Web Analytics Must Focus On Outcomes

MIAMI -- Avinash Kaushik kicked off the 24th SIPA marketing conference with a session that promised to prove that Web analytics were more life changing and less boring than you might think. Let me just say that Mr. Kaushik is anything but boring, as a speaker anyway. Please. I have to limit my comments to what I know. With a healthy mixture of wisdom and, get this, facts, plus humor and, my favorite, irreverence, he was a great start to the program.

Here are my quick takeaways on location if, that is, I can survive the hyperactive air conditioning unit in my room, which apparently was made fun of by other air conditioners as a child and is now overcompensating. It's about 30 degrees in here.

Web analytics are a must, and must be accompanied by intelligent humans who can study them and find actionable lessons. “Tools are just tools. You must have people to analyze the data.” That is where insights come from, he said. Mr. Kaushik was surprised at the number of companies and executives who “deliberately don’t want to be smart” and ignore this concept. This is especially true, he said, since Web analytical tools, good ones, are cheap or even free.

One of the great things you can get is a list of multiple outcomes, like your visitors’ likelihood to purchase or whether they would recommend the site to someone else. Reports can be generated that display trends in a digestible way, too, so even a CEO can understand them.

He emphasized the importance of making sure reports focus on outcomes. “Reports can be 15 words. You don’t need a Ph.D. thesis,” he said, “I don’t give a crap!” He noted that one company was generating 200 Web reports. He stopped sending them. No one noticed. Why? Because they didn’t say anything that was actionable or could help people in the company move forward. Companies should give people a bonus for drawing meaningful conclusions from data! Make sure reports are focused on outcomes. Deploy techniques like advanced visitor labeling. “Reporting is not analysis,” he said.

Web analytics allow for experimentation and testing. Many companies let the HIPPO decide, which means the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. “And this is why most Web sites suck,” he said.

Capturing the voice of the customer is another benefit. “I like surveys a lot,” Mr. Kaushik said. Ask two or three questions, as long as one is “Why are you here?” and another one is “Were you able to complete your task?” You want to find out why people are doing on all these crazy things on your site, then tweak your site to make it easier to do those things. Understand these things first, he said. “Is your site sexy or cool? Who gives a crap?! Fix this first!”

Mr. Kaushik said competitive intelligence can be generated easily through Web analytics. For example, noting that 80% of people on the Web start with a search engine, you need to understand what words are driving traffic to what sites. Understanding that fact will enable you to drive traffic.

Microsoft and Google both have free Web analytics tools. There are sites that allow you to test different page layouts. See Skype for a free Web site optimizer to help you do this.

Web analytics can provide “true customer centricity” to help understand why the bulk of your repeat visitors are coming back, and what they are doing. You might find the main reason they are coming is not the main solution you provide.

“Make customers happy and the money follows.”

For more go to his blog, Occam’s Razor at www.kaushik.net/avinash.