What Story Does Your Web Metrics Tell?

Ask any 10 marketers if web metrics matters and the answer will be a resounding “yes.” But ask those same 10 marketers which metrics matter most and their answers will run the gamut.

According to P.I. Reed (Lesson 2, 2013), there are two basic types of web metrics – counts and ratio – with six different classifications: foundation, visit characterization, visitor characterization, engagement, conversion and miscellaneous. Under each of these classifications are varying measures (e.g., referrers, unique visitors, conversions, etc.) that tell a different part of a company’s online “story.” Which measures a marketer ultimately chooses to use depends on the objectives he or she is trying to achieve, or the story he or she is trying to tell.

Avinash Kaushik (2010), in his book Web Analytics 2.0, talks about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as analytics that can help marketers understand if and how they are reaching their objectives. In keeping with the story analogy, KPIs would be the "characters" who help lead the listener/reader to the story’s conclusion. And while each character plays a unique role in weaving the story together, some character’s roles are more relevant than others. The "role" these characters play in the story's development would be similar to the role of web analytics, or the metrics that describe what is taking place or happening with a company's online presence.

In the 2013 video, Above and Beyond Metrics: Tell a Story with Reports, the importance of using web metrics to develop “meaningful” recommendations is discussed. Specifically, Sara Kaczmarek, analyst, with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, (2013) talks about how she uses her quarterly web reports to develop compelling stories about her employer’s online presence.



Kaczmarek's discussion appears to support the observation that web metrics, just like a character's role, play an important part in bringing a story together and to its conclusion. Without web metrics, a marketer simply has a bunch of characters (KPIs) that alone cannot bring a reader/listener to a story’s conclusion, or ultimate objective(s).

Today marketers have a variety of tools at their disposal help tell their story. In fact, Adobe recently announced adding six new features to help marketers become better “storytellers:” predictive analytics and anomaly detection, expanded real-time reporting, data visualization updates, expanded mobile analytics capabilities, conversion analysis for app transaction and video metrics report. As Craver (2013, para. 3) explains:

Some of the new ad hoc analysis includes better usability for understanding the context around site visitors data trends. It helps visualize and find the actionable meaning of mean, minimum, maximum, and standard deviation by overlaying column data in graphs.

Notice the word actionable in the above sentence – something Kaushik (2010) points out repeatedly in his book as an important outcome of understanding and using web metrics; of telling a good story.

Through each lesson, my hope is that you’ll focus not just on the metrics and reports being analyzed, but rather on the reasons for choosing the metrics and the thought process around creating insightful analytics. That’ll ensure the other types of analyses you do, not covered in this book, are actionable, (Kaushik, 2010, p. 87).

Without an ability to act on what is learned about a company's online presence, foundational, visit, visitor characterization, engagement, conversion and miscellaneous metrics are simply numbers that fail to tell an engaging story. After all, just about everyone likes a good action(able) story.

References

Craver, T. (2013, Oct. 15). Adobe analytics ads 6 new features. Retrieved Nov. 2, 2013, from http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2300532/Adobe-Analytics-Adds-6-New-Features

Kaszmarek, S. (2013). Above and beyond metrics: Tell a Story with Reports. Retrieved Nov. 3, 2013, from http://www.howto.gov/training/classes/beyond-metrics

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web Analytics 2.0. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc. 

Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, West Virginia University. (2013). Lesson 2: Web Metrics & SEO.  Retrieved Oct. 28, 2013, from WVU eCampus Web site: http://ecampus.wvu.edu