Thanks to some anonymous poster to my weblog, you can now view my Emetrics presentation on the Web Analytics Business Process over on slideshare or use the following embedded object (how cool!)

[I had to remove the object since it was breaking my site … sorry!]

I’m nearly done with the annotated version but it’s been slow going because work has been really busy lately. Keep watching this weblog!

June Li was having trouble downloading my presentation on the Web Analytics Business Process in Firefox. Has anyone else noticed that? I’ll try and get the file in a zipped format in the next few days to save folks time downloading.

June had a great suggestion for companies just getting started with explicitly considering how web analytics creates value inside their organizations. She commented that instead of going directly to digital flowcharting that she’s had success with “yellow stickies“. Posted on a wall or roll of paper, the stickies promote rapid planning and iteration while the organization carefully maps decision points, events, tasks and sub-tasks. Then, when stakeholders are comfortable with the process and integration points for web analytics, the stickies can be transferred into digital format for widespread discussion and distribution.

An excellent suggestion. Thanks June!

I gave my presentation at Emetrics yesterday, outlining my thoughts about what I call the “Web Analytics Business Process” to a packed room. The response I got was tremendous and I spent the rest of the day talking with very bright people from a diverse assemblage of companies about how the Web Analytics Business Process manifests, how they can begin to diagram their own Web Analytics Business Processes and even discussing how the process has already driven success in companies that have something very similar.

I was asked by several people to make the presentation publicly available and hope to do so next week. If you’re interested in getting a copy, watch this weblog.

A few good questions emerged from the Q&A sessions and are worth addressing in a forum that allows comments to spur conversation.

1. Megan Burns from Forrester Research, who has a great deal of experience implementing CMM in software development, wisely commented that she had seen software companies generate reams of process diagrams that ultimately became “shelfware” and failed to provide the level of guidance and aherence to process desired. She asked me how companies could avoid that problem when deploying the Web Analytics Business Process.
2. One of my competitors, and I got this secondhand from a blogger, insisted that “process was wasteful in web analytics” and that all companies needed were “a few quick wins, made by clearing off the low-hanging fruit” and that these wins would drive the entire organization to tightly adopt web analytics.

Megan’s experience in this regard certainly surpasses my own, at least in terms of CMM and business process in the software development model. I don’t disagree that there is some risk associated with documenting business processes, risk that the excercise is only that, an excercise, and that the results are quickly set aside to respond to the next fire drill. But in my experience, the adoption of the Web Analytics Business Process will push companies in the right direction and encourage them to think about web analytics as something you do on an ongoing basis, not something you do once and awhile.

I conceeded that yeah, someday people might have reams of Web Analytics Business Process diagrams sitting on a shelf somewhere, perhaps next to an old copy of WebTrends Log Analyzer, collecting dust. But I firmly believe that the process of getting to a point where the dust can be collected is extremely valuable.

Regarding the wisdom of eschewing process and instead looking for “quick hits” and “early wins” based on identifying low-hanging fruit I can only offer this: The Web Analytics Business Process is designed to provide a framework for turning short-term insights such as these into long-term, repeatable results. As such, there is no inconsistency in the two approaches but I strongly believe any vendor/consultant telling your organization that you can do web analytics without considering the process of “doing” web analytics simply doesn’t get it.

Why do I think this? Simply because we’ve already been through all of this. THERE ARE NO SILVER BULLETS! Web analytics is work, work that people and organizations need to approach in a systematic way. If you still believe, now, in 2006, that deploying any web analytics solution, regardless of price, will somehow dramatically change your online business without consideration of how the solution will be integrated into your existing business processes, you’re simply not paying attention to how we’ve arrived at where we are as an industry today.

Yes, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit that needs to be cleared. Yes, that low-hanging fruit being cleared, in many instances, will drive organizational excitement about web analytics. But yes, I do firmly believe based on my personal experience in the web analytics marketplace, that in order for this excitement to be sustained, companies need to think strategically about web analytics.

I welcome and encourage your comments on this subject and as I mention earlier, I hope to have an annotated copy of my presentation available for download sometime in the next few weeks.

I just received a complimentary copy of Megan Burns new report titled “The Business Case For Web Analysts: Dedicated Staff Turns Up The Volume On Productivity” and I was very impressed with the report. While I started talking loudly about the need to hire dedicated web analytics staff to fully benefit from any technology investment back in October 2004, Megan, Harley Manning, Jon Erickson and Caroline Carney went so far as to do the math and calculate the potential return on investment for this HR investment.

From the executive summary:

Companies need a way to see what customers do on their Web sites and how those activities contribute to business performance. Because Web analytics is the only practical way to do that, most managers aren’t asked to justify their initial investment in commercial Web analytics tools. But when they want increased funding — most often to bring on dedicated analysts who can make the most of the tools and data — they have a hard time making the case. To help companies decide whether or not to invest in full-time Web analytics experts, we developed a model of the economic impact that these people have on an organization. Our research shows that hiring full-time Web analytics staff brings in enough incremental value to cover the extra costs several times over.

(Boldface is my emphasis.) I’m on Megan’s DMA panel in Scottsdale so I won’t say anything else about the report for fear that she’ll ask me questions I don’t want to answer like “Who is Fred McMurry?” or “Seriously, you quit being an analyst. Are you nuts?” Still, despite being $349 (buy it from Alacrastore.com) for 12 pages of research, if you’re debating making this critical hire and struggling to convince the powers that be it would be money well spent, this report is $349 well spent.

I just posted this to the Yahoo! group I founded a few years back. If you’re reading this weblog but have given up on the Yahoo! group (some people complain it’s too much about Google Analytics lately …) I’d love to hear from you as well!

“I’m doing some research in an attempt to stay ahead of my commitment to Jim Sterne and the upcoming Emetrics Summit in Washington, D.C. in October. I’m wondering if any of you would be willing to share examples or anecdotes about how you have been successful at getting your company or clients to actually ** take action ** based on web analytic data.

We’ve talked about BLUF and KPIs and the use of Powerpoint and presentations and jumping and shouting and all of that in the past so I know the information is out there. And, of course, I know what I know, but I’d like to hear some new stories from you directly if you’re willing to share.

I’d love to see sample reports and presentations (feel free to remove the raw numbers/brand identity/source of data) that demonstrate ** your successful strategy ** for communicating this (often boring) data in such a way that people sit up, listen, and then take action!

I’m inclined to ask you to ** not ** respond to the entire group with what you have to say but I suspect other people will be interested. I’ll leave it up to you. If you want to share, respond to this post; if you want to be more secretive, feel free to email me directly at “eric at webanalyticsdemystified dot com”

I will, of course, be more than happy to share the results of my research with anyone who shares their “secret sauce” either at Emetrics (if you can make the event) or via PPT after Emetrics (if you’re not going to be able to attend the big party in our nation’s capital …)

Again, “eric at webanalyticsdemystified dot com” and I thank all of you who are kind enough to take the time to respond.”