Getting better insights from your analytics
Via a quick post on the SuperWebAnalyist Blog from Ed Wu of the Web Analytics Association and Dell’s Consumer Online team come a great post on “numbers that lie” or at least don’t really offer any insights about online behavior.
In one of my new favorite blogs to read, analytics pro Avinash Kaushik shows how Averages, Percentages, Ratios and Compound Metrics (aka Calculated Metrics) don’t show much real insight, and can often be misleading.
As an example to combat the “fluff” of averages, you should identify your most important / interesting segments for your business and report those along with the overall averages. Distributions of tiers of activity also help wade through the numbers and get to real actionable insights.
See the rest of his very good recommendations here, including how to make use of the “Better Google Analytics” Firefox plugin that offers several advantages and updates Google Analytics.
Another great post is on his recommendations on establishing strong KPI’s or Key Performance Indicators for your website. (Not sure why there are 6 recommendations but 8 rules, but hey, who’s counting? 8-) What’s a KPI?
Measures that help you understand how you are doing against your objectives.
Although to some it’s obvious, unlike several of my past clients (sorry), you do need to set objectives for your web marketing efforts (some thing a little more specific and measurable than “have a cool website” and “make more money”) and then set measures to track your efforts in attaining them. How else do you prioritize your efforts?
Some of his recommendations are pretty standard, but his explanation of WHY they are good is worth a read. I’ve overviewed them here:
- Conversion Rate, (pretty obvious) measures towards objectives
- Average Order Value cross and up-sell measures (Yes, with segmentation and distributions!)
- Days & Visits To “Purchase”, especially with relationship customers and products that are considered purchases
- Visitor Loyalty & Visitor Recency, aiding in segmenting & targeting most valuable customers
- Task Completion Rate, goes hand in making sites usable and fine tuning good content
- Share of Search to better measure against competitors. Compete.com seems like an interesting tool to help
Follow Avinash on Twitter.
Are you actively managing your site’s analytics? What are you missing in your optimization of your sites efficacy and customer experience? Are you really capturing your share of market?
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