Several years ago, when I was the director of analytics and research at Intuit, I had postulated the 10/90 rule. Simply put, it stated that if you had a budget of $100 (or dinars or rupees or pesos) for online decision making, then you should spend $10 on the web analytics tool and spend $90 on people (the "planet-sized brains" part of the equation).
The rule was derived from my own experience. I had access to a world-class (translation: expensive!) web analytics tool. It was producing 200 reports—all kinds of things were tagged and tracked and hugged. Yet there was very little to show in terms of actionable insights.
The problem, it turns out, was that the tool was simply puking data out. There were finite resources (translation: analysts) available to make sense of the data, and online marketers were simply not able to understand much from the 200 reports. The result? Not much.
Following a deliberative shift in strategy that involved purchasing a significantly cheaper tool (translation: it would not help you into your underwear each day but did give you all the data you needed) and investing in analysts—people who could take that data, make sense of it, and translate it into implementable business actions—the results were impressive.
Fast-forward to today and one important part of the 10/90 rule, the tools part, is not an issue anymore.
You can still buy and find valid productive uses for paid web analytics tools. But they are not mandatory.
You can use completely free world-class web analytics tools from Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, and others. You can now take your precious budget and focus it all on the big planet-sized brains part.
What this translates into is your chance to be data rich and analysis rich as well!
Yes, yes, I see you jumping up and down saying access to tools, even free ones, is not enough. You are absolutely right.
Web analysis is not free. Your delightful people with planet-sized brains need training and coaching. You'll still have to "smartify" your online marketers.
My good friend Dennis Mortensen to the rescue!
This book is going to be your starting point and a constant companion on the journey to making sense of all that data you now have access to from your Yahoo! Web Analytics tool.
I have known Dennis for a number of years now. He is smart. He is supremely knowledgeable about online marketing and decision making. He has deep hands-on experience in the world of web analytics (not just pontificating about it but actually rolling up his sleeves and getting jiggy with the data).
He is uniquely qualified to write this book, thanks to him being at IndexTools since its inception.
This book covers the length and depth and breadth of Yahoo! Web Analytics. Chapters 1 and 2 will get you going with all the right buttons to press, and before the end of first part of the book, your website will be lit up like the glorious Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in New York City, to produce all the data, accurately, that you'll need.
But of course that is the start of the glory. Reports, segmentation, templates, and customizable dashboards await you. Never again will you produce a dashboard that gets on the "auto delete" list!
Once there you'll want to forsake sleep completely until you finish the book because search analysis and optimization is as awesome as it sounds. Understanding the value of your content and being truly customer-centric will be well within your grasp.
This book will ensure that your web analysts get off to a flying start and stay smart as they dig deeper into the tool to leverage all the power that lies within. They'll be able to create custom segments and cross-tabulate data with unique reports (just as I have been doing for the three years that I have been using IndexTools).
I am excited that you have purchased this book. I know you are going to have a ton of fun learning about web analytics. I am positive that by the time you are done with the book, you'll agree with me that analysis is sexycool.
To infinity and beyond!
Avinash Kaushik
Analytics evangelist and author
Mountain View, CA.