Inside the Mind of an Analyst

We all experience instances where we wish we were all-knowing and powerful in the field of web analytics, especially in the little time we are given in a week to focus on the data.  That said, I’d like to spend time during this month’s newsletter to give you a glimpse into the mind of an analyst and hopefully arm you with some tactics that will enable you to be successful in 2010.  We'll discuss the variety of hurdles that may present themselves as you try to become a data-driven organization and the importance of education combined with proven practices and advanced diagnostic skills to become a successful analyst.

We could spend an entire newsletter dissecting the challenges that organizations face with regard to web analytics.  For today’s purposes, we will touch on them at a high level and I will assume that you are saying, "We have that problem" to some of them as you read.  Here are a few major challenges:

• There are an unbelievable amount of initiatives and goals, yet very little time to spend on executing the tactics needed to complete or achieve them.
• Organizations are facing an intense amount of pressure to produce results.  Investments in the people, processes, and the tools themselves are all coming into question.   If a value is not perceived, then analytics programs typically fail.
• For those organizations that have built a solid foundation in analytics, the demands within analytics are becoming increasingly more complex.  Better questions are being asked, as a result of the views created by the reporting and benchmarking within the program.
• Organizations aren’t just collecting analytics data.  New technologies and existing technologies are building partnerships with the analytics vendors resulting in more data silos and ultimately data overload.

So, where do we go from here?  How does an organization overcome these hurdles to advance a program and provide perceived value?  Well, it all starts with education.  In order to overcome these challenges, an appropriate education program at both an organizational and individual level is imperative.  We all know analytics is NOT easy and while many people are eager to analyze the data, they have very little time to do so and lack the appropriate training to be successful.  From a focus standpoint, it is best to train people in their primary areas of responsibility.  Training that is too broad is often ineffective for the individual and the business as a whole.  The training needs to be actionable and coupled with actual examples using your own data and business model.  Otherwise, the training lacks practicality and your team cannot apply their learnings.   Additionally, training needs to be viewed as a necessary investment for success.  Hence, without training you’re essentially wasting money and time.  One benefit to the nature of this industry is that there are a multitude of resources a Web Analyst can take advantage of online.  For example, there are a ton of certification courses and customized trainings available (Email me if you’d like to talk about our offerings.)  There are also numerous books on web analytics and, of course, online resources such as blogs or help centers.   For a more complete list, please refer to a blog I wrote awhile back that condenses some of these materials: http://analyticsinsightblog.stratigent.com/2009/06/educational-resources-as-promised.html.

So, let’s say you have the education, and feel good about taking the next step.  To be successful and among the best in your field, there are a few things to keep in mind.  You must maintain a very sharp focus on the analytics goals you have established, which is done by building an appropriate set of actionable success metrics.  What does that mean?  It means to only measure what is important to your business and what you can control. There is no point in having a KPI because it is a cool number to track.  Analytics isn’t supposed to be sexy or cool; it’s supposed to be actionable.  The results are sexy.  Also, don’t forget to go after the "low-hanging fruit."  So often we see organizations spend all of their time building a strategy with lofty goals.  That doesn’t work.  Take a step back and build a balance.  Will your boss really let you continue to spend money if you are not providing some kind of value in the short term?  Of course not, not in today’s economy.  Instead, you need to build a balance of short-term wins and long-term strategies.

I guarantee you that there are some valuable insights you could glean from the data you are collecting today.  To do that, I recommend that you take a different approach to conducting an analysis.  Internally, we refer to them as Business Insights.  At the end of the day, you have an unbelievable amount of data and not enough time to get through all of it.  So, take a step back and focus on a subset of that data.  Build a strategy that has you interacting with different aspects of the data over time, such that 2010 becomes a successful year for you from an insight perspective.   Some common areas of focus could be:

• Conversion Analysis – Focus on any of the key processes you might have on your site.  Look for areas of improvement and the "ah-ha!"
• Bounce Rate of your landing pages – Which pages are underperforming?  What can you learn about these pages to apply to future campaigns?
• Segmentation – Why just look at your entire site traffic?  Focus on subsets of your visitors (i.e. people from email campaigns, people from PPC, etc.)
• Keyword ROI – Conduct an analysis of your top-performing and under-performing keywords.  Marry that with cost and you’ve got yourself a roadmap to improving your PPC.
• Optimization – If you don’t have a testing vendor, use the Google Website Optimizer (a free tool).  Try some different things on landing pages to improve conversion.
• Screen Resolution – There is a whole set of metrics like this that you can use to guide you in analyzing how your site looks to the majority of your visitors.  Is that call to action really above the fold and visible for the majority of your visitors?
• On-Site Search – Most likely, this is a primary part of your navigation.  Do you account for misspellings, product numbers, etc?
• Exit Page Analysis – Are your exit pages designed to be the last page of a visit?  If not, you’ve got some work to do. 

With a solid education, the above list becomes very doable.  You’ll know which reports to use, and how to interpret them.  Education builds efficiencies and allows you to spend your time more wisely.   One thing to keep in mind though:  If you don’t trust your data, you can’t get to this point.  Check out this prior newsletter to get more insight about data quality: http://www.stratigent.com/web-sight-newsletter/web-analytics-newsletter-archive/data-quality-erosion/default.html.

As you start performing Business Insights, there will be a natural desire to act on your findings.  Before you do that, you need to establish benchmarks for your KPIs and success metrics so you can evaluate the fluctuations you may see in the data as a result of changes you are making.  It is also important to know which reports to use to conduct that analysis.  Finally, think outside of the box with reporting.  There is an incredible amount of flexibility within the analytics tools for reporting.  Build the views as you need them; don’t settle for the out of box reports.

To wrap things up, here is an action item list for you to consider as you embark on 2010:

• Establish confidence in your data
• Build a solid foundation across your silos
• Define your KPIs
• Integrate all of your campaigns into analytics
• Conduct Business Insights

Use testing and optimization to employ the findings from your Business Insights.  This is the reason you collect data!

If you have any additional strategies to share, I would love to hear your thoughts.  Please reply to newsletter@stratigent.com, or email me directly.

Bill Bruno
VP, Business Development and Technology
bill@stratigent.com
Stratigent, LLC

For more information, please call 877-427-2900 or email info@stratigent.com.