Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

“Most Analysts / Marketers / HiPPO’s don’t realize the amount of pain and effort that is involved in getting the web analytics data they are seeking. We need to teach them what it takes to get the ‘ultimate golden everything’ so that they’ll make smarter decisions about what to ask for and what to skip.”

That’s my good friend John Marshall starting yet another ‘lets go out and change the world’ conversation with me. : ) He is also convincing and I quickly agreed. The result is that you all get these delightfully informative videos!

Two things connect John and I (we are the co-founders of Market Motive):

We hope to bring those two things together in this blog post through three videos. They share our perspective on how you should go into a “I want everything from my web analytics tool” session.

The videos recommend an evolutionary process for your “meet all my desires now Omniture (!)” sessions. [Of course replace Omniture with your favorite vendor.]

They also share what specific things you need to be aware of in order to ensure maximum success. I am sure your boss (or is it you?) wants it all, x, y and zebra metrics or q, r and parrot reports. Here you’ll understand what you can get out of the box, what might need a bit more work and what might need selling your soul!

And I will fail my fiduciary duty if I did not let you know that in some cases we are going to recommend you walk away. The cost of what you want is simply not worth the data you are asking for.

Let’s go. . . .

My answer to John’s challenge was to sketch this out on the white board (in all of five minutes - comes from being close to the pain for so many years!):

Clearly I am not winning any awards for my calligraphy. At the end of this blog post is a PowerPoint version of this sketch (thanks to Tyler Link!).

I called my picture (/piece of art) “The painful path to web analytics nirvana”, to which John remarked “let’s call it stairway to heaven”. Much better I think.

If you want join the contest and come up with a better title then please add it in the comments section.

Act One: Basics, Self Service, The Start of Pain. (17 Mins.)

In this video we cover three steps of the ladder.

Stairway to Nirvana Step 1: “Tag baby tag!”

What you’ll learn:

If you implement the javascript tag what do you get?
What don’t you get?
What’s www . hotbrits . com? : )

Stairway to Nirvana Step 2: “Update tool side settings”

What you’ll learn:

Which simple things you can update without needing your IT resources?
Ideas for goals you could set.

Stairway to Nirvana Step 3: “Campaign tracking / ROI of acquisition efforts”

What you’ll learn:

What does it mean to do online campaign tracking?
Why will you cry for your mommy?
What can you do to be successful?

Got your learning hat on? Hit play. . . .

Was that not fun?

Did you realize you could do so much of Web Analytics without really aiming for a 18 month installation of Omniture and WebTrends and any other tool you choose?

That is the amazing part, and the reason for these videos. If you add a javascript tag to your site, update a few settings associated with Internal Site Search and Goals etc then you are off to the races.

Yes the tool won’t help you into your underwear quite yet.

But in the name of all that’s holy you can start taking action and improve big things (even as world domination and crushing of all competitors by your company will have to wait a little while!!).

In step three hopefully you learned why the Web Analytics Trifecta (People + Systems + Process) is so important - and oh so painful to pull off.

Now you can make plans accordingly.

[PS: Here are 30 points of progress you can make with just three hours of your time:
A Primer on Web Analytics for Everyone - you'll be surprised how much you can do.]

Act Two: Money, Money, Money! (11 Mins.)

In this video we try and kick things up a notch, focusing on things that often many of want to track (and should track deeply like Revenue) and others that we feel like tracking (but we might not realize the associated cost).

Stairway to Nirvana Step 4: “Revenue & Über Intelligence”

What you’ll learn:

Where does the standard javascript tag come up short?
URL, Title, Cookies, what if the data you need does not exist there?
Who do you have to beg for help?

As Chef Emeril would say: Bam! Bam! Bam!

See there is still hope in the world. If Step 4 has less pain than Step 3 then there has to be something terribly right with this universe. Of course while we talk about pain in Act One, we actually do that scoring in this video. Sorry.

Again here the stress is on the importance of planning and accounting for the Systems and the Process parts of the game. And did you know about the legal stuff?

Also did you notice that we are really having fun? Perhaps as only two friends on a common mission can. :)

Yes, we do need to buy some lights to ensure you can see the sparkle in my eyes!

Act Three: The Price (& Pain) of Greatness! (11 Mins.)

I, humbly, believe that the web became “fluid” a while back, we have just not realized it yet. Well most of us who have grown up in the log file parsing, page viewing, “my site clickstream data is all I need to care about” crowd.

