Practical Excel for Real Work

Excel can do more than you think.

I'm a marketing professional who has used Excel and the Microsoft 365 ecosystem to automate repetitive work, streamline workflows, analyze data, and replace technology when existing tools no longer made sense.

This site is built for marketers, administrative professionals, and Excel users at every experience level who want practical ways to make their work easier, faster, and more adaptable.

Explore What Excel Can Do Start Learning

Excel Is Diverse

Excel is diverse by design.

Excel is more than a place to enter numbers. It can calculate, automate, analyze, organize, and adapt to the work around it.

Automate

Reduce repetitive steps and recurring manual work.

Analyze

Turn raw information into useful decisions.

Build

Create calculators, reporting tools, workflows, and business applications.

Adapt

Extend or replace processes when existing technology no longer fits the job.

Start With the Job

What are you trying to do?

Fix Something

Troubleshoot the thing that broke.

Troubleshoot formulas, errors, spills, lookups, and workbook behavior.

Explore Excel Answers

Calculate Something

Reuse the logic instead of rebuilding it.

Use reusable custom functions for marketing, reporting, and business calculations.

Explore Custom Functions

Automate Something

Stop doing the same steps by hand.

Reduce repetitive reporting, cleanup, formatting, and recurring workflow tasks.

Explore Automation

Build Something

Turn a workbook into a tool.

See how Excel can become a structured business tool instead of just another workbook.

Explore Excel Apps

Custom Excel Functions

Custom Excel functions for real business calculations.

Build common marketing, reporting, and operations calculations once, give them a name, and reuse them throughout Microsoft 365 Excel.

Explore All Functions

Marketing

Calculate Ad Frequency in Excel

Calculate average ad frequency from impressions and reach for media reporting.

=MKT_FREQUENCY(IMPRESSIONS, REACH, [NUMERIC])View Function

Marketing

Calculate CPA in Excel

Calculate cost per acquisition or conversion from spend and conversions in Excel.

=MKT_CPA(SPEND, CONVERSIONS, [NUMERIC])View Function

Marketing

Calculate CPC in Excel

Calculate cost per click from spend and clicks with reusable Excel LAMBDA logic.

=MKT_CPC(SPEND, CLICKS, [NUMERIC])View Function

Marketing

Calculate CPCV in Excel

Calculate cost per completed view from spend and video completions in Excel.

=MKT_CPCV(SPEND, COMPLETIONS, [NUMERIC])View Function

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Excel Answers

Straightforward answers to real Excel problems.

Practical fixes for formulas, errors, modern Excel behavior, and workbook issues people run into while trying to get work done.

Explore Excel Answers

Dynamic Arrays

Why am I getting a #SPILL! error in Excel?

A #SPILL! error means Excel has a formula that wants to return multiple values, but it cannot place the full result into the worksheet. The spill range may be blocked, contain merged cells, sit inside an Excel Table, or extend beyond the worksheet.

View Answer

Data Manipulation

Why does SUMIF return 0 in Excel?

SUMIF often returns 0 when Excel cannot find a valid match to sum. Common causes include mismatched data types, criteria that do not exist in the criteria range, text values where numbers are expected, or ranges that do not align with the intended data.

View Answer

Explore Excel Answers

Build Excel Like an App

Workbooks designed like products.

Structured inputs, reusable logic, dynamic interfaces, and workflow automation can turn Excel into a practical business application layer.

Explore Excel Apps

0.1current version

In Development

Data Normalization App

Turn inconsistent Excel reports into a clean, repeatable data structure automatically.

=DATA_NORMALIZATION_APP()

StatusinDevelopmentData Manipulation

Version0.1intermediate

Built WithCHOOSECOLSMATCH

Explore Excel Apps

Recent writing on practical Excel and Microsoft 365.

Notes on data cleanup, reporting, automation, troubleshooting, and building better workflows with the tools many teams already have.

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FeaturedProgrammatic Excel

How Much of a Programmatic Trader’s Workflow Can We Rebuild in Excel?

I built an Excel system that turns programmatic orders into validated campaign builds, supports bulk or manual trafficking, standardizes reporting, and surfaces pacing and QA issues before they become operational problems.

Sep 9, 202611 min

FeaturedData Manipulation

The Death of a Workbook

Workbooks rarely fail all at once. Broken references, changing sources, duplicated logic, silent errors and manual intervention can slowly kill them. Building Excel like a system makes those failures easier to isolate, diagnose, and repair.

Aug 24, 202613 MIN READ

Data Manipulation

This Custom Excel Function Changes Everything

The report can change. Your output doesn’t have to.

Aug 19, 20267 min read

Excel Applications

Stop Treating Excel Like a Spreadsheet

Excel becomes more powerful when you stop treating it like a spreadsheet and start designing it like an application.

Aug 17, 20268 min read

View All Articles

Professional Context

Built from real work.

In marketing, I've used Excel for campaign reporting, pacing, data cleanup, QA, planning, automation, and analysis. But the underlying problems are not unique to marketing.

Administrative teams, analysts, coordinators, operators, and managers often face the same challenges: repetitive work, inconsistent data, disconnected systems, and tools that do not quite fit.

This site documents practical ways to solve those problems with Excel and Microsoft 365.

About Arvin

Start With the Work

What are you trying to make Excel do?

If you're trying to fix, automate, calculate, or build something and cannot find the answer here, ask.

Ask an Excel Question Request a Custom Function