Marketing can sometimes feel abstract and uncertain, yet professionals in the field must meet the challenge of justifying their expenditures and linking them to key performance indicators each day.

Sachin Gupta, the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business, shares his statistics-based and data-driven approach to getting outstanding returns in his Demand Marketing online certificate program from eCornell.

Gupta recently spoke with the eCornell team about the program.

How do you embark on the process of data analysis in marketing?

“The data is typically collected in a survey-based setting online where you recruit participants in the study. When we come to the analysis of the data, that’s where the statistics kick in. The analysis is done using a model that is likely to be unfamiliar to most people. In the program, I explain that analysis in some detail. I demonstrate how to use R programming language to analyze data, interpret the findings and make decisions based on the results.”

Read more on the eCornell blog.