Life is now about RSS and Widgets and Flex and Flash and AJAX and Video and Web Applications (and all of them mashed together) all of which make the web experience a lot more fun, a lot more fluid. And a lot more nightmarish to track.

Stairway to Nirvana Step 5: “Rich Media”

What you’ll learn:

Why page views are truly “to die for”?
Did you realize “geeks” are your BFF’s here? [John has a definition for you!]
What’s the most fundamental difference between the “old world” (javascript based data collection) and the “new world” (fluid web)?
How to make good choices on your path to Nirvana?

Intrigued? Sure you are. . . .

Get a feel for your new life, you are going to have to get out of your cubicle and be something of a social butterfly and get to know your Marketers and Developers and Business Folks and others.

It is your relationships and your pre-planning and huge investment in time and love that is going to ensure that you succeed in this step.

In the video we refer to Event Logging as a scalable non-fake-page views data capture methodology, learn more here: Google Analytics Event Tracking Guide. [A feature that is in wide invitation release, with access available to anyone who asks. :)]

I request other vendors (Unica, Omniture, IndexTools, WebTrends etc) to please add links to their guide in comments.

Nirvana Summary:

As promised here is a pretty version of the complete picture of what was on the white board. . . . .

One step at a time.

Don’t overestimate your ability to get things done.

No need for a 18 month web analytics installation, before the tool bears fruit.

Make wise choices, evolve intelligently.

Good Luck!!

Want more such educational videos on Analytics, PR, SEO, PPC, Social Media etc? Check out Market Motive: www.marketmotive.com

Ok now it’s your turn.

What has your experience being in extracting value from Web Analytics? Is implement, pause, extract value, evolve, pause, extract value . . . . and strategy? Are there things we completely missed? What has worked for you? What has not?

Please share your feedback, ideas and critique.

Thanks.

PS:
Couple other related posts you might find interesting:

• Standard Metrics Revisited: #5 : Conversion / ROI Attribution [Videos]
• Lack Management Support or Buy-in? Embarrass Them!
• Convert Data Skeptics: Document, Educate & Pick Your Poison
• Redefining Conventional Wisdom On “Enterprise Class” Web Analytics
• How Should Web Analysts Spend Their Day?

Let’s have some fun, and a break from all the tough work of . . . well . . . . work.

It has been an incredible eight months since I wrote about my book Web Analytics: An Hour A Day, clearly I am not doing enough SSP (shameless self promotion)! This blog gets a nice amount of traffic each day, I should be “pimping” the book all the time!!

All kidding aside, I had been meaning to update you all about the progress of the book and I have just been too swamped.

In this post I want to share with you how the book is doing in its tiny mission to change the world, news about the translations and finally some reader pictures! The last one to me is such a delight, please keep ‘em coming.

Financial / Donation Update.

Some of you might know that 100% of my proceeds from sales of my book are donated to charity. Two in fact, Doctors Without Borders and The Smile Train.

The main reason for that the book came from this blog and this blog is a labor of love and a way to give back a little bit to the Web Analytics community. Hence my wonderful wife and I decide to donate everything to charity with the thought that if this blog is monetized then that could be for a good cause.

Wiley pays us and Jennie and I promptly send a personal chq to the charities.

We got our first royalty chq from Wiley in Nov ‘07 and it was for $18,000. That was a lot of books (on a very low first time author commission!), so a bit surprise and also of course joy.

We got our second royalty chq in June ‘08 (this post is late!) and it was for $10,000!

This was also a surprise, I did not think a) there was that much demand for a web analytics book and hence b) there would still be such momentum.

I owe all of you who own the book a huge thanks!

There is one other nice thing this time around, my employer matches personal philanthropic donations up to a max of $3,000 each year. So the charities can also benefit from that sweet gesture.

This time around each charity will thus get $6,500 each.

In 11 months of sales Web Analytics: An Hour A Day has raised a total of US $31,000.

There is no way my personal finances would have ever allowed me to donate that much money. I wish I could put into words how gratified I am from this outcome.

Translations Galore!

This is another fun development.

In July the book was published in Portuguese!

The book is a bit thinner than the English version, but every bit as good as the English version! :)

In August the book was published in Korean!!

The Korean edition was translated by Jeanie Jung (youzin) who herself is an accomplished author, and its her book that you see behind our web analytics book.

I have to admit that the Korean version is my favorite, the book is heavy (!), it uses very high quality paper and the cover itself has a great texture. Awesome job by the Acorn Publishing Company.

