Product Description

Written by an in–the–trenches practitioner, this step–by–step guide shows you how to implement a successful Web analytics strategy. Web analytics expert Avinash Kaushik, in his thought–provoking style, debunks leading myths and leads you on a path to gaining actionable insights from your analytics efforts. Discover how to move beyond clickstream analysis, why qualitative data should be your focus, and more insights and techniques that will help you develop a customer–centric mindset without sacrificing your company’s bottom line.

Note: CD–ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1660 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-29
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Synopsis
Written by an in-the-trenches practitioner, this step-by-step guide shows you how to implement a successful Web analytics strategy. Web analytics expert Avinash Kaushik, in his thought-provoking style, debunks leading myths and leads you on a path to gaining actionable insights from your analytics efforts. Discover how to move beyond clickstream analysis, why qualitative data should be your focus, and more insights and techniques that will help you develop a customer-centric mindset without sacrificing your company's bottom line. CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

From the Back Cover

Develop a Successful Web Analytics Strategy

A Step–by–Step Guide

Learn web analytics the right way with this unique, thoroughly modern guide to today′s web analytics challenges and opportunities. Written by an in–the–trenches practitioner, this book goes beyond concepts and definitions to challenge prevalent thinking about the field and provide a step–by–step guide to implementing a successful web analytics strategy.

Web analytics expert Avinash Kaushik, in his thought–provoking style, debunks leading myths and leads you on a path to gaining actionable insights from your analytics efforts. Discover how to move beyond clickstream analysis, why qualitative data should be your focus, and more insights and techniques that will help you develop a customer–centric mindset without sacrificing your company′s bottom line.

• Learn the pros and cons of data collection methodologies

• Find out how you can stop counting page views and still get a rich understanding of your customers

• Discover how to identify valuable metrics with the "three layers of so what" test

• Optimize your organizational structure and choose the right analytics tool

• Understand and apply advanced analytics concepts, including SEM/PPC analysis, the power of segmentation, conversion–rate best practices, and others

• Leverage quick–start solutions for blogs and e–commerce, support, and small business websites

• Learn the key ingredients of a great experimentation and testing platform

• Use competitive–intelligence analysis to glean insights and drive actions

You′ll also find:

• Ten steps to turbocharge your web analytics

• Seven steps for creating a data–driven culture in your organization

• Six ways to measure the success of a blog

• Three secrets behind making web analytics actionable

• Ten signs of a great web analyst

Valuable CD Included

The innovative CD includes more than three hours of insightful audio podcasts, a 45–minute video, PowerPoint presentations that mirror key topics in the book, and other useful analytics resources.

About the Author
Avinash Kaushik is the author of the highly rated web analytics blog Occam′s Razor (www.kaushik.net/avinash). He is an independent consultant and currently the Analytics Evangelist for Google. Prior to that he was the Director of Web Research & Analytics for Intuit, where he was responsible for the business, technical, and strategic elements of the analytics platform that supported more than 70 Intuit websites. Avinash is a frequent speaker at such conferences as Emetrics Summits and Ad–Tech, and he is often quoted in the media as a web metrics expert.
Avinash is donating all proceeds from this book to two charities, The Smile Train and Doctors Without Borders.

Customer Reviews

The best guide to actionable insights from data
Web Analytics is a must read because it learns you how to view analytics the right way.

One of the hardest part when first diving into analytics is figuring out how to focus on the right data - the data that tells you what is happening with your site.

One of the first questions Avinash gets you to focus on is: "What's the purpose of your web site?" Your analytics strategy should be very much aligned with the answer to this question.

With this attitude towards the data, we can "infer the intent" of the user - ultimately, inferring is the best you can do with this type of data. Inferences are important, as they will inform strategy. If the strategy is then met with improved performance of the site, your confidence in the data and its interpretation grows. If not, you should re-analyze and re-strategize. Early in the book, Avinash identifies this as your top priority in analytics. In fact, he says, "Is it a bit extreme to dump clickstream in favor of measuring outcomes first? Yes. Necessary? You bet."

The challenge is that the quality of the information available from your traditional web analytics tools is too poor for you to analyze outcome. In order to make sense of the data, we need broader research and analysis, so that we can find relationships between the different types of data, and infer meaning from them.

To achieve this, Avinash enriches the data with Focus group analysis, continuous surveys, multivariate testing, etc.

Avinash also integrates competitive intelligence in his interpretation of the data. Services such as comScore and Hitwise can provide direct information about what your customers are doing.

It is a great book that teaches you all this from the ground up, and goes into amazing detail. I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Excelent book on on line marketing and web analitycs
Avinash has written a book that covers in depth everything related with web analytics from the perspective of an user centered web management and marketing. Excelent reference book to undestand what are users doing in your web in qualitative terms not just as a "clickstream" of numbers in a list.

A must if you want to learn what web analytics really is.

More than just analytics, this is a manual for customer focused web marketing
This is the best hands-on guide to web analytics and the importance of analytics to any on-line marketing project I have yet found.

The book balances both the high-level aspects of web analytics -- the philosophy, if you like -- with a huge amount of specific, practical, how-to information. It may seem like a big book, but I don't see how it could have been any shorter and still delivered so much.

Fortunately, it's an extremely readable book. I like the language and the style of the book. Avinash's enthusiasm for the subject comes singing out of the pages. He makes the subject seem fun and he sustains that over hundreds of pages. That's a remarkable achievement when you consider the length.

I have a shelf full of business or self-improvement books which try to make themselves readable and accessible by interjecting folksy anecdotes full of people with made up names every few pages. It's a very common approach. The result is often repetitious fluff. This book is very different. There is no padding of that kind: the examples given are all very clearly based on personal experience and are there for good reason. They are informative. They are not simply structural devices.

The language itself is also distinctive and entertaining. I believe that Avinash grew up listening to the BBC World Service. Although it's an American book, there are notes in the language which echoe a different world in a way which I find refreshing.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. One of my colleagues has a copy where most of the pages are thick with highlighter ink. The quality of information is that high. It really is that good. If you can buy only one book on the subject, this is the one to get.