Archive for 'Jobs'

When companies post jobs on the Web Analytics Demystified job board, and they reach out asking if I’ll blog the position, I always ask if they can tell me a story about how web analytics has positively impacted the organization. Sometimes the answers I get are pretty vague, but every once and awhile I get an answer that makes me go “yeah, that’s it!” This was the case when I talked to Richard Calentine at Scripps Network about an opening they have for a Director of Web Analytics in Knoxville, TN.

Scripps produces television and companion sites like HGTV.com, Foodnetwork.com, DIYnetwork.com, HGTVpro.com, among others. They’ve been using Omniture for several years and are on the cusp of rolling out new site technology that will further improve their reporting. Richard is a bright guy, well experienced in measurement, and the company is looking for someone to manage the entire web analytics group.

The company is doing some cutting edge stuff on the Internet and are very strong on tracking Flash, video, and other Web 2.0 technologies (they partnered with Omniture early on for ActionSource tracking and have published a case study on the subject listed on this page.) They’re working with my former co-worker Jodi McDermott at ClearSpring to put (and measure) widgets on the site and all in all it sounds like an excellent place to work.

But I wanted to tell you about how analytics has impacted Scripps. I asked Richard “what makes Scripps a great place to be a web analyst?” and he said, “Well, management is really pretty good about listening to employees.” He expanded on this by telling me that he did some analysis on the site for one of their popular TV shows. He was then asked to present the analysis to the president of HG Networks, who ended up taking the recommendations derived from the analysis of visitor behavior and making changes to the actual television program.

Richard says the opportunity for this kind of thing is increasing as the TV folks increasingly recognize the value of the Internet channel. Users telling companies about their likes and dislikes, voting with their click-stream, and the companies using that information to improve their whole business. Kinda brings a tear to my eye.

Knoxville is a great place, and Richard sounds exactly like the kind of person you want on your team as a Director in this position.

Check out the position at Scripps Network on the Web Analytics Demystified job site and apply today.

A number of folks from around the world wrote me after downloading our recent research on web analytics salaries in the U.S. asking if we had comparable numbers for Europe, Canada, and the rest of the world. I don’t have anything formal, but I was able to use a very cool product from Tableau Software to analyze the raw data and produce the following:

Keep in mind that the non-U.S. salaries were translated into U.S. dollars (USD) by the respondents so there may be some error introduced during that process. “Rest of World” includes Asia/Pacific, Mexico, Middle East/Africa, South/Central America and Caribbean. I had to group “Rest of World” to get an appropriate sample size (around 30 responses) so this group is not particularly useful but I wanted to include it.

A few things pop out at me from this data:

• Canadians are, by and large, underpaid compared to their U.S. counterparts, with 95% of respondents indicating they are earning under $100,000 USD annually (see figure below)
• European salaries appear to be more-or-less similar to those of their U.S. counterparts, but this is a function of how I have grouped salary bands together (see figure below)
• There is a pronounced difference in salary distribution here in the American West, with only 59% of respondents reporting salaries under $100,000 USD and 34% earning between $100,001 USD and $150,000 USD annually

Regarding Canada and Europe, here is an expansion of the salary distribution at the lower end of the salary scale:

Here you can see better how respondents in Canada and Europe are paid in the lowest salary band (under $100,000 USD annually)  Canadians, 95% of whom report making less than $100,000 USD have a much less skewed distribution than European respondents (48% of whom report earning less than $50,000 USD annually.)

Both my son and I are sick today so I’ll hold off providing any more analysis but what do you think?  If you live in Canada or Europe, does this make sense to you?  Have you been reading job postings from here in the U.S. and wondering about how salaries being offered differ from those where you live?  Is there something about business or culture that explains this data, or do you think it’s simply a function of the relative awareness of the need for dedicated web analytics resources?

A lot has been written recently on the hot job market for web analytics positions. Perhaps because there is such a profound gap between the number of open positions and the number of experienced practitioners looking for jobs, web analytics salaries run pretty high. We collected a bunch of data on salaries earlier this year and our report on the subject is available now.

