I’d like to share with you a very interesting video about an interview carried on by Byron Gordon to my friend Jim Sterne. Do you know that the price tag was just invented 150 years ago and was the milestone that revolution the marketing industry? (Come on, do you really thing that marketing is new stuff?). Take a look at it!
One week ago I interviewed Avinash Kaushik about some hot topics of the Web Analytics Industry. The result was a “must” read Interview, so get this party started 
In order to get some different point of views about some topics of our industry I interviewed two of the main referents, Eric Peterson and Jim Sterne. Everybody know them so there isn’t so much to add but my personal feeling… Great people and passionate professionals.
Eric Peterson, with more than 10 years of working in the industry, is one of the most experienced professionals in the world. He is the Author of the book Web Analytics Demystified, one of the most important books in this field and founded Web Analytics Demystified Inc. in 2007 after working as an Analyst for Jupiter Research. His blog Web Analytics Demystified is one of the most relevant blogs in the Web Analytics Industry, with thousand subscribers around the globe.
Jim Sterne is the Founding President and current Chairman of the Web Analytics Association. He wrote several books like his widely acclaimed book, World Wide Web Marketing, was a groundbreadking look at commercial websites from the customer perspective. He also produces the Emetrics Summit in London and Santa Barbara which attract attendees and speakers from around the world.
So, lets the party started!… Continue reading
I’m so glad of presenting to you this interview with Avinash Kaushik. If you are reading this blog is because you are, at least, interested in web analytics, and of couse you know him, but just as a formality here is Avinash’s BIO.
Avinash is an Independent Consultant with a focus on speaking and consulting engagements that help organizations unlock the power of web research and web analytics to create truly data driven organizations and gain a strategic competitive advantage. He is also the author of the book Web Analytics: An Hour A Day, published by Wiley.
Currently He is the Analytics Evangelist for Google.
Most recently Avinash was the Director of Web Research & Analytics at Intuit Inc where He was responsible for supporting the decision making for Intuit’s 60+ ecommerce and non-ecommerce websites. His team focussed on Intuit’s needs in the areas of: Advanced Web Analytics, Competitive Intelligence Analysis, Experimentation and Testing (A/B, Multivariate etc), ClickStream & Outcomes Analysis, Customer Satisfaction measurement & VOC analysis, Web Research (Lab Usability, Site Visits, Heuristic Evaluations etc).
Avinash’s professional career has focused on Decision Support Systems at Fortune 500 companies such as DirecTV Broadband, Silicon Graphics Inc & DHL in Asia, Middle East and the US. If you are interested you can check out his LinkedIn Profile.
He is also thrilled to have the title of Associate Instructor University of British Columbia, having contributed three modules to the UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics course.
He has given keynotes / speeches at the eMetrics Summit in Santa Barbara and London, Ad-Tech NYC, Frost & Sullivan Internet Marketing Strategies 2006, Ad-Tech Impact and ATG Insight 2006. For a full list of speaking engagements click here.
JUAN: What does web analytics means to you?
AVINASH: I paused for eight minutes when I read this question! It has so many answers, some probably more philosophical than others. Let me try the straight answer…..
Web Analytics to me is a way of understanding the customer experience on your website with the goal of improving the experience so that the customer is able to complete her / his task as efficiently and as quickly as possible.
On the personal side, to me Web Analytics is the opportunity to collect and analyze data in one of the most interactive environments where you can have a direct and bottom-line impact faster than on any other channel on the planet at the moment. It is so cool when you think about it for a second.
JUAN: How would you define web analytics?
AVINASH: As a member of the Board of Directors of the Web Analytics Association I would be remiss if I did not first provide the official WAA approved definition, here it is…..
“Web Analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage.”
Typically people tend to think of that in very restrictive terms, just clickstream data you can get out of Omniture or HBX or Google Analytics.
I think of Web Analytics as collection and study of any data related to the website and the web channel. In addition to clickstream it would include survey data, experimentation and testing, competitive intelligence, integrated off site and on site data etc etc. It is a much broader view to understand the holistic picture.
JUAN: Why should companies do web analytics?
AVINASH: Because it feels good to make lots of money, rather than staying poor, and it feels good to have happy customers who love you, rather than those who hate you with passion because your website is a hindrance and not a help.
