Avinash Kaushik and Anil Batra kick off Part 1 of this multipart series post regarding the most common client pains (in terms of Web Analytics) and how to best solve them. Each Analyst will be sharing pains and solutions from their own experiences.

Avinash Kaushik is the Director of Web Research & Analytics at Intuit Inc.

Here are Avinash's thoughts...

Here is a common problem: Choice, what to choose and how to choose? We have so many data sources at our disposal:

* Clickstream
* Outcomes (orders, leads, resolution rates...)
* Surveys, usability, card sorts
* A/B - MVT testing results
* Competitive analysis Google Trends, MSN adCenter Labs
* Our own opinions
* What works for others

So in a constantly changing ecosystem like the web, where change changes at a rapid pace, what do you choose and how do you go about making that choice and how do you know it is the right choice?

Our solution is:

1) Apply the "tough love" methodology to figure out what the business is trying to solve for and then define the "Critical Few".

2) Then try to figure out what the website Customers are coming for and what are their "Critical Few".

3) Based on that create a custom pallet of Metrics that pull from the options available to paint the right picture.

4) Two things are, as much as possible :), not negotiable: Doing testing and experimentation (do the best we can based on what the website is and the website owner) and some way of listening to customers (like using the ForeSee ACSI survey or we are now trying the iPerceptions one on Intuit Canada).

I think if we do #4 well then it will make it easier to choose what we should choose because we will be listening to our customers and solving for them.

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Anil Batra is the Senior Analytics Manager at ZAAZ. Anil has worked with several fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Business Objects, Dowjones, ESPN.

Here are Anil's thoughts...

1. Accuracy of the Data - The tools are purchased and set up without understanding the goals of the business. Since the goals of the business/site are not properly understood they start measuring and reporting on what ever out of the box reports the tool can provide. In most of the cases tool is capturing information the should not be captured and skipping information that should be captured (improper tagging and other issues). To avoid this issue our approach is to start with understanding goals and then make recommendation for the and configure the tools.

2. Acting on the findings - One of the major issues is acting on the finding. Once we make recommendation many customers face a challenge taking an actions. Why? Because of organizational structure. IT, who is responsible for making the changes to pages, reports elsewhere. Marketing can ask for changes but won't get them because IT has other priorities.

How should this be fixed:
1. Change in organizational structure
2. Help the whole organization know the impact of these changes, show the impact these changes will have on the bottom line.


Thanks Avinash and Anil! Be sure to check out Part 2 tomorrow with two more Industry experts.