Some of the key insights:

• The average U.S. web analytics practitioner, across all job types (end-users, vendors, consultants, agencies) is reported to be earning $86,883 annually in salary and bonus
• Those of us working for vendors are the best paid, with the average vendor practitioner earning $105,192 in salary and bonus
• Unless you’re working for a very large company (5000+ employees), the difference in average salary is negligable
• There appear to be three “tenure groups” for salary, which may be as much a function that people get raises by switching jobs as they do waiting patiently for a substantial salary increase
• As we’ve published previously, companies relying on defined business processes are paying far better than those relying on employees or those lacking any formal approach towards web analytics
• There may be hope on the horizon for those companies actively seeking experienced practitioners

Because I’m trying to write shorter reports, I’ve also created a companion web page that will allow readers to examine all of the salary data we used to produce this report, segmented over 30 different ways. Hopefully everyone will find this data interesting, regardless of whether you’re looking to hire or looking for a raise. The report and companion data are available here:

• Web Analytics Salaries 2007: Insights and Observations (PDF format)
• Web Analytics Salary Data

I welcome your feedback on this research — your reaction to the data as well as your opinion about the value of our publishing this research on an annual basis. I have to admit I rather enjoy being able to publish this research so hopefully everyone out there is finding it valuable.

UPDATE: I am lame for forgetting to thank June Dershewitz, James Gardner, and Dylan Lewis for spending the time to review this report prior to its publication.  Thanks June, James, and Dylan!

I’ve been talking about the web analytics job market and the need for dedicated professionals managing web analytics and caring for your company’s investment. To be honest, when I first explicitly told the market to hire dedicated staff back in late 2004, even I didn’t clearly imagine that just three years later there would be over 1,750 open positions citing the need for experience with web analytics around the world.

Despite the Web Analytics Association actively helping to develop talent via the University of British Columbia and more recently University of California Irvine, and while all indicators are that these classes are excellent, it will likely be some time before the work of the WAA is felt in the marketplace. And while I don’t have the resources of the Web Analytics Association, I have been working to connect experienced web analytics practitioners with good jobs through the Web Analytics Demystified job board.

Since I deployed the job board we’ve had nearly 100 companies advertise on the board. More importantly, we’ve served way over 25,000 job impressions and helped many of our customers find the right employee for the job. My favorite story is still Musician’s Friend who we helped save tens of thousands of dollars in recruiters fees and relocation expenses by connecting them directly with a long-time reader of my blog who lived in Ashland, Oregon and had simply not seen the job posting.

Talk about a niche audience …

Now that I’ve founded my own company, I’m happy to report that my wife and business partner Amity has taken over responsibility for the job board. Her first decision was to implement package pricing to make it easier for companies looking to hire multiple web analytics resources. We’re now offering three- and five-job packages as well as custom pricing for recruiters and staffing agencies who expect to have multiple openings over time. If you’re interested in learning more about the job board or the new pricing packages, please feel free to reach out to Amity directly.

In some strange way I wish I could just wave my hands and say “never mind, you don’t need bright folks to run this software … the software is great and it will provide all the answers you’re looking for if you just read the documentation” but we all know I cannot. Web analytics is hard, and it takes smart people to make it work. Technology, people, and process in appropriate servings is the recipe for success.

Eddie Bauer, the Seattle-based retailer, is focused on re-establishing Eddie Bauer as the premier active, outdoor, lifestyle brand. One of their efforts to make this happen is increasing their focus on web analytics and thusly they’re hiring an Ecommerce Metrics Manager. The company is building a new web site and is looking to augment their measurement practice at the same time. They need someone to manage the entire data collection, reporting, and analysis process for the Ecommerce organization, someone capable of selling ideas upstream to the executive management team.

The job is a very important hire at Eddie Bauer since the new site will allow the company to more quickly make changes, reacting to data coming from the web analytics system. The representative I talked to indicated the company would be doing more multivariate testing in the new future so experience with Offermatica or Optimost will be helpful. We talked about salary and this is very much a competitive position and the relocation package they offer is great — definitely focused on helping the right person (and their family) move to Washington and start contributing to Eddie Bauer’s success.

Check out the Eddie Bauer job on the Web Analytics Demystified premium job board right now.