{"id":939,"date":"2008-09-23T00:42:37","date_gmt":"2008-09-23T07:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaushik.net\/avinash\/pain-gain-web-analytics-nirvana-story\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:30:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T22:30:27","slug":"pain-gain-web-analytics-nirvana-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaushik.net\/avinash\/pain-gain-web-analytics-nirvana-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Evolve Intelligently: Achieve Web Analytics Nirvana, Successfully"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Focus\"“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.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

Two things connect John and I (we are the co-founders of Market Motive<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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1]<\/strong> A passion for Analytics, web or otherwise.<\/p>\n

2]<\/strong> A love of teaching, with a particular stress on cutting through the FUD and stressing actionability.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

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!<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Let’s go. . . .<\/p>\n

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!):<\/p>\n

\"web<\/p>\n

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!).<\/p>\n

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

If you want join the contest and come up with a better title then please add it in the comments section.<\/p>\n

Act One: Basics, Self Service, The Start of Pain.<\/font><\/strong> (17 Mins.)<\/p>\n

In this video we cover three steps of the ladder.<\/p>\n

Stairway to Nirvana Step 1: “Tag baby tag!”<\/strong><\/p>\n

What you’ll learn:
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