Search And Web Analytics — What You Don’t Know
I’M THE NUMBERS GUY. IN an interactive agency full of creative, vibrant, idea people, I’m the guy wearing the Coke-bottle glasses and pocket protector who counts all of the traffic to our clients’ sites.
I analyze Web traffic, campaign data, and the like to describe and explain users’ behaviors and how those behaviors impact business goals. Something not many people do or understand. And when you’ve done what I do for as long as I’ve done it (about seven years now), you tend to get a little full of yourself. Well, at least I do. People in marketing are often anxious about math and Microsoft Excel. I do what I can to foster that angst in the name of job security.
However, being the results guy has led me to the often mistaken conclusion that I can get the whole picture using the site data at my disposal. I can tell you what users’ needs are by where they go on a site. I can tell you where users run into trouble by where they leave a site, particularly if they leave in the middle of a process. I can tell you about users’ expectations of the information architecture by the paths they take, the paths they don’t, and by which ones convert better. Read the rest of this entry »
