Excel for Marketers - Why do you hate Excel (#Measurefest 2013)

transcript

Why do you hate Excel?

Russell McAthyMeasureFest Oct

Is it?• Most people are self taught / taught by

someone self taught

• Its made by Microsoft and its “cool to hate them”

• It’s a “work” application

• You don’t know what you don’t know

• What version do you use?

• There are 8+ ways to sum two cells together!

YES – 8+• A1 + B1

• SUM(A1,B1)

• SUM(A1:B1)

• SUBTOTAL(A1:B1)

• SUMIF…

• SUMIFS…

• SUM(OFFSET…

• SUMPRODUCT

And these are the ones that I could remember..

Errors are no fun

N/A #REF!

The Issue:Spreadsheets are only useful in context…

How do I give you takeaways that will be actionable

when you go back to your office..

So here is 32+ Tips for Excel

for Marketers!I’ve snuck in some extra tips at the end of the deck so check it out on slideshare – links will be tweeted out after the event!

My Goal: Save everyone 5 mins a week…

~800 of youThat’s 67 hours a week

That’s 3.5k hours a year

You’re welcome!

At £500 an hour…

That’s £1.7 MILLION

In no particular order…

Stop Merging CellsUse Center Across Selection

Calculating GrowthSimple formula to remember growth % calculation

NEW / OLD - 1Then format the cell as a % (percentage)

546 Sales This year vs 410 sales last year

546 / 410 – 1 =

Calculating GrowthSimple formula to remember growth % calculation

NEW / OLD - 1Then format the cell as a % (percentage)

546 Sales This year vs 410 sales last year

546 / 410 – 1 =

Remove GridlinesDon’t Select all cells and change to white!

Text to ColumnsGreat for breaking out URL’s into folders

Shortcut KeysShortcut Action

CTRL + X Cut

CTRL + C Copy

CTRL + V Paste

CTRL+arrow direction Moves curser to end of data

Holding SHIFT Highlights

Holding SHIFT + CTRL + arrow direction Highlights to end of data

CTRL + A Highlights full section

F2 Edits current cell

Shortcut Keys (more)

Shortcut Action

(hold) ALT then press E then S … Paste Special

(as above) then V then Enter Paste Special - Values

(as above) then T then Enter Paste Special - Formats

(as above) then F then Enter Paste Special - Formulas

CTRL + 1 Format Cell

CTRL + ; (semi colon) Inserts todays date

ALT + = Inserts SUM for column

Use TablesIf you’re using basic data – use tables

Pivot Tables are MAGIC

If you don’t use them already – learn! Its easy and makes data manipulative

Pivot Tables are MAGIC

If you don’t use them already – learn! Its easy and makes data manipulative

Pivot: Calculated Fields

Don’t do averages of averages! – Perfect for CVR

Pivot: Calculated Fields

Don’t do averages of averages! – Perfect for CVR

Formula TransposingWhen you want to change the direction of a formula!

Lets look at some formulas that might be useful

Vlookup“I have a table of data that I want to look up a value in”

= VLOOKUP ( A10 , D1:E10 , 2 , FALSE )

“The thing I want to look up”

“the list of things I’m looking it up against”

“I don’t want excel to give me the closest answer – but the

accurate answer”

“in the lookup table – what column do we want to bring

back”

accurate answer”

back”

accurate answer”

back”

…you can also do =HLOOKUP if the data is formatted Horizontally rather than Vertically

IF“If something is true, then do this…otherwise do that”

= IF ( C3=“PPC” , “Paid Media” , “Other” )

“Is this true?”

“If its true – do this”

“If its false – do this”

IF“If something is true, then do this…otherwise do that”

= IF ( C3=“PPC” , “Paid Media” , “Other” )

“Is this true?”

