Forecasting Google Analytics with Facebook Prophet

In business, forecasts are everything. To make an accurate forecast you need the latest tools and algorithms. This presentation combines several cutting edge technologies including Google Analytics API, Facebook Prophet, Fable Scalable Time Series, and Shiny Web Applications.

Transcript

1. With the Facebook Prophet Matt Dancho & David Curry Business Science Learning Lab Forecasting Google Analytics
2. Learning Lab Structure • Presentation (20 min) • Demo’s (30 min) • Pro-Tips (15 mins)
3. Shiny API Series • Lab 28 - Shiny Real Estate App ◦ Zillow API • Lab 29 - Shiny Oil & Gas App ◦ Quandl API • Lab 30 - Shiny Finance App ◦ Tidyquant API • Lab 31 - Shiny Marketing App ◦ Google Analytics API • Lab 32 - Shiny Twitter App ◦ Twitter API
4. Learning Labs PRO Every 2-Weeks 1-Hour Course Recordings + Code + Slack $19/month university.business-science.io Lab 31 - Shiny API Series, Pt 4 Shiny + Google Analytics + Prophet Lab 30 - Shiny API Series, Pt 3 Shiny + Finance + Excel + R + Tidyquant Lab 29 - Shiny API Series, Pt 2 Shiny + Quandl + ARIMA for Energy Forecasting Lab 28 - Shiny API Series, Pt 1 Shiny + Zillow for Real Estate Lab 27 - Marketing Series, Pt 4 Google Trends Automation with Shiny Lab 26 - Marketing Series, Pt 3 Customer Journey with Machine Learning Lab 25 - Marketing Series, Pt 2 Attribution with ChannelAttribution Lab 24 - Marketing Series, Pt 1 A/B Testing with Infer Continuous Learning Advanced Topics
5. Agenda • Demo ◦ Google Analytics ◦ Page Views ◦ Forecast Automation • Business Case ◦ Marketing • Google Analytics API ◦ How GA works (80/20) • Facebook Prophet ◦ What is it? ◦ Fable Implementation • 30-Min Demo ◦ Google Analytics API ◦ Prophet ◦ Shiny Page View Forecast Automation [LL PRO] • Pro-Tips & Learning Guide ◦ Build your career
6. Demo
7. Business Case Study Marketing
8. Marketing Funnel Establish Relationship Web Traffic leads to email collection 3 Build Relationship Email enables Nurturing 2 Sales Nurturing leads to Purchasing 1 Why web traffic is important
9. Forecasting is critical The better we can predict • The better we can estimate email conversions • The better we can estimate revenue • The better we can drive results A 20% reduction in forecast error Can save an organization $10M annually
10. Google Analytics API in R
11. Google Analytics Access to A TON of important website data Key Concepts: • Data Organization • Metrics • Dimensions
12. Google Analytics Resource: https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/dimensions-metrics-explorer/
13. R Package: https://code.markedmondson.me/googleAnalyticsR/
14. Facebook Prophet Forecasting Algorithm
15. Facebook Prophet https://facebook.github.io/prophet/ Claims: • Accurate & Fast • Fully automatic • Tunable forecasts • Available in R & Python My experience Prophet works well until it doesn’t. Key Point: No silver bullet.
16. How Prophet works “...additive model where non-linear trends are fit with yearly, weekly, and daily seasonality, plus holiday effects” Prophet Model Trends modeled by selecting changepoints Weeks modeled with dummy variables Seasonal with Fourier Series ...is 3 models added together Source: https://research.fb.com/blog/2017/02/prophet-forecasting-at-scale/
17. Fable Implementation Source: https://pkg.mitchelloharawild.com/fable.prophet/
18. Workflow From zero to Forecast automation
19. Workflow Step-By-Step Start Finish 1 2 3 Google Analytics API Connect to GA Preprocess & Visualize Data Prophet Create prophet model for Page Views & Organic Searches Shiny App that productionizes the models
20. 30-Min Demo Let’s do this!
21. PRO-TIPS Yeahhhhhh!
22. Pro-Tip #1: Give Businesses Apps Apps are what businesses need Businesses can’t scale reports Businesses have cloud & servers Businesses need data democratized Businesses can solve these problems with shiny apps Apps solve these challenges
23. Pro-Tip #2: Say no to reports No
24. Pro-Tip #3: ...and say YES to apps. Yes apps.business-science.io
25. Advanced Visualization Advanced Data Wrangling Advanced Functional Programming & Modeling Advanced Machine Learning Visualization Data Cleaning & Manipulation Data Science Algorithms & Iteration Business Reporting Business Analysis with R (DS4B 101-R) Data Science For Business with R (DS4B 201-R) Web Apps & Shiny Developer (DS4B 102-R + DS4B 202A-R) Web Apps Data Science Foundations 7 Weeks Machine Learning & Business Consulting 10 Weeks Web Application Development 12 Weeks -TRACK Project-Based Courses with Business Application Business Science University R-Track 4-Course R-Track System
26. Key Benefits - Fundamentals - Weeks 1-5 (25 hours of Video Lessons) - Data Manipulation (dplyr) - Time series (lubridate) - Text (stringr) - Categorical (forcats) - Visualization (ggplot2) - Programming & Iteration (purrr) - 3 Challenges - Machine Learning - Week 6 (8 hours of Video Lessons) - Clustering (3 hours) - Regression (5 hours) - 2 Challenges - Learn Business Reporting - Week 7 - RMarkdown & plotly - 2 Project Reports: 1. Product Pricing Algo 2. Customer Segmentation Visualization Data Cleaning & Manipulation Business Reporting Business Analysis with R (DS4B 101-R) Data Science Foundations 7 Weeks Data Science Algorithms & Iteration
27. Key Benefits Understanding the Problem & Preparing Data - Weeks 1-4 - Project Setup & Framework - Business Understanding / Sizing Problem - Tidy Evaluation - rlang - EDA - Exploring Data -GGally, skimr - Data Preparation - recipes - Correlation Analysis - 3 Challenges Machine Learning - Weeks 5, 6, 7 - H2O AutoML - Modeling Churn - ML Performance - LIME Feature Explanation Return-On-Investment - Weeks 7, 8, 9 - Expected Value Framework - Threshold Optimization - Sensitivity Analysis - Recommendation Algorithm Data Science For Business (DS4B 201-R) Machine Learning & Business Consulting 10 Weeks Advanced Visualization Advanced Data Wrangling Advanced Functional Programming & Modeling Advanced Data Science End-to-End Churn Project
28. Key Benefits Learn Shiny & Flexdashboard - Build Applications - Learn Reactive Programming - Integrate Machine Learning App #1: Predictive Pricing App - Model Product Portfolio - XGBoost Pricing Prediction - Generate new products instantly App #2: Sales Dashboard with Demand Forecasting - Model Demand History - Segment Forecasts by Product & Customer - XGBoost Time Series Forecast - Generate new forecasts instantly Shiny Apps for Business (DS4B 102-R) Web Application Development 4 Weeks Web Apps Machine Learning
29. Key Benefits Frontend + Backend + Production Deployment Frontend for Shiny - Bootstrap Backend for Shiny - MongoDB Atlas Cloud - Dynamic UI - User Authentication & Security Production Deployment - AWS - EC2 Server - SSL & HTTPS Encryption Shiny Apps for Business (DS4B 202A-R) Web Application Development 6 Weeks
30. -TRACK BUNDLE 15% OFF PROMO Code: learninglabs $127/mo Limited Time
31. Career acceleration awaits university.business-science.io