I’ve never been much for listening to podcasts for some reason but all the sudden I seem to be listening to them all the time. Last week it was Bryan’s interview with Avinash Kaushik from ZQInsights. This week it’s Lars Johansson, the Swedish coordinator for WAA, talking to seven of the brightest minds in web analytics in Europe.

Having recently been to Europe, I was delighted to listen to this conversation. While in Holland I presented data (links to a PDF) showing that European web analytics practitioners are not far behind their U.S. counterparts. When you listen to the podcast you’ll hear the participant’s talking about nearly the exact same challenges we all face here in the U.S. Concerns about process, distribution of decision making (Aurelie talks about pan-European companies, essentially multiple divisions but that speak different languages, have different values and expectations, etc.)

This is a long podcast but well worth a listen if you have time. Great work, Lars, bringing these bright minds together for the conversation.

Today I am happy to announce Web Analytics Demystified’s third business partnership and our relationship with Josh Manion’s firm Stratigent.  I’ve known Josh for years and have always had a tremendous respect for the work he’s done and the firm he has built from the ground up.  Stratigent has a proven history of successful execution in long-term and tactical web analytics engagements, as well as a methodical approach to the vendor selection process (a service I have opted specifically to not provide through Web Analytics Demystified.)

You can read about our business partnership in the press release and I’m happy to take any questions directly via email.

Eric T. Peterson delivering the keynote at SEMphonic XChange conference
Also recently announced was SEMphonic’s XChange Conference where I will be delivering the keynote presentation and a class on key performance indicators.  I’m very excited about this conference and was thrilled when Gary asked me to deliver the keynote given that several other great speakers will be at the event including Gary, Paul Bruemmer, Jacques Warren, and Manoj Jasra.

You can learn more about the SEMphonic XChange Conference at SEMphonic’s web site.

Response to last week’s research announcement
The research that Web Analytics Demystified and the Web Analytics Association put out last week was very well received, having been written up in Newsfactor, BtoB, Daily Research News, ClickZ, MarketingVOX, E-consultancy, Online Media Daily, and DMNews.  You can follow all references to my company, our work and our research on this sites Articles and Interviews page.

If you haven’t yet seen the research, you can download the PDF from our web site.

Eric T. Peterson is writing for DM News!

I had been waiting and waiting to make this announcement until my first article was published by when I formed the company the nice folks at DM News asked me to write a regular, monthly column on web analytics.  My first article appeared in the June issue of DM News and is available online at dmnews.com.

I have been a big fan of DM News ever since they published their special report on web analytics in August of 2006. Since that time I have been lucky enough to be a trusted resource on the subject for the publication and look forward to this new relationship.

Presentation on KPIs at BMA Annual Conference, Thursday June 14th

Tomorrow (Thursday June 14th) at 10 AM I will be presenting on key performance indicators at the Business Marketing Association’s annual conference in Las Vegas.  The presentation will be a dramatically shortened version of our workshop on KPIs.  If you’re at the conference and would like to meet please come to the presentation and look for me afterwards.

Special Web Analytics Wednesday on TUESDAY in Boston, next week

Hopefully those of you who live in beautiful Boston, Mass. will be able to join me, my good friend Judah Phillips, my business partner Aquent, and the nice folks from Unica at a very special Web Analytics Wednesday event next Tuesday, June 19th.  I will be testing out a slightly new format for WAW events and giving a short presentation so hopefully that goes well.

If you’re in or near Boston please sign up today to join us for this special event.

About a month ago, just before I started Web Analytics Demystified, I had the pleasure of sitting down for an interview with Jeremiah Owyang of PodTech.net. Clint first introduced me to Jeremiah when I was talking about measuring visitor engagement and how social media might be best measured. Jeremiah is very much connected in the Bay Area and I though the interview went really well (but you can judge for yourself by watching the interview at Jeremiah’s web site.)

A number of folks have commented on the interview at Jeremiah’s site and the comments are well worth a read.

More recently I wrote a post on the 10/20/70 Rule for Achievable Web Analytics Success in which I outlined the importance of process to web analytics. A number of folks have since commented on the post but Rene Dechamps from OX2 was kind enough to post a video from the conversation that got me thinking about 10/20/70 (thanks Rene!)

