Common traits of success with analytics (What executives need to know)

While web 1.0 was about getting eye-balls, Web 2.0 is all about engaging relationships.  All the hip web seminars these days are preaching one thing; “customize the experience with multi-channels, especially warm fuzzy social media and you will be able to humanize the digital experience and reach a vast audience.

Is this really possible with how fast everything is changing on the web as markets continue to split into smaller hard to reach niches?  I think so.  I heard that these “8 common traits of success with web analytics” help bring it all into focus.   Let me know if you agree.

1. Analyze data based on your business goals

I’ve found some web managers don’t really know what their goals are

or how they are changing.  A good analyst will put the website goals right at the top of the main summary dashboards.   Why waste time looking at a hundred KPI’s when just a few will do?

2. Link Attitudinal, Behavioral & Competitive data to form insights

When your analyst shows up with some stats from compete.com give him a hug, not the boot.  It’s tough facing the fire. But if you don’t know what your competition is doing, how can you set any realistic benchmarks?  Some say each site is “unique” and forget about studying the competition.  Bunk.  Things change so fast on the web, you need to know what goes on outside.  A good analyst will always be snooping around town.  I even think listening to your visitor through polls or surveys is more important than studying competition.  You can’t really form good insights unless your are listening to your visitor.  Do you know what they are saying about your site?

3. Focus on opportunities and recommendations — not just reporting

Many times I hear “I don’t have the budget or the bandwidth to act on that suggestion.”  We’ll how creative can the team be when the analyst suggests an A/B test or some new segmenting?  Just ask again, “what are the goals of the site?” When the team works together (both IT and marketing), they will most always turn action items into reality with positive changes.  After all, you have to experiment to know for sure, right?

4. Monetize all key site behaviors

This cuts to the quick and gets you on the golf course real fast… or gets you packing to leave the company. Managers have a rough time with this one because they’re afraid the boss will cut their budget due to a high visitor cost or low conversion rate.  Here’s how you do it.  First, you announce to the boss that you are going to monetize that new section of the site that took forever to launch.  And in the quiet anticipation, you sneak into his office and tell him whatever he learns, it’s going to make the site better in the long run.  Now when your packing your boxes for the next job, you hold your head up and say to yourself, “if I had not sent that report, they’d still be burning through the wad.”  This is why I hear more finance departments are taking over analytics.

5. Prioritize based on greatest impact to the business

When a manager has been working so hard to get a new promotion or site section launched and suddenly it’s gone in a flash due to a priority shift, don’t blame the analyst.  He needs to be doing his job measuring what gets the biggest bang for the buck and communicating up the chain the right way so everyone share’s in the joy or the pain.

6. Ongoing optimization process

The key word here is “ongoing.”  Many times my reports have been stopped due to “they know it all” and don’t need it anymore.  I call this report fatigue.  To avoid this, you need to be creative in the way your reports evolve (mostly visually).  But don’t just change the graphs to make your reports better.  Instead, ask what additional segmenting can be done to optimize further.  The real gold is found in optimizing the niches.

7. Knowledge base of success and failures (journal the leanings, write down the story)

Context is key.  I always get a kick out of that moment when the boss looks up and says “so how did this promotion compare to the one last year.”  Everyone chokes because they’re so busy they can barely recall what happen last month.  But a smart analyst will have that  historical data that put the last 12 sweeps metrics side by side for quick reference.

8. Understand customer experience online and offline.

This is similar to the comment earlier about “listening to the visitor” for insights.  But it’s different in an important way.  How do the online visitors compare to the off-line ones?  Or better yet, how does the same visitor perform in both settings? They usually are one in-the-same.  Therefore website promotions need to work very closely with offline efforts. It’s all becoming one big happy web world.

Are you trying to humanize the digital experience? Let me know what matters.

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