[In many companies the actual determination of the success of the web channel happens outside the web analytics systems (maybe in CRM systems or BI tools …]

You raised the issue of multichannel data integration. There is a lot of talk about the ‘customer holistic view’ or the 360 degree view. Is it possible to integrate weblog data into this view ?
I guess it is feasible to integrate signed web interactions to the customer’s record.
However integrating anonymous web interactions to the rest of Customer interactions, should be hard.
Is there a practice to associate an anonymous cookie to a signed interaction and store this info for future use ?

[Web analytics is no longer a silo]

Does this mean that Web analytics should produce some aggregate metrics that can be incorporated into a multichannel BI dashboard or integrate all web interactions at the Customer level ?

You mention in another post of yours that ‘data quality on the web sucks’. Are there any ways to overcome this low info quality and achieve web channel data integration ?

Thanks

I Googled “Microsoft Gatineau,” and the only result of any interest was a comment on Occam’s Razor: [...]

Click here to read the original post about the 5 ecosystem challenges. [...]

I know - the wheels of the Microsoft machine are currently turning, and will spit out a new name in due course. In the meantime, the project is codenamed Gatineau, so you can call it that (Gatineau is the city in Canada where DeepMetrix was based for some years, if you’re wondering).

Cheers,
Ian

Also, i agree with your piece on the trifecta of skills, which reminds me I need to ask for a raise.

-jim

As a neophyte in the realm of analytics, I would like to say I favor the in-depth nature of your posts. I set aside at least an hour to read what you have to say, reflect and research the information you are presenting.

I hope in time as I progress in my learning about web analytics, actionable insights, or whatever the future name will be, that I will be able to post more meaningful responses, but for now I thank you for what you have done in this community.

Best Regards,
Andrew Orsini

What are your thoughts on analytics as a career?

MBA school answer: It depends!

Seriously though I am very bullish on a career in analytics (regardless of where). I am especially bullish on a career in analytics on the web. Couple reasons:

1) Imagine the power in your hands to fundamentally influence the direction of your business / company. Other than C level folks no one has that much power (and maybe product developers).

You have data, you have brains, you have a passion for customers, you my friend have permanent job security.

2) Specific to the web, the space is expanding so fast and everything is up in the air and promises to be a great ride. Through it all one thing will never go away: The desire to measure impact and if you are indeed solving for Customers (first) and your company (second).

3) You can have a lot of fun. Of course in the right company and the right level of empowerment.

Honestly I have a blast opening clicktracks with absolutely no goal except to “look” for stuff and as I slice and dice the data looking for patterns in the data it can be all subsuming. There is such a high when you find something interesting. It is addictive.

Does that answer your question? :) [Full disclosure: As you can imagine I can't give a unbiased answer to your question.]

Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

-Avinash.

Thank you for contributing to the thought of world peace without participating in a pageant.:)

As always, excellent post. And I’m glad there’s a summary now as well. Looking into the future my concerns stems from lack of standardization and hence how the evolving web would be measured(2.0).

I am still in an environment where numbers are sought without action. But the thought of analytics numbers plugging into BI tools so they affect decision making like they always should have, made my day.

What are your thoughts on analytics as a career?

Cheers
Aman

Everytime I feel to thank you whenever I read your blogs, ideas, metrics and more. Really Terrific..

This post has a great value as usual

after joining as a web marketing analyst & passing Google adwords exam, I felt as I know more but after reading your blogs regularly, I rate myself at 2/10. You influence me a lot thru your blog.. Pls keep doing it.

Thank you
Regards,

Anand K

Business intelligence is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, providing access to, and analyzing data for the purpose of helping enterprise users make better business decisions. Some companies are making high end artificial…

I don’t see where this one additional item fits into your six, but maybe it does. I certainly hope that it doesn’t become a major challenge for web analytics practitioners, but with all the blog and newsgroup posts in the past week I’m beginning to wonder. I’m talking about the FTC (or any other organization for that matter) regulating PII and internet data. In the current climate I’ve taken it for granted that I’ll have good job security in the future and have never given a thought to the possibility of that changing dramatically — at least not until last week.

Jaimie Scott

1) I am mostly trying to teach and like lectures and books I am trying to provide as much information and detail as I can so that it gives the readers all they need to form their own opinion.

2) Some of the length is deliberate because there are too many blogs with pithy posts and sound bites that don’t give all the context and hence add little value. I wanted to avoid that. It is quite possible that a good editor could probably chop the length of the post by half quickly. :)

Couple random thoughts….

1) I will try to add summaries on top of the post as often as I can. (I have added one to this post after your feedback.)

2) There is a printer friendly link at the end of each post that will allow you to print and read later.

3) I welcome feedback from other readers, if the posts are long and rambling then you all have to tell me so that I know this is a big problem. Also please give me suggestions on how I could break a post into multiple posts while preserving some integrity of the message (like for this post).

Thanks again and I very much welcome your feedback and critique and help.

-Avinash.
PS: Your grammar and writing style were not terrible at all, they were prefect and bite-sized! :)

A weakness that I perceive in web analytics is the view of customer behavior over time. Web analytics and practitioners do a great job of describing what happens within a session or visit.

Web analytics and practitioners do not do a good job of explaining customer behavior across six or seven visits. We need for our tools and analysts to do a good job of explaining how four website visits cause a trip to a retail store, a trip that results in a purchase. This isn’t the fault of a web analytics tool, it is simply the result of business systems not integrating data properly.

When web analytics are fully integrated with the other systems within a company, things will get very interesting.

Good job on your blog!

Thanks,
Kevin Hillstrom
http://minethatdata.blogspot.com

Great post as usual ;-)

The only thing I would add is patience. The practitioners need to have LOTS OF PATIENCE. I remember when we started WA at OX2, Aurélie was sometimes arguing with some of our clients because they didn’t go the ‘right way’ (eg. requesting only some monthly reporting completly useless to take any action). She was frustrated and sometimes I had to go behind to extinguish the fire (if you see what I mean). With the years and experience Aurélie has learned patience and I think that it’s one of the most important changes I’ve seen on her this past years.

So if you’re a practitioner sick and tired that nobody listens to you, don’t give up! Time will prove you right.

There are still too many corporations that are very far away from a ‘data driven company’, so I guess that many frustrated Web analysts are there trying to make a point within their organisations. Go little by little and remember that the force (insights) is on your side ;-) You’ll see that with a little bit of patience and some internal lobbying you’ll finish to get yourself heard.

Avinash, don’t get me wrong, this comment was for your audience. I know that your voice is very well heard at intuit ;-)

Take care,

René

Apologies for my terrible grammar/writing style.