“If its true – do this”

“If its false – do this”

SUMIF“Can I add up all values that match certain criteria”

= SUMIF ( A1:A40 , D4 , B1:B40 )

“The list of thinks I’m looking up against”

“the thing I’m looking up”

“the list of things to add when it matches”

= SUMIF ( A1:A40 , D4 , B1:B40 )

…you can also do a COUNTIF – which counts the number of values that match a criteria

SUMIFS“Can I add up all values that match certain MULTIPLE

criteria”

= SUMIFS ( A1:A40 , B1:B40 , D1, C1:C40 , E1 )

“The things I want to add up”

“the ranges of data to look up against”

“the things I’m looking up”

Yes… that’s right it’s the other fubbing way round from SUMIF…

Ok…there might be a few occasions that excel is annoying…

criteria”

= SUMIFS ( A1:A40 , B1:B40 , D1, C1:C40 , E1 )

criteria”

= SUMIFS ( A1:A40 , B1:B40 , D1, C1:C40 , E1 )

MATCH“How far down my data can I find this..”

= MATCH ( “A1005” , B3:38 , 0)

“The thing I’m looking for”

“the range of data to look up in”

“I want it to be an exact match”

MATCH“How far down my data can I find this..”

= MATCH ( “A1005” , B3:38 , 0)

“The thing I’m looking for”

“the range of data to look up in”

“I want it to be an exact match”

OFFSET“I want the value that is 30 rows down, 40 columns

across”

= OFFSET ( A1 , 30 , 40 )

“Where do I want to start”

“how many rows”

“how many columns”

So…. how do we use this?

…you combine a MATCH and an OFFSET

MATCH + OFFSET“I want to see the number of sales when sales code is

A1005”

= OFFSET ( Reference , MATCH() , MATCH() )

MATCH + OFFSET“I want to see the number of sales when sales code is

A1005”

= OFFSET ( Reference , MATCH() , MATCH() )

…its flexible too…

Thanks for listening

If you have any questions please contact me below

@therustybear@stream20

www.russellmcathy.comwww.stream20.com

…the stuff I probably didn’t have time to go through

Conditional Formatting

Visually represent trends / Highlight variances

Conditional Formatting

Visually represent trends / Highlight variances

Calculation OptionsWhen working in a complex excel document – control

when it calculates!

Calculation OptionsWhen working in a complex excel document – control

when it calculates!

Addons to ExcelSometimes Excel is not enough!

• Powerpivot (if you’re using not using excel 2013)

• SEO Tools

• Excellent Analytics

• Adobe Report Builder

• Geoflow – looks exciting

• ExTweets – pulls tweets in

• SEOGadget for Excel

AND or/and OR“I want both things to match” , “I want one of these things to match”

= AND ( C3=“PPC” , c4=“PPC” )

= OR ( C3=“Social” , c4=“PPC” )

Using AND or OR in a IF allows you to match multiple criteria…

String FunctionsFunction What it looks like What it does

LEFT =LEFT(A1,3) Returns the first 3 characters

RIGHT =RIGHT(A1,3) Returns the last 3 characters

MID =MID(A1,3,3)Returns 3 characters

starting at 3 characters in

TRIM =TRIM(A1)Removes blank

characters (spaces) from cell values

LEN =LEN(A1) How long is the string

CONCAT or & =CONCAT(“fish”,”cake”) or “fish”&”cake”

Joins two things together

Handy Date FunctionsIf A1 is todays date….

What you want FormulaShow the day of the week in 3

characters eg. Mon/Tue =TEXT(A1,”ddd”)

First date of the week =A1-WEEKDAY(A1)+1

First date of the year =DATE(1,MONTH(A1),YEAR(A1))

Taking into consideration working days =WORKDAY(A1,7,0)

Translates date value into week day number =WEEKDAY(A1,2)

*be careful with weekdays – the number after the comma refers to the day the week starts with (2 is Monday to Sunday)

Other FunctionsFunction What it looks like What it does

IFERROR =IFERROR(A1/B1,0) Instead of error message returns a 0

UPPER =UPPER(A1) Changes the text value in A1 to uppercase

LOWER =LOWER(A1) Changes the text value in A1 to lowercase

PROPER =PROPER(A1)Changes the text value in

A1 to capitalisation at the start of each word.

MAX =MAX(A1:A10) Provides the maximum value in the range

AVERAGE =AVERAGE(A1:A10)Calculates the mean

average of the range of cells

Excel does a lot more…

If you have any questions please contact me below

@therustybear@stream20

www.russellmcathy.comwww.stream20.com

Excel for Marketers - Why do you hate Excel (#Measurefest 2013)

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