so you can see what is doing what.

Good data leaves
more room to play.

The useful bit is the connection: evidence shapes the brief, structured content builds the materials, and thoughtful measurement helps with the next version. That can be a very sensible customer update. It can also be a weird little glowing jewel on a low-poly island. I’m quite happy making both.

Got information that’s difficult to explain? I can help turn it into something people can understand, interact with and enjoy.