A comparison between a metric in one period and the same period in the previous year.
A useful way to evaluate growth while reducing the effect of seasonality.
Short and sweet:
A comparison between a metric in one period and the same period in the previous year.
A useful way to evaluate growth while reducing the effect of seasonality.
See also: Benchmark, Metric, Marketing Report
Year-over-year, often shortened to YoY, compares a metric in the current period against the same period one year earlier, which strips out normal seasonal swings that would distort a simple month-to-month comparison. A retailer’s sales, for example, might jump every December regardless of strategy, so comparing this December to last December reveals real growth or decline instead of just seasonal noise. This makes YoY one of the more reliable ways to judge whether a business or campaign is actually improving over time.
Retailers report holiday sales on a year-over-year basis, comparing this November’s numbers directly against last November’s rather than against a slower summer month.
Amazon’s quarterly earnings calls always highlight this kind of growth in its cloud division, a figure investors watch more closely than the raw quarterly total.
A ski resort would look silly comparing January revenue to July revenue, so it instead measures this January against last January to judge whether the season is actually improving.
