Analytics

Save the best for last! Insights for Search is one of the most awesome research tools you’ll use. I promise.

We have learned how to use Trends for Websites to measure core site metrics and identify strengths and weakness of our competitors.

If you are using a modern web analytics tool (tag based or log based) it is quite likely that it is using cookies for tracking purposes.

In my conversations it is embarrassingly common to find a lot of FUD and confusion and lack of understanding (or appreciation of!) cookies and the role that they play in any analytics done on the web.

What would make you cry of happiness in a Web Analytics report?

What would make you cry of happiness in any report / presentation that you got from a analytics practitioner or consultant or your mom?

This post attempts to sort through the good, the bad and the ugly and answer that question (except that Mom bit, that will require therapy!).

Tags, tracking advanced javascript functions, navigation summaries and exit pages, delights of benchmarking, challenges with goals and funnels, monogamy or polygamy, flash tracking and ajax, multi domain tracking, entrance paths (my favorite!), bosses and robots (is there a difference?), we tackle all these topics & more in this post.

But before all that, some context.

The original title of this post was going to be. . . .

Contest Winners: We Are All Made Of Stars.

“You are stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. You can only pick one web analytics report to take with you on this deserted island.

Which report would you take?”

There are so many things wrong with the above scenario!

While not quite framed that badly, I do get asked a question like that quite a lot. And it poses the same challenging thoughts as in the above scenario.

In the last five weeks I have given 20 plus speeches between my public and private speaking engagements. And I am not done yet, this week it’s London and Amsterdam (Web Analytics Congres). Next week Barcelona (Practitioner Web Analytics).

Whew!

I write one post a week now and yet the blog is about 25 hours of work each week. Email is one big contributor. Many many of you write in with specific questions and it takes a lot of time to answering every single one with specific advise.

[Some are really tough, this is the complete email: "What are two best multi channel metrics you recommend, I have a big presentation tomorrow". (!!!)]

Reality: A small fraction of people who can benefit from data actually use it.

This is especially true for the world of web analytics.

I realize as we swim around our fish bowl this seems hard to believe. :)

But it is very true.

Flamenco: A Spanish musical genre with strong, rhythmic undertones and is often accompanied with a similarly impassioned style of dance characterized by its powerful yet graceful execution, as well as its intricate hand and footwork. (Source)