How I let the data screw me (again)

And what I do now before trusting a single chart.

Author

Tim Hanson
April 24, 2025

Day 65/100

Hey—It's Tim.

This one’s short.
Because I’m busy.
Because you’re busy.
Because we’re all busy chasing numbers that don’t even know we exist.

Let me paint you a picture.

You launch the campaign.
You’ve got the charts.
The fancy segmenting.
The 27-tab dashboard you definitely didn’t overbuild.

It should work.

And then…

It flops like a soggy croissant.
Zero lift. Zero learnings. Just shame and a Slack message that says “thoughts?”

Data Doesn’t Lie (But It Does Gaslight Sometimes)

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Data tells you what happened.
Not why.
Not what’s about to.
Not what people actually felt when they saw your thing.

And if you treat that like gospel, you end up optimizing for ghosts.

So what do you do when the data’s talking sh*t?

Here’s how I try to catch myself:

1. Gut Check First
Ask: “Would I click this?”
Not in a perfect, A/B-tested lab.
In the wild - on my phone, while pretending to listen on Zoom.

2. Context Layering
What’s happening outside your little campaign bubble?
Are your ads fighting against a product launch? A scandal? A sunny day?

3. Narrative Matching
Does your creative match the story people already believe?
Because if it doesn’t - it won’t matter how optimized it is.

Sometimes the most valuable data point is feeling weird about it and pausing.

The dashboard won’t tell you when you're trying to be clever instead of clear.

See you tomorrow.

✌️ Tim “My Analytics Said This Would Work” Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

P.S. If I had a dollar for every time data lied to me, I’d have enough budget to ignore it completely.

P.P.S For those wonderful people asking about Traffic Therapy. Next week. Life happened. I’m in a place where the internet buffers emails.

What did you think of today's newsletter?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

New round here? Subscribe to get a daily hit of content goodness in your inbox.

What to do next

  • Share This Update: Know someone who’d benefit? Forward this newsletter to your content team.

  • Get your First 3 Articles FREE EVERY MONTH! We just dropped the biggest update we’ve ever done to Penfriend a few weeks ago. Tone matching with Echo, Hub and Spoke models with Clusters, and BoFu posts.

  • Let Us Do It For You: We have a DFY service where we build out your next 150 articles. Let us handle your 2025 content strategy for you.