Your Web Analytics Crib Sheet

Andrew Ettinger wrote a fantastic article on web analytics, web reporting and data overload at iMedia Connection that I encourage everyone to read.  He points out that with so much data collected and so many ways to parse it that web marketers can be tempted to create a dozen reports and charts and leave the real analysis out while they just report on the data.  Real analysis comes when you report on Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), such as a sale or registration, which measures the completion of an action or set goal.   These are the the data points that will help marketers understand what is and isn’t happening.  And understanding how and why a visitor completed a set of actions, is what we as web marketers need to concentrate on, as well as understanding what changes we can make that will increase certain actions.  Andrew does a great job of reminding us that we need to think about the data, understand the story and then find the patterns.  His gives us some great advice and reminds us not to let the data become our “digital albatross” and to think about what the data really means.  http://bit.ly/uo8agb