Jim Sterne: Actionable Analytics
Jim Sterne has been at the forefront of Web Analytics since 1994. He is the founding director and chairman of the Web Analytics Association and has been named top rated speaker by Internet World 8 years in a row. In this interview RedEye talks to Jim Sterne about the future of Actionable Analytics.
At RedEye’s recent seminar, you focused much of your presentation on ‘Actionable Analytics’. This is a favourite phrase in the industry at the moment, – what does this mean to you?
In the beginning, firms do their best ostrich imitations. They have no data. They don’t know they should. Next comes the Reporting Stage. They have charts and graphs displayed by an idiot, full of color and line, signifying nothing. Beyond that comes Benchmarking. Same as above but now they know if the colors and lines are good or bad compared to yesterday or to the competition. It is only when the information is used to make business decisions that it becomes useful. Can we make the website better at attracting people? Better at conversion? Better at customer experience? Better at generating loyalty? When the numbers actually cause people to DO something, they are actionable. That’s where the money is.
Everyone remembers Avinash Kaushik’s great phrase ‘Spend $10 on the software and $90 on people’ – Does this still hold true today?
Regrettably so. It would be grand to have all the answers tumble out of the machine at your feet. But the fact remains, it’s the analysis of the information by humans that generates insights, not the machine. That’s why medical diagnosis is also not automated.
What are your thoughts on the last click wins debate?
“The last click wins” loses. This is the interminably unanswerable question. Was that last click the first impression? Or did they click on it because they saw the TV ad, heard the spot on the radio, saw the tube poster, almost got run over by the wrapped cab, read the book, saw the movie and played the home game? We will never know. But, as our abilities to measure get more sophisticated and more sensitive and we are able to correlate and analyze more information, we are getting better at hearing the weak signals that point the way.
How successfully do you think people are integrating different data sources with web analytics, like surveys and offline sales?
A very rare few are doing it effectively in narrow cases. If you, dear reader, work for one such organization, please notify me at once. I have conferences that need speakers, articles that need examples and clients who are hungry for examples.
What are the trends you see happening over the next 12 months?
The slow, inexorable climb up the maturity model from reporting to benchmarking to actionable insights will get a boost in the next 12 months as more and more firms will have fewer and fewer resources to throw at marketing. Instead of raising revenue by throwing more money at promotion, they will start pouring more time and intelligence at optimizing the marketing they are doing already. Rather than pushing more eyeballs into the top of the funnel, they will be looking for ways to get more results out of the funnalized population they have. I see great strides in adoption, implementation and education in the next 12 months. Tough times call for tough measures.
What should companies be doing with their web analytics which most are not doing today?
Stop the lip service chatter and force decisions to be made on data. Test, test, test rather than try something, shrug and move on. Try something, measure the results, try something else, and compare the two, then the four, then the eight. The result is incremental improvement that is unstoppable.
What are the biggest complaints that you hear said about web analytics?
Due to my position in the industry, people are forever complaining that their senior executives don’t get it. The biggest complaint is that people are not taking advantage of these rich, miraculous tools anywhere near as powerfully as they might.
As for the rest, the major complaint is that the tools don’t perform magic. They are only tools and to build something substantial, you also need architects, foundation builders, plumbers, electricians and the rest. You can do it faster with the tools, but the tools don’t do the work.
If you were going to re-invent the web analytics industry tomorrow what would you do differently?
I’d have built the desire for answers before building the tools to deliver the data dump. “Look at all this data! What do they mean?” is an ancient approach to the problem. “Look! There’s a comet in the sky! What can it mean?”
I’d prefer business people asked business questions and get business answers than poke the data with a stick until it gives them the confession they most desire.
What are the best examples of social media measurement that you’ve seen?
There are so many small new firms tackling this problem from all sides that there is no clear set of methodologies at the moment. Each tool vendor has their take – mentions, tonality, virality, traffic and even social media derived purchases. But I have yet to see a social media measurement ecosystem clearly defined. I’m pretty sure that means I need to get out more.
How has the WAA evolved in the years since you launched it and what other organisations / references would you recommend people to use? What does the next few years hold for the WAA?
The WAA went from start-up club-house to serious professional association in record time. In the coming months, the organization is going to focus on education, certification, standards and advocacy for our members in a global way.
Other resources include the Yahoo! Web Analytics Discussion Group, the Web Analytics Wednesday social events, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits and a very vociferous and passionate blogosphere. Between all of the above, there’s a great deal of information to be had and conversations to be conducted. It’s a thriving, zealous industry and just a whole lot of fun to be around so many ridiculously intelligent people who love solving problems.
For more information on Jim Sterne visit www.targeting.com