JUAN: Some managers think that having a web analytics professional is not necessary because “anyone can manage the web analytics tool”. What is your opinion about it?
AVINASH: I have a rule called 10/90 rule that I had created three years ago. It came out of years of my experience in the space. It states simply: that if you have $100 to spend on Analytics then you should spend $10 on the tool and $90 on people. That should give you a feel for my opinion about the importance of people in finding insights. Tools are just….. tools.
You might invest in people in your own company to help you understand your goals and objectives and analyze your data to find insights and help drive change. If you don’t have that horsepower then you should go get it from outside, get a consultant who will do that work for you while you find someone and hire then and transition from consultant to your own employee.
I cannot state it more simply: If you don’t have the people (in-house or consultant) to truly analyze the data and find insights then why have the analytics tool?
JUAN: Would you recommend companies having a web analytics professional in-house or outsourced (a consulting company).
AVINASH: Ahhh I have a blog post for this one as well, here is the link…… Web Analysis: In-house or Out-sourced or Something Else?
In short my recommendation is that the end goal should be to have that expertise in-house because no one can understand your company uniquely like people in your company. But in the post above I recommend a four stage plan of moving from getting tactical help from consultants to finding someone in-house to training them to do tactical to transitioning consultants to only do cutting edge competitive stuff. That’s a simple lifecycle.
JUAN: You were part of the new Google Analytics version. Are you completely satisfied with the result? If not, what things do you think must to be improved in the immediate future?
AVINASH: I was, unfortunately, not a part of the new version of Google Analytics, though it sure would be nice to claim credit! The leadership of the new interaction model in GA goes to Jeff Veen and his merry band of design and UI experts. Google is lucky to have them.
I think that even Google’s competitors will agree that the new GA interaction model is a radically better and sets a new benchmark for how users should interact with data and quickly and efficiently find insights. Its strengths are data discovery, providing context everywhere, lots of interesting visualization, non-ecommerce reporting etc.
There are a whole bunch of things I would love to see evolve or added. Even since the release of version 2 of GA there have been two major releases with new features. This rapid improvement will continue because the team is passionate about solving real world problems of its users.
JUAN: Which technology do you prefer, page tagging, web log analyzers, hybrids, packet sniffers, others or it depends on every particular project?
AVINASH: This is a whole chapter in my book (note from Juan: you SHOULD read Web Analytics an Hour a Day, you have years of Avinash’s experience in that book) and I don’t want to bore your readers to death here. I do encourage them to read the book – or I have some posts about this on the blog as well – if they want deep details.
Each data collection methodology has its merits and should be weighed carefully, it is perhaps the single most important decision you’ll make about web analytics because once you make that decision you’ll be locked into the technology, people, organization structure, future evolution etc.
For most websites and businesses I recommend considering page tagging for two reasons they don’t think about as much:
1) Innovation: Most innovation in data capture, processing and reporting is happening on top of solutions that use page tags as a data collection mechanism. Vendors are not investing enough in other solutions, for better or for worse. So unless you have the wherewithal to build your own infrastructure and innovate in the web analytics space then it is perhaps more prudent to give stronger consideration to page tag based solutions (from any company).
2) Integration: You want your web analytics solution to integrate with your survey tool or your behavior targeting tool or your multivariate testing tool etc etc. That way you can understand customer behavior better and even optimize it. At the moment it is easiest for you to achieve this if you have a page tag based web analytics solution.
There are others who will swear by different ways of collecting data. I encourage everyone to take a step back from the tactical arguments and consider the choice in the context of the above two thoughts.
May the force be with you!
JUAN: How do you imagine the web analytics industry in the future?
AVINASH: I think we are in for a couple years of rapid evolution and revolution. Tools will change, the skills we expect from a Web Analyst will change, Marketers will get directly in charge of using their own data and driving changes, there will be consolidation and there will be closures and new starts.
I wish I had a crystal ball and I could pin point exactly what will happen. But I am convinced that the world of web analytics will radically change in the next two years.
On and in the next three to five years there will be no such thing as “web analytics”, it will simply be all “business analytics” because the web will be that big and all the business will be on the web!
