Recently I had the pleasure of talking to Steve Bernstein, Director of Web Analytics at PayPal, about an opening at PayPal that was posted this week on my job board.

I must say when I first saw the opening posted back in November on the Yahoo! group I was a little startled; the posting was titled “Sr. Web Analyst” and was looking for “8+ years experience professional statistical analysis and modeling experience, e.g., advanced web analytics, advanced survey design and analysis, econometrics, psychonometrics, data mining, or clinical trial analysis/biostatistics.” As I recall there were some snide comments made about the posting that didn’t make it through moderation, mostly questioning whether such a person even existed.

After talking to Steve I can assure you, they do.

Steve is the real deal, and has built what sounds like a very impressive web analytics group at PayPal. You can have a look at Steve’s LinkedIn profile but he clearly brings the necessary chops to the position in a company that is essentially a series of transaction paths. Steve described a web data analyst’s nirvana, an organization where only a single “report” is generated, and the bulk of the time is spent doing and presenting analysis.

The thing is, after talking to Steve, I believe that he’s really looking for a PhD-level statistician with some familiarity with web analytics to manage and model controlled experiments at PayPal. It sounds like the rest of the group has a good familiarity with stats and a strong understanding of the web analytics business process, so Steve is looking for a great communicator who can bring world-class statistical modeling and data warehousing skills to the table.

Did I say “good communicator?” Yeah, Steve emphasized that communication is the key in this position and on his team in general. One comment he made was that often times analyst make the mistake of forgetting what not to say when presenting web analytics data.

I laughed, but he’s right.

Anyway, if you’re a statistical superman (or woman) with an interest in web analytics and a desire to work in a ideal sounding environment, check this position out. Steve also indicated that he might be looking to fill a more “traditional” web analytics position in the near future so hopefully they’ll post that position on my board so Steve and I can chat about that.

Wow, once again I manage to fall woefully behind and am forced to play catch-up. Likely you’ve seen all of this but just in case:

• Mike Keyes at On The Trail references my engagement metric but wonders if the all-mighty dollar is not a better measure of web site quality. He wonders aloud about the engagement profile for people who submit leads to the site, something I can easily measure but will have to follow-up on later. I don’t think Mike’s idea is all that goofy!
• Daniel Riveong at Emergence Media describes my engagement metric as “pretty raw” but wisely points out measuring “buzz” is only a component of measuring engagement and that external data needs to be incorporated into site-based measurement. Sounds like Daniel is connected in the Bay Area so perhaps I’ll get invited to the next Social Media roundtable to talk about my metric.
• I am on the Online Marketing Blog’s list of blogs found useful to TopRank Online Marketing, along with many of the other bloggers I regularly read. Thanks!
• Robbin Steif at LunaMetrics blogs a conversation she had with Bob Chatham of Visual Sciences. It’s a little dated at this point but still a good read IMHO.
• There is an interesting “tags vs. logs” debate happening in the Yahoo! group. No great surprise that people have pretty strong opinions on either side of this debate. Me, I say “why choose? Why not have both if that’s what you need?!”
• Finally, two of my favorite people have finally bust forth into the blogosphere, Ian Houston of Visioactive and Dylan Lewis of Intuit. Both Ian and Dylan contributed to my O’Reilly book, Web Site Measurement Hacks and are among the brightest people I know in the web analytics arena.

Since I lined all these links up two days ago I’m sure I’m behind again but you do what you can. Think I missed something big? Send it to me in your comments!

The nice folks at the American Marketing Association and Aquent are sponsoring a free webcast I will be giving on March 6th titled Web Analytics Demystified: Ten Simple Strategies for Using Web Analytics to Improve Your Online Marketing Efforts. Given recent conversations I’ve had with some of the best and the brightest about how companies actually use web analytics, this presentation will hopefully be very appropriate for the market today.

(Oh, well they say that the only bad press is no press at all, I kind of hope to not get the same treatment that Tom Davenport got from the Juice Analytics guys when he did a similar Aquent webcast …)

Register today for this free webcast!

As I work to drive interest in my new job board I have started taking the time to chat with companies posting jobs there, offering advice and learning more about the position they’ve advertised. Recently I had a chance to talk to Phillip Shipley, Manager of Web Development at WebEx, who is advertising for a Senior Web Analyst at WebEx Communications.

The position sounds like a good one for two major reasons:

1. WebEx is an international business and the senior analyst would be responsible for world-wide reporting.
2. Phillip says the position targets doing true data analysis more than half the time and they already have a junior analyst on staff to support day-to-day data reporting.

The former is nice because it will expose the successful candidate to the nuances of non-U.S. web analytics — different levels of understanding, different data gathering requirements, different ways of thinking about the online business. The latter is great since it seems like so many analysts spend far too much time doing reporting these days.

According to Phillip, the WebEx web-site is their number one source of leads and everyone in the organization has respect for the power of web analytics. Respect is not a term all web data analysts hear as frequently as they should, in my humble opinion. Good for WebEx!

I asked Phillip for an example of how data analysis was used at WebEx; without pause he provided an excellent answer in which the analysis both reached the company’s CEO and created a significant increase in two key metrics for the company. I have to admit I was very impressed by what sounds like an organization that is hungry for an experienced analyst willing to make a difference in the organization.

If you’re in-or-near Santa Clara, CA and looking for a new job, check out the WebEx posting.

As I have been doing more and more lately to help folks find and fill web analytics positions it seems like more emails like the following come in:

“I have just been promoted into a Marketing position and one of my primary responsibilities is web analytics. I do not have any formal education or experience with web analytics and I am expected to educate myself by any means necessary. After doing some research online, the first thing that I did was order your book, Web Analytics Demystified. I also picked up a copy of Waiting for Your Cat to Bark by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg.What kind of advice would you offer to help me outline a practical education process? I know reading, as much as I can, will be expected and I have already begun the process. What about web marketing conferences? What about online courses like UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics? Would my company receive a greater ROI by having me take online classes or sending me to conferences? My gut tells me, to buy more books and take online classes, before I start worrying about going to conferences.”

The advice I would offer to anyone in this position is to do the following:

1. Read the rest of my books, especially Web Site Measurement Hacks and The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators. The former is an excellent overview covering the breadth of things that web analytics professionals are tasked with doing and the latter is a deep-dive into the use of KPIs to help drive awareness of web data throughout the organization.
2. Take the UBC Web Analytics Award of Achievement classes, offered via the Web Analytics Association. All of the feedback I hear from people who have taken the classes is excellent. The folks they have teaching the courses are world-class and the content that I’ve seen is both fresh and well-written.
3. Join the Web Analytics Forum at Yahoo! Groups. While the conversation has a tendency to drift away towards the banal at times, the group is still the single largest and most active web analytics conversation on the planet.
4. Read some of the web analytics weblogs to keep up on current happenings. I personally like mine (go figure), but I also highly recommend Avinash Kaushik and Gary Angel.
5. By all means, go to the Emetrics Summit. Jim Sterne’s event is the single best place to meet the brightest minds, hear the best presentations, and meet the nicest people in the entire industry. There are upcoming events in London (March), Germany (April) and San Francisco (May).
6. Ask your vendor what classes, documentation, presentations, etc. they have that might help you better learn how the technology is best used to create value. You’d be surprised at how much helpful information the vendors have when you ask.

If you think I’m forgetting anything I’d love to hear your comments.