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Actionable Web Analytics

A Review

Actionable Web Analytics is one of the most useful books I own about web analytics, and I own quite a few. It isn’t an introduction to web analytics — for that I recommend Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics: An Hour a Day — but for practical application in a business environment large or small, this is a book you need to own. I may be needier than most; I own two copies. The chapter “Monetizing Site Behaviors” alone is worth the price of the book.

Corporations Large & Small

I’ve worked for small companies most of my life, some vanishingly small. Now I work for Microsoft. I’m more impressed by the similarities between companies large and small than their differences. Whatever their size, most companies have yet to fully exploit one of the most significant advantages offered by web analytics — prioritizing their development projects.

Monetizing Site Behaviors

Monetization is simply assigning a dollar value upon desirable site behaviors — the things you want people to do on your site. It doesn’t mean you’ll earn that amount if someone does what you want them to do; it’s an approximation of that behavior’s value in achieving your goal. How you assign a value to a behavior is less important than consistency in your method. (Burby and Atkinson do provide details even if I don’t.) The ultimate value of a monetization strategy is guidance where to invest your development resources.

Everybody’s hard pressed to choose what to prioritize for their next web development project. Investment is risk. Usually it comes down to the HiPPO’s decision — the Highest Paid Person in the Organization. Monetization is a method of managing risk by determining which projects are likely to pay higher returns on investment. It takes the decision out of the hands of the HiPPO and bases it upon data. Making data-driven decision is what web analytics is about. And, obviously, actionable web analytics is what this book is about.

Actionable Web Analytics
Jason Burby & Shane Atchison
Wiley Publishing, 2007
ISBN 978-8-470-12474-1

March 8, 2009 in Analytics | Permalink

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Comments

As a fellow traveler in the small business marketing world I have to agree.

It is often hard to get the top level people to focus on any metric other than cash flow.

Monetization can be especially hard for companies who are using offline conversion techniques such as follow-up phone calls for leads gathered online. If web is the only source of leads it is easier but amulti channel marketing program can be tough.

However, if you can attach that monetary value to every name gathered from your web site you can really go wild with paid online advertising.

I'll be sure to pick up a copy of this book!

Posted by: Craig Scott | Mar 24, 2009 6:14:59 AM

Awsome info!!!

Posted by: reborn dolls | Apr 27, 2009 11:58:19 AM

yes, it is really very use for small & big online business partner , it has many points on what or how to do the appropriate action with web analytics. i congrat Actionable Web Analytics team to giving us an amazing tool of book

Posted by: web 2.0 development company | Nov 7, 2009 4:27:42 AM

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