You have to get a Korean version even if you don’t speak Korean, it will make a great show piece. :)

Next up are the Chinese and Russian versions of the book. They are expected to be published in October. The Japanese version will be published early next year.

Could anything make a small first time author happier?

The nice thing about international editions is that it is all about spread of the knowledge (the royalties are quite tiny). Hello world! :)

Reviews & Kind Words.

My goal for the book was for it to do well enough that readers would write 75 reviews on Amazon. The US website has 60 reviews thus far which is so great. Amazon.co.uk has 6 reviews, and Amazon.ca has 1. Most reviews are quite kind, which is so nice.

If you have read the book and have a few minutes to spare perhaps you could add a review ? Thanks so much.

The book also shows up in interesting place, which to me is always fun.

The other day it was listed by The Reader’s Advisor Online in a blog post [Planes, Trains, and Lanes] where they tried to spot patterns in their data when they categorized readers they spotted by age and gender.

Web Analytics: An Hour A Day showed up in the 20-something Men category, along with John Grisham’s Playing for Pizza! There’s a doozie!!

It was also happy moment when I noticed the book was on The Personal MBA’s 77 Best Business Books.

You see my own MBA is in Finance and MIS so it was nice to see the book listed as one of nine books in the Finance & Analysis category.

If you have seen a review some place fun could you please let me know?

Pictures: People, Places & Analytics!

When the book launched I had requested the readers to send me picture of the book, either with them or at a interesting place or …. really anything was fair game. I still get interesting pictures and here are some of the latest ones.

[And if you have the book I would love to get a picture from you! Please email blog at kaushik dot net. All pictures published here are only after I get the sender's permission.]

A little while back I had given a talk at a Autodesk offsite, the picture above is of everyone who was at the talk. At the very front you can just make out Karen holding a copy of my book (everyone got a copy!).

I think Vernon might have purchased the wrong book to improve his golf handicap! But of course I am still very appreciative!! Just kidding.

Web Analytics: An Hour A Day on vacation with Tomi at the hills of Monte in Funchal Madeira in Portugal. How pretty! [And I wonder how Tomi got it to stand like that on a downward slope!]

Linda Bustos and I “met” through this picture, then did a webinar together, then a video interview and more to come I am sure. See what a book can do? Linda writes the wonderful Canadian ecommerce blog www.getelastic.com.

Two beautiful boys (Samuel & Hugo) get a early start on learning about analytics from their hard working mom! Gemma writes the lovely Spanish web analytics blog Dónde está Avinash cuando se le necesita? , I think I like that blog title. :)

The Korean version of the book on store shelves in Seoul. 26 copies in a shelf that can hold 31. So 5 sold on day one?

My 4-year old son Chirag took this picture at a local Borders bookstore.

No matter which bookstore we visit he’ll say “Daddy we are at the library, can we find your book!”. Eliciting both slight embarrassment (he is loud and people turn heads), and I have to admit some pride (when we find the book ). But then he says “this is my daddy’s book!!”, then slightly more embarrassment.

Will in absolutely gorgeous Bend, Oregon. I think he is not too excited that his Dad is making him read about Web Analytics when he would much rather read A Fly Went By (I love that book!). Thanks for posing Will!

Guess who would love a book this much? The author! Well in this case the lovely Jeanie Jung who translated the book into Korean. I don’t think I have this much courage (and I am very shy about my pictures), but this set of pictures made me very happy. Thank you Jeanie!

Tim tweets: “Hit my 40th page of (detailed) notes re: @avinashkaushik’s analytics book. Only 2/3 through.”

I replied to that tweet and a few days later I had the opportunity of seeing Tim’s notes and I have to admit that there is something utterly remarkable about seeing something you created have that much of an impact on someone else. Tim’s notes are meticilous, I could see the concepts he got, and his comments (in different color ink). Quite rewarding for me.

Web Analytics: An Hour A Day has traveled a lot around the world but this is one of my favorites. Craig Paddock, and Rob Snell lugged it all the way from the US to Brazil (inspiring airplane reading I presume :). Here they are at the statue of Christ the Redeemer on top of the Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro. Craig, thanks for being such a sweetheart!

That was so much fun.

I was a reluctant author. Then it was a lot a lot a lot of work to write a book. But it turned out to be totally worth it. The book’s got stronger legs than I had ever imagined. It has reached so many parts of the world and so many absolutely fantastic people. I feel incredibly lucky.

I want to end this post with my sincerest thanks to all of you, those that have bought Web Analytics: An Hour A Day & to all of you who read this blog. You all make work fun.