JUAN: Which advice / recommendation would you give to a web analytics professional?
AVINASH: You are the hottest commodity out there, if you are any good, ask for a raise 
On a serious note here are a couple of thoughts:
- If you are only well versed in Clickstream data and “web analytics tools” then it is time to expand your expertise. Clickstream is just a small part of what it takes to understand web customer behavior.
- Common sense is greatly underrated (and under applied) when comes to doing analysis. It is important to be aware of its importance (and always remember the principle of Occam’s Razor).
- Get close to your marketers and website owners. Being close to the business will give you the key context that you need to 1) know where to focus your analytical efforts and 2) understand your data a lot better than you otherwise would.
- Read Juan’s blog religiously, it is very good!!
JUAN: What’s the best book you’ve read?
AVINASH: Growing up I was a voracious reader, the Indian mythology comics (Amar Chitra Katha – http://tinyurl.com/yrpgju) perhaps had the greatest impact on me during my formative years.
In terms of western books I read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (http://tinyurl.com/29bv3u) when I was very young, and another three times over the years. It left a very deep impression on me.
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I would like to personally thanks Avinash not just for participating in this interview , which took a lot of his valuable time,s) but also for all what he does for web analytics. He is one of the people that is driving web analytics to the next level. I always say that I don’t think that some people are more intelligent than others, but more passionate, and Avinash has a contagious passion. He probably is one of the most passionate and dedicated professionals I’ve ever meet.
Thank you very much Avinash!
Two weeks ago I promessed interviewing Gonzalo Arzuaga in order to let them tell us about Killer Startups (his latest own Startup). Here is the interview, I hope you enjoy it.
JUAN: What is Killer Startups?
GONZALO: KillerStartups.com is a user driven internet startups community. Entrepreneurs, investors and bloggers are staying updated on up-and-coming internet startups using our blog platform.
JUAN: How did KS begin?
GONZALO: We clearly created KillerStartups with the idea of adding something we found it was missing at that time. Techcrunch is certainly the big fish in the internet startups niche, and Digg was really getting bigger by the day. We decided to put them together and see what would happen. That’s why we like to say KillerStartups in a way is like Techcrunch + Digg. We only review internet startups, we don’t do editorial news, we just focus on doing reviews. And letting our members vote on that, comment, contact the startups reviewed, share their opinion if they think that startup will go IPO, survive, etc. Currently we’re doing 20+ reviews per day, and we’re soon gonna go for more. It takes a lot of effort and resouces to generate good quality content.
JUAN: What is the target market of KS?
GONZALO: Basically we aim to all internet related companies. We include VCs willing to invest in internet companies, entrepreneurs creating their own internet startups, and CEOs of established internet companies looking for new and upcoming startups they may buy or invet in.
JUAN: What is its competition?
GONZALO: Actually we don’t see anyone just yet doing exactly the same thing KillerStartups.com is doing. But off course, if the concept gets validated, we might see some others join us.
JUAN: What does KS that makes it different?
GONZALO: Well, we’re trying to do one thing and one thing only, and trying to do it well. We just review internet startups. That’s it, that’s all we’re ever gonna do. And put lots of work and passion into it. That’s the key to succeed in anything you do, I believe.
JUAN: What should potencial investors expect from this project?.
GONZALO: If you consider the investment needed, it’s really low investment, that’s why the web 2.0 is so great. You can go to the market and see if your idea has potential, or not, in a very short period of time, and with a low investment. Actually we don’t know how’s this gonna evolve. We launched KillerStartups.com in January 20th and since then the traffic’s been growing steadily. Last week we were in the 17,000′s in Alexa, not bad at all. But off course we want to go for the 5,000′s
Basically the risk is high in the sense that if the market doesn’t like it, all the investment goes south. Definitively it’s a long term play, we just don’t know how’s this gonna evolve, and we just love the fact it is that way.
JUAN: What is your opinion about people that says “KS is just another Clon of Meneame”?
GONZALO: Actually our technology is based on pligg.com which is a script created from the meneame team. We strongly believe that what set you apart is execution. Meneame is like digg in spanish, KillerStartups is only focusing on internet startups, that’s why we believe we have more relation to Techcrunch than to Digg or Meneame in that sense.
