We are back with another round of our new series, “One thing I can’t live without.” Our first one kicked off with Charlie Cole, VP, Online Marketing, Lucky Brand Jeans, followed by Dan Scott, Chief Marketing Officer, Scott Kay Inc and BJ Emerson, VP, Technology, Tasti D-Lite. This week, we bring you Brandon Proctor, VP, Marketing, Build.com.

Our series is, of course, business related – but we still hope it will be something to look forward to as it will reveal one thing someone in your industry (who you may even know), can’t work without. We’re talking about anything that you and your colleagues, as retailers or multi-channel retail solution providers, cannot do your jobs without. And we’re taking that beyond the obvious.

Our aim is to bring you some tactical tips straight from the experts’ mouths. Hopefully one or two of them will help you out in unexpected ways. And without further adieu, we bring you Brandon’s, “One thing I can’t live without…”

Brandon Proctor, Build.com

1. As an online marketer and retailer, what’s something you can’t live without? And we don’t mean coffee. We mean anything from a technology tool to a partner to a cool trick you do on Excel to a shortcut you take. Anything you think your job would be impossible to do without.

I couldn’t live without the ability to track our marketing channels, export the data and create actions based on what we find.

2. Can you explain what this is – if necessary?

The role of an online marketer today is about 70% data and 30% art. The data tells you where to look, and the art (creativity) helps you determine the possibilities for an action/behavior taking place.

3. Why can you NOT live without this?

We wouldn’t be able to make good decisions. We may make 6/10 good decisions without access to it, but we can make 10/10 with access to it.

4. How often do you use it and how long have you been using it?

I have been using analytics to make my marketing decisions for over 10 years now, which is this space is longer than most.

5. What did you do before you had this?

I used excel and access with DB queries to pull down data that was almost all post purchase, which means I had no real insight into the behaviors on the site to help me get more people to purchase.

6. If lightning struck tomorrow and you suddenly didn’t have this one thing, what would you do to improvise?

I would use our previous 90 days worth of performance, combined with our last year (same time) performance to make the best decisions possible per channel without insight into what is happening right now.

7. How can other people get this too?

Everyone has access to an analytics solution, but not everyone knows how to collect the RIGHT data and even if they are collecting the right data they often don’t know what to do with it. It is not like this is a black box, but there is a huge problem within many organizations when it comes to executing effectively from an analytics standpoint.

BONUS: And what’s the non-work related thing you can’t do your job without? This is where the coffee, or anything else comes in…

I drink yerba mate tea instead of coffee, which although it still contains caffeine it also contains copious amounts of vitamins and minerals. I think it helps to increase my output and input by approximately 15%. 😉