Web Analytics Journey Index (WAJ)
This morning, I was surfing through different blogs to get some insights about people’s thoughts on the eMetrics Summit. Aurélie and I just attended it. It was a great event. Jim, I think it’s the best investment I’ve done this year! And I must admit that we’re still digesting… 
While surfing Technorati, I saw on Robin’s blog a title that quickly cached my attention: “eMetrics Summit: Eric Peterson vs. Matt Belkin“. When I saw the title, I was intrigued to read the content
The post describes the different views of Eric that has proposed processes as the next Web Analytics next ‘hot topic’ versus Matt defending the importance of quick wins.
I agree with Jim and Chris, both opinions can coexist. But I think that Eric’s point is much more important and that the market was expecting some guidance from Eric, as he has been doing in the past, with his great books and other initiatives. So thanks Eric, as Aurélie and I believe that you were right on the spot. After your presentation, her comment was: ‘this really makes sense’
After reading Robin’s post, I came up with a formula that I wanted to share with you:
Web Analytics Journey Index (WAJ):
W x (C x (D+S)) x P = WAJ Index
Quick Wins x (Curiosity x (Discussion + Sharing)) x Processes = Web Analytics Journey Index
The items of this formula should be considered as your Web Analytics Journey Objectives. Let’s look more closely to the formula items objectives that will help you in succeeding your Web Analytics Journey :
* Get a few quick wins to get attention
* Be curious & discuss & share knowledge
* Set-up processes
- Get a few quick wins to get attention:
When you start a Web Analytics project, you need to find some quick wins to have a sponsor in the Board (if they seem hard to find get some external help to get them). This will give you some immunization for a certain time. But be careful as this won’t last forever if you don’t deliver more results!
I don’t think that the continuous pursue of quick wins is the right path. As some comments say in Robin’s post, one day there won’t be more quick wins to find.
And then what? My recommendation is that you need to go to towards objective 2 (see below) before you can’t get quick wins easily (ideally as soon as you have gotten the attention of the Board) to avoid the frustration and long term failure. - Be curious, discuss & share knowledge:
Remember that Web Analytics takes time, as we like to say (and Eric & Xavier also):
There’s no silver bullet!
It’s important, once you get attention at the start, to increase the internal knowledge in order to get to more complex issues afterwards and deliver the real results.
If you’re not curious you won’t get this stage done and you will never get any near to what Jim called Enlightenment in the London’s eMetrics Summit.
Web Analytics from our perspective can only be achieved by clever and curious people!
Regarding the knowledge, you need to read books (as Eric’s), Web Analytics Blogs and White Papers, but most of all DISCUSS & SHARE on a continuous basis!
* Discuss with your business colleagues. Understand what their objectives are and if you are a smart guy, you will discover how you can best help them;
* Discuss with your IT colleagues. Without them you will get nowhere. Remember Jim’s presentation with Dilbert or Robin’s presentation, if you attended eMetrics 2006 in Washington;
* Discuss with your Web Analytics provider. Whether they are Vendors or a Web Analytics Agency treat them as partners, not providers. You need them on your side! Pick their brains as the product is just 10% (Avinash’s rule 90/10). For example, at OX2 we allow our clients to pay us a dinner from time to time to discuss about their Web Analytics. I must admit that around a nice table, with a good bottle of wine, together with the client, we brainstorm towards very interesting new fields of action;
* Discuss with the Web Analytics community: you have plenty of opportunities as the Yahoo Group, the many Blogs out there, get a membership of the Web Analytics Association and of course attend the eMetrics Summit near you!
* And don’t forget to share all that you have learned with all the people I mentioned in this list! We live in the 2.0 world in which sharing is the common denominator - Set-up processes:
As I mentioned, Eric is really right on spot with processes (Read his post and download his presentation if you haven’t done it yet). You need to define simple processes. Very important also: these processes must be kept resilient.
Remember that today’s world changes all the time so please don’t expect your processes to last years! Use a flexible tool to represent them. This will allow you to change them, when needed, in a matter of minutes and empower the resilience of your projects and thus of your organization.
- Bonus objective: Analysis:
You’ll see that once you are a bit advanced in my second point, you will be able to make the difference between Reporting and Analysis. As Avinash presented at eMetrics:
Reporting = providing data. How many of you don’t know a company using Web Analytics just to report number of visits and basic stuff every month to management…?
Analysis = providing insights. This is where the hard stuff starts. It’s only if you’re very serious that you will get to this stage and as Avinash says: it’s your choice! So please if you call us or any other Web Analytics specialist, make your choice first, it will save us lots of time and frustration
Getting back to the formula it allows you to rank yourself in the Web Analytics Journey and measure your progress overtime.
How to use the WAJ Index Formula?
In as scale 1 to 5 (where 1 = poor 5 = perfection) rank the different items (W, C, D, S & P) and do your math. The ideal objective would be, to quote Jim again, to get to the enlightenment stage. In the formula this stage is represented by the maximum you can score in this index: 1250.
Get a little graph where the horizontal axis represents time and the vertical represents the index value up to the maximum: 1250. Then you may want every month or so to measure your index allowing you to follow up your progress.
I think I’m going to use it internally to rank my different clients and see if the ranking matches our thoughts I’ll keep you posted on that.
To conclude on the formula, here is the recap of the action points you need to focus on:
- Get attention from your board
- Get knowledge through continuous discussion
- Share it internally and externally with your partners to ensure adhesion and efficient collaboration
- Once you get adhesion you’re ready to set-up processes
- And don’t forget during this journey to choose! Do you want reporting or analysis?
But don’t get me wrong this is not the holly grail. It’s meant to be a good start. Web Analytics is a perpetual process and other things need to be put in place to get it right, as for example actions and responsibilities & accountability.
Actions bring the results: Analysis without actions is like letting a man without arms drive a car (he can see but can’t drive). It can be so deadly frustrating! The actions can be of all kinds: simple copy or design changes, system changes, external data integration to get better insights, a/b testing or mvt, …
Responsibilities & accountability: Often, this is never addressed by companies. Not only there’s a need for responsibility in Web Analytics but also accountability! So first, make someone responsible of Web Analytics inside your organization. But don’t expect accountability, as it wouldn’t be fair, if you put in charge of Web Analytics a trainee or a young newbee that no one knows and respects in your organization. Please, choose someone that can get his voice heard, otherwise you’re just going to build up a new Web Analytics frustrated professional, and there are already too many out there (WAFP, sounds like when you’re bored ;-)). In addition, if you don’t select the right person, you can put a cross on collaboration and adhesion from the rest of the company to the actions that need to be undertaken thanks to the Insights. You won’t get the potential results!
So what do you think? Agree? Don’t agree? Something to add? Please share it with the community
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About this entry
You’re currently reading “Web Analytics Journey Index (WAJ),” an entry on OX2 Web Analytics blog
- Published:
- 20.10.06 / 7pm
- Author:
- Rene Dechamps Otamendi
- Category:
- Business Tips and Tricks, Emetrics Summit Washington 2006, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics, eMetrics
- Related posts:
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WebAnalytics.be is a Business Unit of OX2, a pan-European Interactive Agency based in Brussels. OX2 is Belgian leader in Web Analytics services.
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