JUAN: What is your passion?
GONZALO: I Love writing and reading, but not much of that lately unfortunately. I’m putting really long hours into KillerStartups.com, like you wouldn’t believe…
JUAN: What’s the best book you’ve read?
GONZALO: “Think and grow rich” by Napoleon Hill. I read that book when I was 17, and what an impact it had in my life.
I would like to personally thanks Gonzalo Arzuaga for his time, as he said this days he is really busy with KS.
Some of the reviews KillerStartups.com got since launched:
“Simple blog idea done well. Good idea for a focused site. Well done!”
Howard Lindzon – Wallstrip.com
“KillerStartups is very cool site, great concept!”
Sean King – StartupStories.com
“I think your site will fly!”
Andrew Ive – AdvisorGarage.com
“What a forward thinking concept.”
Matt Keegan – TheArticleWriter.com
“Wow. Great idea. I think you have a killer start-up yourself.”
George – CanIMakeBigMoneyOnline.com
Juan Damia
Analytics
I’m constantly seeking at the web trying to find something interesting among the million projects (sites) are launched every day. It’s hard to find something interesting or creative with also a solid model of business, apparently internet is the perfect place where the people launch projects without even asking about how are they gonna obtain money to finance their project and get some benefits.
The last 20th of January Gonzalo Arzuaga (An internet Pioneer that has demonstrated with the years an splendid capability for developing and launching projects balancing creativity and a solid business model, something pretty unique in internet) has launched killerstartups.com, a brilliant project with a great marketing mix.
The idea is both simple and brilliant. Killerstartups.com was developed based on Pligg. Originally named menéame in Spanish, Pligg is a web application that allows users to submit a startup that will be reviewed by all and will be promoted, based on popularity, to the main page. When a user submits a startup it will be placed in the “Newly Submitted” area until it gains sufficient votes to be promoted to the main page. The original source for Pligg was authored by Ricardo Galli. He was influenced by the extremely popular English technology site digg.com.
Probably a lot of people say, this is just a Meneame clon, but that’s in my opinion is a very simplistic analysis and has no relation with reality. Killer Startup is a completely different project with a different business model, so the utilization of a similar platform doesn’t make Killer Startups a Meneame clon.
I could keep talking about KillerStartups.com but I think that nobody could explain better this project that the founder and owner. So I’ll be interviewing Gonzalo Arzuaga this days and later posting it here. By now let me invite you to visit KillerStartups.com and build your own opinion.
Juan Manuel Damia (web analytics)
If you think about Web Analytics, one of the first names comes to your mind is Eric Peterson. Eric is currently Vice President with the Visual Sciences division of web analytics firm, WebSideStory, is the author of several books on web measurement and moderates several popular discussion lists on analytics. He also manages an excellent site on web analytics called Web Analytics Demystified (one of my favorites). He previously worked as an analyst with JupiterResearch and has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Business 2.0 and others as an expert on the topic.
This is the interview I made to Eric, I hope you enjoy it as I did.
JUAN: Which practices are involved in a regular Web Analytics project?
ERIC: Wow, so many. On my web site I describe something I call the “Web Analytics Business Process” which is really a series of processes that describe the “doing” of web analytics. You can get the presentation by visiting my site (http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/wabp.asp)
JUAN: What is, in your opinion, the present situation of Web Analytics?
ERIC: Fantastic! More companies are getting interested in web analytics all the time. Companies are aggressively working to hire dedicated analysts, better technologies are being purchased, and even the great Jim Sterne’s conference (Emetrics is becoming a huge event!)
JUAN: How serious are companies taking Web Analytics?
ERIC: The best companies are taking the learnings from web analytics ** very seriously ** which makes sense considering the value the technology brings. It doesn’t make any sense to simply “play” at web analytics, especially with the amount of money being spent on online marketing and advertising.
JUAN: Which analytics technology do you prefer (Page Tagging / Log File Analyzers / Hybrids / Packet Sniffers). Why?
ERIC: Well, I work for Visual Sciences, the world’s premier provider of hybrid-based measurement solutions. Hybrid is really the best since it allows sites to measure both online marketing efforts (e.g., tag-based) side-by-side with IT efforts (SEO, error reporting, etc.)
