Web Analytics: An Hour a Day

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day

By Avinash Kaushik

Publisher: Sybex
Number Of Pages: 443
Publication Date: 2007-06-05
Sales Rank: 2360
ISBN / ASIN: 0470130652
EAN: 9780470130650
Binding: Paperback
Manufacturer: Sybex
Studio: Sybex
Average Rating: 5

Web Analytics: An Hour A Day is the first book by an in-the-trenches practitioner of web analytics. It provides a unique insider¡¯s perspective of the challenges and opportunities that web analytics presents to each person who touches the Web in your organization. Rather than spamming you with metrics and definitions, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day will enhance your mindset and teach you how to fish for yourself.

Avinash Kaushik is a expert in web analytics and author of the top-rated blog Occam¡¯s Razor (http://www.kaushik.net/avinash). In this book, he goes beyond web analytics concepts and definitions to provide a step-by-step guide to implementing a successful web analytics strategy. His revolutionary approach to web analytics challenges prevalent thinking about the field and guides readers to a solution that will provide truly informed and actionable insights.

In Part I, Avinash explains why traditional web analytics is dead and introduces the Trinity mindset and strategic approach for web analytics. He then details the data collection options at your disposal for robust analytics and the pros and cons of each methodology (such as clickstream, outcomes, research, and competitive data). He concludes Part I with a deep dive into qualitative data and its critical role in any web analytics program.

In Part II, Avinash provides insights that will challenge your knowledge of what it takes to create a successful web analytics program. He covers customer centricity, optimal organizational structure, how to identify great analysts, and his (now famous) 10/90 rule of web analytics. From his experience, he outlines radical strategies for how you should select the right tool for your company (while saving money and peace of mind) and identify truly valuable metrics with his "three layers of So What?" test. He concludes Part II by providing a fresh perspective on some of the most common web analytics reports that you'll never look at in the same way again.

In Part III, Avinash guides readers to a successful web analytics strategy and implementation month by month, day by day, and hour by hour. A customized quick-start guide for different businesses (including blogs) is followed by increasingly advanced and crucial analytics topics, such as search analytics (SEO, SEM/PPC and internal site search) and multi-channel marketing analytics. That's followed by the revelation of the key ingredients of a great experimentation and testing platform, performing competitive intelligence analysis, and Web 2.0 analytics.

Avinash then discusses the three secrets behind making web analytics actionable and, in his clever, engaging, and thought-provoking style, debunks leading myths¡ªabout path analysis, conversion analysis, and real-time data, for example.

Finally, Avinash highlights seven specific steps you can take to create a data-driven decision-making culture in your company and then discusses such advanced analytics concepts as statistical significance, SEM and PPC analysis, the power of segmentation, complex yet insightful pan-session metrics, and conversion rate best practices.

Sprinkled throughout the book are real-world examples drawn from Avinash¡¯s experiences as an analytics professional at Intuit, DirecTV, Silicon Graphics Inc., and DHL.

The book includes an innovative CD that includes more than five hours of insightful audio podcasts, a 45-minute video, PowerPoint presentations, and other useful web analytics resources. Web Analytics: An Hour a Day is the ultimate resource for anyone needing a step-by-step, task-based guide to creating and maintaining a modern web analytics strategy and framework.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Review:

Great Strategic and Tactical book on web site analytics

When I first saw Web Analytics: An hour a day, I thought it would flow like the average programming books - an hour a day type path. Those types of books never appealed to me, because the books never seemed very deep. My first perception was quite wrong.

What I found instead was a very deep book that explained not just how to tactically use web analytics to improve my systems, but also the strategy and philosophy on why and when.

The book does a great job of giving real world examples on how to analyze your size, review and understand key metrics and what might be things to look at for improvement.

I recommend as a reading plan to read through the book, or at least ahead a few chapters at a time. And then use the weekly/daily plan to constantly drive improvement in your system and analytics.

One of the things that is great about this book, is that I could see using the weekly/daily plan, over and over on subsequent sites in the future.

The other thing that is worth pointing out is how thorough this book is in covering subjects like multichannel analytics when dealing with stores, call center and a web site. It also covers difficult unchartered areas like Rich Internet Applications(RIA) and how to capture the worth while data points.

This is definitely a book you need to own, if you have anything to do with improving your web sales or customer experience.

Review:

Why?

I swore I'd never buy another analytics book again. They all told me the same thing: visitors, page views, conversions, describing *how* to measure my customers' activity online. But, when I started reading Avinash Kaushik's Web Analytics: An Hour a Day, I was reminded of why I read his analytics blog every day. Because it answers practical questions about how to convert analytics into actions. Just like his blog, Avinash's book is the first one that focuses so completely on why your customers do what they do. In many ways, Avinash's book serves as a companion piece to Paco Underhill's amazing Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping. Whereas Underhill uses the methods of an anthropologist, observing behaviors in the field to determine what makes folks purchase, Avinash uses the tools of a (website) archaeologist, deciphering the hieroglyphics (OK, analytics) that unearth consumers' behavior online. This book serves as a most effective Rosetta Stone, illuminating behaviors, translating data into actions, turning actions into profits.

Why buy another book about analytics? Because this one answers the most important question: Why your customers do what they do and what you can do about it.

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