If you don’t have gigabytes of data downloaded from Meta (Facebook) Ads, Google Analytics, Google Ads, or any other digital marketing platform, you don’t have to spend for and learn platforms like Tableau and BigQuery.
All you need is Microsoft Excel for these key functions (note: we have no endorsement with Microsoft):
- Data storage
- Data manipulation and calculations
- Making charts and even dashboards
There are alternatives to Excel, such as the free LibreOffice or Google Sheets, but in the long run, I have found that the best choice is Excel. The reasons:
- Other programs or platforms don’t have the full functionality Excel provides.
- When you have to analyze a large amount of data, you can also use Power Pivot and Power BI by Microsoft.
Excel can be used for simple calculations, such as a digital marketing calculator, or for analyzing data downloaded from your favorite platform.
There is an alternative way to extract data from, say, the Facebook Ads platform using an API, transfer data to Google Sheets, and finally, use Looker Studio for visualization. However, we found this way less compelling due to the hassle and limitations.
The way we work is as follows. We download data, for example, from Facebook Ads Reporting (or get it emailed to us regularly) and use Excel to manipulate the data. For quick analysis, we often set up a Pivot Table in minutes.
You can start to use Excel for free. The alternatives:
- For mobile, you can install the official Microsoft Excel app from Google Play or the Apple App Store. For a good user experience, I recommend using a tablet or a large-screen (>6”) smartphone. The name of the app is Microsoft Excel: Spreadsheets. Alternatively, install from the app store Microsoft 365 (Office).
- You can also use an online version of Excel in your browser. Data will be saved in the cloud with OneDrive. All you need is an active Microsoft account (such as a Windows, Skype, or Xbox Live login).
- The above solutions are fine at the beginning. However, if you need the full functionality of Excel, a desktop version or the paid version of Microsoft 365 is required (free to try for 30 days). The cheapest plan starts at $7 per month. Alternatively, the free LibreOffice is also a good choice in most cases.
We usually prefer the desktop version of Excel. As far as we know, you can buy single-user license keys from third parties for peanuts. Just make sure the sources are legitimate (legal) with good customer reviews.
Mastering Excel takes time, but it is easy to get to a level where you can make good use of it.
There are tons of free materials on the internet. It doesn’t require more than a day to learn the basics. A good starting point is here. If you follow the links, there will be free spreadsheets to download, too.
Alternatively, watch free tutorials (Google search: free Excel training course YouTube).
Sometimes, you can find very good bargains for courses covering even advanced subjects for only $7.
Finally, grab a comprehensive book for reference (so that you won’t have to google all the time), for example, Excel 2019 All-in-One For Dummies or the Excel 2019 Bible.
Note: Sometimes browsers get confused and display a warning that the extension of Excel files is not the same as the real type of file, such as xls, instead of xlsx. Use can safely ignore these warnings; we double-checked that the files we offer for download are genuine xlsx (in rare cases xlsm) files.