This is probably the hardest part of marketing, just as it\u2019s the most difficult part of a scientific experiment. Having your hypothesis<\/strong> (your hopes for your results from marketing), designing the experiment<\/strong> (the strategy you think will get you there), conducting the experiment<\/strong> (implementing those strategies), and collecting the data<\/strong> (same) are all the easy parts. Analyzing the data that you\u2019ve collected<\/em>\u2014that\u2019s the tricky part. Figuring out the \u201cwhy\u201d behind all of that data is what will help you duplicate the results or avoid these results in the future if things didn\u2019t turn out the way you wanted them to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Knowing why one of your products is outselling the other could help you sell more of both products. Was it because more people need the first product? Was it because you weren\u2019t talking about the second product enough? Maybe it\u2019s something as simple as the fact that the steps to buy product 1 were quicker and easier than product 2. For example: if product 2 was out of reach on a higher shelf, whereas product 1 was at eye level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just because the data shows a correlation though, doesn\u2019t mean that one event caused the other. A volcano erupting in the Pacific Ocean at the same exact time as your new product launch likely doesn\u2019t have anything to do with the results of your launch. The timing of the volcano event may correlate<\/em> with the timing of your launch event, but it didn\u2019t cause<\/em> any of the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I know that was a ridiculous example. Obviously one event was not related to the other in any meaningful way. But when you\u2019re pulling data points from everywhere trying to figure out what\u2019s working with your marketing, it can be really easy to misinterpret that data. Did your email with subject line A get more opens in your A\/B testing because it was better? Or were your segments not as evenly segmented as you thought?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just like in a scientific experiment, studying more data over a greater length of time will give you a better idea of what parts indicate actual causation and what is just correlation. When two things correlate so strongly that it seems like one thing causes the other, take a step back and look deeper to see if there is a possibility that something else entirely caused both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All the best,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disclaimer:<\/strong>\u00a0While marketing is based in part on statistics and psychology, it is not an exact science. Every business and market are unique. What may work for one business, will not necessarily work for another. There are no guarantees in marketing, and this post is for informational and educational purposes only and does not replace professional advice. You can check out the full list of disclaimers and disclosures\u00a0<\/em>here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n With all of the scientific misinformation going around right now, I thought it would be a good idea to touch base on the fact that just because there is a correlation between two events, it doesn\u2019t mean that one event caused the other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-affordable-marketing","category-small-business-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Ryanne Zender<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n![\"Always](\"https:\/\/www.fyrbyrddesigns.com\/from-ashes-to-flames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AnalyzetheData-PIN-683x1024.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"