Since Rene was about as tired as I was at 7:00 AM local time, and he’d been kind enough to bring me a coffee, I recommend ** not ** trying to watch the video and just listening instead.

What do you think?  Should I stick to writing and stay off the tele?  As always, I welcome your comments.

The overview document I promised when we conducted our survey in March and April is finally available and can be downloaded here:

http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/research/

You can read the press release that was written about the research here:

http://new.marketwire.com/2.0/rel.jsp?id=739164

There is also a very nice write-up on the research written by Jennifer LeClaire called “Process-Driven Analytics or Bust” published on the NewsFactor Network. In the article Jennifer explores the data and captures good insights from both Megan Burns at Forrester and John Lovett at Aberdeen.

From Megan Burns:

Web analytics is so complex, Burns added, and there is so much analysis that organizations could do. Day-to-day reports need to be institutionalized, she explained, by putting in systems and processes that function smoothly.

“With a process-driven approach, your Web analytics analysts have the time to do higher level activities, advanced analysis, support multivariate testing, and other activities that deliver additional incremental value to an organization,” Burns said.

From John Lovett at Aberdeen:

“The next level [in web analytics] is establishing business processes so you can use analytics to measure results,” said Aberdeen’s Lovett. “That is the best way for companies to leverage the analytics platform.”

Thanks to Zori Bayriamova (my research partner), the Web Analytics Association (our research distribution partner) and over 1,000 people around the world who responded to our request for help with this report. We will be publishing follow-up reports over the next few months so definitely keep in touch.

Again, you can download this research at:

http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/research/

I am blown away by the coverage of my announcement that I’ve left Visual Sciences to form my own company. I’m so behind on thanking people who have written about the news I wanted to summarize their thoughts and thank everyone en masse.

• E-consultancy in the UK wishes me luck and says that my decision to help companies understand the process of doing web analytics is “bang on” which I’m pretty sure is a compliment. Thanks to Richard Maven for reaching out to me after the press release and I look forward to hopefully meeting the e-consultancy crew when I fly to Europe later this month.
• Gary Angel from SEMphonic is a good friend but I was still humbled by his declaration that my announcement was “the biggest news out of Emetrics” Gary says that “[Eric is] consistently thoughtful. His opinions are rooted in real-world work. And see seems remarkably able to deal with web analytics at every level very successfully: from introducing web analytics to marketers to working hands-on with real analysts to helping senior executives get a handle on web measurement process. When you can do that and not get on the nerves of people like me, you’re doing something pretty special.” Coming from someone I respect as much as Gary this means a huge amount to me.
• The bloggers at FutureNow congratulate me on not being afraid to “ask bigger questions“
• My good friend Judah Phillips (who blogs here at Web Analytics Demystified) says I have achieved self-actualization. Judah also bought me dinner on Tuesday night after I had been celebrating for several hours over vodka drinks so thanks to both Judah and his fiance.
• Jacques Warren, who also recently left the comfort of his day job to become a consultant in Canada and who clearly read the copy on my web site and understands what I’m doing. Jacques comments “Do you realize? This guy is going to make a living telling companies how to organize Web Analytics” to which I can only say, “Yes.”
• Anil Batra, who looks nothing like that lousy little picture of him on his blog, had an inkling of my intentions but was surprised by the timing. Thanks for the encouragement, Anil!
• My good friend René Dechamps Otamendi from Belgium who has a good summary of my business model and who captured an interesting photo of my singing happy birthday to Aurelie Pols (his wife, and a member of my company’s advisory board.) I consider Rene and Aurelie two of the nicest people I know and am excited about the opportunity to work more closely with them in the future.
• Sebastian Wenzel at Web Analytics Book wishes me luck and speculates that I’ll be plenty busy soon.
• Marshall Sponder says he’s listening to me when I give him advice, which is good to hear, since he’s now on a WAA board with $250,000 in cash burning a hole in their pocket. Hey Marshall, you should buy a copy of my book for everyone in the organization. ;-)

Phew. And that’s just what I culled out of my feeds this morning. I sincerely want to thank all of the bloggers I mention here and anyone I forgot. I’m hugely excited about having the freedom to explore other ways I can help the web analytics and broader business community and hope all of you will keep reading this blog and provide feedback as you think I need it.