We all are professionals so we tend to be very professional in what we do. However today I learned that web analytics can be personal.
Well, to be more accurate, I learned that long time ago when I watched how Avinash Kaushik, Jim Sterne, Eric Peterson or Bryan Eisenberg presenting in eMetrics Summit or anywhere they go. They are passionate, energetic, and they are personal.
Today I experienced that too.
Today we hit a really great milestone in web analytics within Dell. Several months after implementing SiteCatalyst globally, we presented a global executive dashboard which enables our executives to get a weekly snapshot of the site performance across our global regions. It gives them a great benchmark, drive standardization of the site, promote best pracitice sharing. More importantly, it drives them to prioritize their web analysts’ time to work on big opportunities, instead of tons of ad hoc requests or routine reporting.
When a senior manager told me, “Oh my this is a thing of beauty! Tear in eye….” and when my director said, “we need turn web analytics from a tool to THE weapon”, I know that we are on something here. Tomorrow is going to be a little different. We might start to see a transformation and a new culture might emerge.
So that’s my thought of today. Web analytics can be personal, can be exciting, can be something you really love. It doesn’t have to be dull at all. Let’s get out of our cubes, start to be like a champion or evangelist within our organization.
It’s your time to shine now, seriously.
Jonghee
February 4, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Congratulations Ed! I enjoyed reading your blog. You’re really a super web analyst.
Jonghee from Victoria’s Secret
(We’ve met at the eMetrics)
Ed
February 4, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Of course, Jonghee, I remember you. And I work with your friend Jason Lee closely right now.
Hope you are doing well,
Ed
Pal2321
April 4, 2009 at 8:14 pm
What should a dashboard such as this contain?
Ed
April 13, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Pal2321-
I wish I could show you the actual dashboard, but to give you some ideas, the dashboard is organized in the following way
1) columns have all top 10 countries
2) rows are organized into five key sections
a-overall traffic
b-page performance: bounce rate & convergence for top landing pages
c-site search metrics: strategic iniatives to optimize site search results
d-purchase funnel: conversion success metrics including consideration, store to cart, cart to checkout starts, checkout starts to order
e-conversion metrics: total conversion, conversion by product
f-financials: total revenue, AOV, revenue per unit
g-Net Promoter Score: this is from iPerceptions, not SiteCatalyst to give executives an indication of customer satisfaction
3) for each metrics, we compare them two different ways. First to compare across all top 10 countries and identify those are best of breed. Second to compare week over week for each country.
This is the main dashboard. I have another set of charts basically trend the KPIs and identify those changes that are statistically significant. At any given time, KPIs are moving all over the places and you don’t want to waste your time analyzing those are not statistically significant.
Hope this helps and let me know if you have any follow-up questions.
Thanks,
Ed