JUAN: The actual technologies are covering all your expectations? Why Yes / No.
ERIC: Yes. I don’t believe that web analytics is underutilized because of technology. The gap in usage arises from how companies think about and use the technology, which is why I am so excited about describing the Web Analytics Business process.
JUAN: Why a company should invest their budget in analytics?
ERIC: Well, if you’re spending money on online marketing or advertising without closely monitoring the value that money returns, you’re simply wasting the money you spend. Web analytics is about creating visibility into how your efforts are appreciated by your customers.
JUAN: How do you imagine Web Analytics in a short, medium and long term?
ERIC: In the short- and medium-term I think things will pretty much stay the same as companies really learn how web analytics can benefit their businesses. Long-term I think web analytics has the potential to change how business works online. The best businessess are using web analytics very much to their competitive advantage; I think the rest will follow.
JUAN: What’s your passion?
ERIC: Well, I do a lot with web analytics I founded the Yahoo! group on web analytics, Web Analytics Wednesday, and a Web 2.0 Measurement Working Group. Mostly I love hearing that companies are succesfully using this technology to their business benefit (note from JUAN> Probably most of them are using it).
JUAN: What’s the best book you’ve read?
ERIC: Oh man, I think the ** best ** book about online business I have ever read is “Don’t Make Me Think!” by Steve Krug. Otherwise, I’m a huge fan of science fiction books, perhaps Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” and the “Ender’s” series of books.
That was Eric Peterson, one of the big guys from Analytics. Let me recommend you to visit Web Analytics Demystified, one of the “must visit” websites in the Web Analytics Industry.
In order to understand the application of Packet Sniffer for Web Analytics proposes I interviewed Ivo Rehberger, founder, Development Manager and the main software architect of Nextwell. He has a doctoral degree in technical cybernetics, and has published many articles in technical journals and e-zines. In NEXTWELL he is responsible for research and development.
Netwell commercializes a very interesting product called Clipen which is awfully usefull for Analytics proposes.
JUAN: What’s packet sniffer?
IVO: Generally, packet sniffer is an application (or sometimes appliance) that captures packets from a network and stores them on a hard drive. The term sniffer has probably its origin in the fact the application usually runs in promiscuous mode, when each packet present “on the wire” (i.e. passive voice for present) is captured and stored. Packet sniffers are known to be improperly used to capture user passwords or other private information especially if they are sent as plain text which is even frequent these days. Nevertheless, packet sniffer is a useful tool mainly to inspect network communication, to analyze network or network application errors, to monitor network application performance, and last but not least very efficient source of input data for web analytics.
JUAN: How does this technology apply for Analytics?
IVO: Packet sniffer is placed between client’s computer and server machine and thus it has unique ability to get complete information about interaction made between users and the server application of the website. Packet sniffing as discussed here is just the principle to acquire information needed for web analytics, this does not mean each sniffing application is automatically applicable for this purpose. So if I speak concretely about our clickstream processing engine technology called Clipen, the main mission this technology serves is to provide high-quality clickstream data that are completely processed and sessionized in near real-time. We are fully aware of how much results of an analysis depend on the quality of the input data, and this awareness (together with scalability) is reflected across the entire conception of the technology. From an architectural point of view the engine plays role as an infrastructural component of web analytics and data warehousing solutions. The most hidden and important component to achieve optimal analytical results based on complex, quality and near real-time available input data. To support this, the Clipen technology ensures both procedural and performance aspects of the clickstream data processing.
JUAN: What´s advantages and/or disadvantages does it has over Page Tagging or Log Analyzers?
IVO: Web logs are inaccurate and incomplete data source from its nature and to integrate logs from several machines of same website may be terrible task with uncertain results. Page tags, on the other hand, must be embedded into each page you want to track and this task may be really painful. Tag also tends to under-measure traffic. Also, not every on-line company wants to affect its fine-tuned e-commerce application to be affected by tagging. On Nextwell’s website I published some kind of comparison of the data collection methods. The main difference that characterizes packet sniffing used for data collection is the fact we have complete information about what’s the result of each HTTP request made by website users. Was the page downloaded completely or incompletely? How much of the page was really downloaded? How long lasted the download? As the sniffer “sits” on the network line between both communication parties (but on the server side for this case), the complete information of the client/server communication is available.
