18th Feb 2009
Analytics software is a waste of money.
Analytics software is a waste of money. Ok that isn’t strictly true, but I am trying to make an important point: Pay for insight not software.
You shouldn’t be investing in analytics software because it has widget x. You should be investing in analytics software to better understand your website, improve its performance and make more money from it.
Google’s analytics guru Avinash Kaushik says it best:
‘Numerous studies have pointed out that while almost all Fortune 500 companies have great investments in “Web Analytics” they still struggle to make any meaningful business decisions. Most people complain that there are tera bytes of data and giga bytes of reports and mega bytes of Excel and PowerPoint files. Yet no actionable insights, no innate awareness of what is really going on through the clutter of site clickstream data.
Through my humble experience in this field I have developed a rule to fix this problem and achieve Magnificent Success. I call it the 10 / 90 rule. Here it what it says……..
* Our Goal: Highest value from Web Analytics implementation.
* Cost of analytics tool & vendor professional services: $ 10.
* Required investment in “intelligent resources/analysts”: $ 90.
* Bottom-line for Magnificent Success: It’s the people.’
* Photo by Gordon Flood
Wayne Rooney and Analytics
Avinash likes to call this Magnificent Success, for me though it’s all about realising that analytics is about talent and brainpower. Think of it like a winning football team – you can buy the best football boots in the world, gold plated, super light and incredibly comfortable to wear, but they’re useless without Wayne Rooney.
The real power of website analytics comes from driving improvements in sales and ROI through better human insight and understanding.
Website Analytics in the real world
In the real world we all have to work to the reality of finite budgets. There’s only so much money to go around and rolling out an analytics system for your business is no different. Luckily Google have taken the bold approach of offering Google Analytics for free.
The upside of Google’s free analytics software is that you can invest your finite budget in human brainpower i.e. better analysis and training. In other words you can invest your money in actually understanding your website and fixing problems.
Even if your budgets are substantial the same rules apply – you need better analysis and more of it. Surely having two Wayne Rooney’s is better than one?
