Web Analytics - Elevator Pitch

Many a time, we are posed with the problem of explaining our core area of business or competency in a nutshell or within 3 minutes depending on the number of floors in the building. In my case this elevator pitch is invariably on web analytics. Though there are many aspects in web analytics, but the aspect most of them are interested in is how will web analytics benefit my Business or Organization.

Any organization big or small has a website, sometimes the website becomes the core business or it supplements the business that they are in. E-commerce or retail sites exist only because of their websites or are content sites whose lifeline is their url. There are businesses which is increasing by the minute, who are looking at the internet to supplement or source the leads and hence marketing becomes their core focus and other business that are trying to reduce cost and increase efficiency by developing self service/ customer service models on their websites.

When business are investing so much money in the websites, they ideally should also spend effort, time and money on analyzing how the website is contributing towards the business goal. Its common knowledge that "What gets measured, gets managed" in web analytics we need to add a suffix to this adage which is, "What gets measured accurately, get managed properly" and follow it up with "What gets managed well, will increasingly result in value and efficiency".

Hence my elevator pitch on web analytics has been "monitoring and reporting of website usage to make business understand the complex relationship "What are user action on the website" and "the offering of the website" and use the continuous insights to accomplish the predetermined objectives/ goals of the business.

WAW Event turns into a WOW Event

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who signed up, came to the event and participated actively in the presentations, group discussion and Q&A sessions. In fact the event paved way to next two event sponsorships, topics for the forthcoming events and patronage from the participants.

By all means The "Web Analytics Wednesday" (WAW) Event held yesterday (June 14th) in Bangalore was a big success. The participants were web analytics or allied professionals from major corporates such as Fabmall, HP Invent, Intel, Mphasis, Webex, Tesco, Malayala Manorama, etc. The audience appreciated and welcomed the event, and it was decided that it would be regular quarterly event. Further the group will be active in the web analytics forum as well to keep abreast on the developments in the field of “Web analytics”.

The topics that were presented were “Data Proliferation in Web analytics” by Seby Kallarakkal working in Nabler. And the second presentation was by me (Jaisri Chety from Regalix Inc) on “Web Metrics and Business KPIs”. This was followed by a question & answer session and group discussion.

Web Analytics Wednesday is a global effort to put "faces with names" and to get local members of the web analytics community networking, updated and share & enhance their collective knowledge on Web Analytics. This is the Indian chapter of the “International Web Analytics Forum” started and moderated by “Eric Peterson” under the patronage of “Web Analytics Association”

I started the event and the forum to spearhead web analytics discussions and knowledge sharing in India. The newly formed group will focus on: -

- Increasing awareness and usage of web analytics and web analysts in India.

- Convene, meet and share knowledge every quarter (or more frequently if possible)



“WebTrends” the acknowledged global web analytics market leader sponsored the Event. For more than twelve years, WebTrends is now leading the category into Marketing Performance Management. It enables thousands of web-smart organizations to easily improve campaign performance and web site conversion as well as build stronger relationships with their customers.

You can download the presentation on WebMetrics & Business KPIs from here. Download

Finally the D-Day is here

Hi,

Its been a great experience till here - to the D-Day of the "Web Analytics Wednesday" Event in Bangalore. There were the usual package of pleasant and not-so-pleasant surprises. One surprise that I need to inform you all about is there will be a small delay in the start time. Instead of 6:00 pm the event will commence at 6:45 pm. I am sorry for the inconvenience.

It is exciting as well as a little intimidating, that usually happens with a stage event. However, we are all set to go live in a couple of hours from now.

For all those who will be there - looking forward to meeting you all.

And those who will not be able to make - don't worry, I shall update all the presentations/ topics in this blog.

Venue fixed at last

After almost a month of planning and working on the event, we finally have a venue. I am looking forward to meeting you all at:

Location: Royal Orchid Central Bangalore, 47/1, Dickenson Road, Bangalore-560042 (in Manipal Center - Off MG Road)

Date: 14th June

Time: 6:00 PM

Agenda:

• Welcome/ Introduction
• Topic Presentations
• Cocktail & Dinner

For those of you who will not be able to attend the event, I shall be updating the discussion/ topics presented here (in my blog). You can bookmark this page and comeback here for the updates.

Cheers,

jaisri

Topic selection for WAW - 14 June

Conducting an event, small or big has its own challenges. For this particular event "Topic Selection" has been the most difficult task so far. After a lot of elbow grease, I have arrived at these 4 topics for the event:

1. Data proliferation: multiple sources, reports, and integration - Integrating with marketing and consumer data
2. Segmenting for better understanding of customers, your website, usability, buying behavior, and everything else.
3. Understanding business goals well enough to know what to measure; and connecting Web metrics to business key performance indicators
4. Finding, hiring, and training qualified people on the correct use of Web analytics data (including training internal resources and team members on how to use the data to make decisions)

Thanks to Jim sterne, who had already articulated my thought process in one of his article's in "Clickz", that gave words to the topics that I had in mind.

http://www.clickz.com/experts/crm/analyze_data/article.php/3510361

My personal favorite is "Segmenting" (2) and "Data Proliferation" (1), one which is the topic that I will be working on and presenting in the Meet.

If any of you are interested in presenting any of the above mentioned topic or have any other interesting topic in mind, please get back to me at the earliest to help us prepare the agenda.

Looking forward to making this event a success and a forerunner to many more that would follow.