The biggest advantages of the Clipen technology are complex and high-quality data with near real-time availability, high performance and scalability, easy deployment, processing customization, content tracking (website content labeling). The technology is completely non-invasive and does not require any website changes to enable the clickstream data processing. Packet sniffing is entirely transparent for the tracked server and does not affect its operation.
As disadvantage somebody may consider fact the technology is on the server side so it may be affected by proxy servers or browser caches that do not send HTTP request to original server but serve it from cache. However, there are some proxies busting techniques that if applied within HTTP server they prevent proxy servers from unwanted caching. In addition, today websites are full of dynamic content that shouldn’t be cached anyway and that’s why on-line applications inherently act against caching of HTML pages. Influence of caching is negligible.
JUAN: How does it work?
IVO: This answer is quite technical; I borrowed it from Clipen’s user guide. Machine operating Clipen technology has to be connected to the tracked website’s network flow via particular network switch with port mirroring feature or via device like TAP. The clickstream data processing starts by creation of a network communication snoop files using Clipen sniffer. TCP connections stored in each snoop file are demultiplexed and divided into parallel tasks that are distributed to particular Clipen processing nodes to process them concurrently. Within the processing of the task there are following steps that Clipen node performs:
1. TCP streams reassembling
2. TCP streams SSL/TLS decoding (in the case of HTTPS)
3. HTTP request/response message completion
4. HTTP headers analysis and extraction
5. page/non-page recognition
6. session identification
7. user identification
8. content identification
9. storing data to Clipen database
When processed data are stored in the Clipen database they go through post-processing executed internally within the Clipen database managed by relational database management system. The post-processing is composed of the following parts:
1. Sessionization
2. Referring-referred resolving
3. Page view dwell time specification
4. Robot detection
After post-processing the output data are available for extraction from the Clipen database; the data extraction is fully driven by Clipen user’s external ETL application. Clipen is universal data production system so whatever external application may extract the processed data and use those for any purpose, typically for web analytics and data warehousing, but currently we also prepare product called Clipen Benchmark that is intended for performance monitoring of web applications and for so called “real user monitoring”.
JUAN: How do you imagine Analytics in the future?
IVO: I’m not the right man to predict the future but let’s try. What may change the future of analytics are probably the RFID technologies. RFID chips and systems are capable to bring many new applications that will shift analytics a large step ahead. On the other hand the RFID will evoke (or maybe already evokes) many issues regarding privacy. The capability to analyze very detailed information about person may also lead to more strict legal control so the technological evolution in this area may finally cause some regulation. However, it’s obvious that one-to-one marketing will get new meaning thanks to RFID technologies and analytical conveniences they will bring.
JUAN: What´s your passion?
IVO: I like sport shooting. Especially practical shooting – both handgun and shotgun – under IPSC rules. Fortunately, Czech Republic has judicious gun control laws thus shooters are not persecuted here like for example in the UK. But there is not much time for hobbies now. What is important for me is to meet friends regularly if possible and relax with them in nice pub with good beer. OK, maybe not surprise, as I live in Czech Republic where we have the best beer in the world (Note from Juan: I lived in Germany and I should say that the best beer I ever tried is Alt Beer from Dusseldorf, but I do agree to try yours just for researching proposes).
JUAN: What´s the best book you´ve read?
IVO: Probably Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” but there are also many others.
It seems almost every day a new study is released trumpeting the growing size and purchasing power of Hispanics. The one number that has many of us in marketing are very excited about is the 16 million Hispanics that are online today. They are a heterogonous and difficult to reach market.
On Thursday, September 21st Manoj Jasra interviewed the Google Analytics’ Senior Manager Brett Crosby. So here’s how the conversation went:
[Manoj]: Can you start by talking a little bit about your professional background.
[Brett]: When we were acquired by Google I was VP of marketing at Urchin, I was also one of the co-founders of Urchin Software. We had been developing the software for about 10 years prior to that, both software and web based version. Once we were acquired I became the senior manager of Google Analytics. Continue reading
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