There's one thing that keeps coming to me time after time. Web analytics is not all about tools, it's more about people. In fact, we should leave the term "web" from web analytics, we should talk more about business analytics and optimization. Thank you Lars for sharing your WAW slides. Here's my summary and top 10 list about tips for succesfull analytics (not in any specific order):
- Start from the strategy and business goals of the company
- Analyse the data from different sources and prepare to give clear proposals for actions
- Get money into reports and send those reports to CEOs and top management for getting the money in
- As Avinas Kaushik says: measure everything. Try to measure every marketing activity and website development you have invested in
- Don't get frustrated, analytics is hard and new things take some time to understand and good results can take years
- Start small, but remember to create an (internal) marketing campaign of your analytics project to show the success case
- Test and try new things, measure and prepare to take it back
- Invest more in people (education, events, consulting) than tools, but remember to evaluate tools properly
- Go to Web Analytics Wednesday and other events: netword and talk with vendors, colleagues, other practitioners, consultants and of course, people in your organization
- Try to get KPIs in whatever processes you may have in your company