Web Analytics: Do Not Waste Your Time
Manoj Jasra - Thursday, May 01, 2008
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Web Analytics is not easy and can take up much of you time so it's important to concentrate on the things which have the most benefit to your business. Below I have outlined the types of things you shouldn’t measure as well as some areas where you could potentially end up wasting time rather than focusing on tactics and metrics which will actually help your strategy to succeed.Trying to Achieve 100% Accuracy
- In a JavaScript and Cookie model, web analytics will never be 100% accurate. In a web analytics test performed last year by Stone Temple consulting where they implemented numerous analytics scripts on the same website, the results indicated up to a 10% fluctuation between analytics packages. I feel it’s important to test for accuracy but a waste of your time to try to balance your books using analytics.
Measuring only the Quantity of Leads
- You launch a PPC campaign for your hot new service at 8 AM and by noon you have 1000 new leads, mission complete, pack it up and go home - I don't think so. Yeah 1000 leads are wonderful until you find out that 50% of them are from a person who has the email test@test.com
Not Segmenting Your Data
- Not segmenting your data is similar to closing your eyes and randomly throwing money at various advertising mediums. I can’t stress the importance of taking your leads, downloads, revenue and information requests and segmenting by Medium, Search Engines and keywords.
Keeping the Data to Yourself
- Good or bad it’s important to share the data with Stakeholders in the company who need to make decisions with it. Long hours of Crunching number after number in order make the results appear in a certain way will only prolong the ability for the appropriate decision maker to take action.
Measuring Without Purpose
- Before jumping head first into the data, Before creating a Dashboard make sure you sit down with your marketing team to figure out the goals of the appropriate project as well as what metrics they need to report on in order to do their job properly.
Labels: Web Analytics
4 Responses to “Web Analytics: Do Not Waste Your Time”
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Hi Manoj,
Best "to the point" post I have seen in a long time. That's it! People only need to follow what you're saying.
Enough with all the tools talks! It's time to deliver value!!
Thanks Jacques, everything aside, it's value everyone is looking for.
Manoj - I couldn't agree more with the statement:
"Before creating a Dashboard make sure you sit down with your marketing team to figure out the goals of the appropriate project..."
The problem we're beginning to see, though, is that the people we're relying on to create the dashboard and advise on metrics are not particularly well equipped to convert marketing strategy to analytics and meaningful measurements.
WebTrends (quite coincidentally a warhorse Web Analytics company and client of mine) is concerned about the marketing skills of digital marketers who've grown up in the technology side of marketing.
If you'd like to point your readers to a series of no BS pieces supporting your premises, check out some of the opinions WT CMO Kathleen Brush is starting to weigh in on... the seminar series is here. In addition, you can check out her "Psst! Your Skills Require and Upgrade" here.
The value is in the people who implement - not the data itself.
I totally agree with you Janet, I personally believe that all analysts should have strong Internet marketing skills as well so they know what to do with the data.