I just finished an exhaustive audit with a certain panel-based measurement company (that I will herein refer to as “the masked bandits”) and it is more apparent to me than ever that online measurement across industries is lacking standards and commonality of definition. This generally means we’re all using different measuring sticks. And whereas I greatly appreciate the power and subtly of statistical modeling (the secret sauce of “the masked bandits”), data sets are becoming more and more disparate and therefore the data is not qualified. The modeling may be right in method, but not in fit. I often hear “which system is right?” My answer to this question is the same as it is to which measure should I use - depends on who’s asking and why.
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A client gave me the ominous duty of creating a model for proving ROI on paid search. ‘Omnious’ because the client’s paid search agency has been asked repeated to do it over the course of the last twelve months and they have yet to produce one. Now, to be fair, I don’t think they couldn’t come up with it. I just seriously doubt they even tried. Alas, organizations are asking for estimated returns on spend. [Soon] the days of increased online spend without objectives, measures, and success criteria, and attributable ROI, will be gone. And that’s where the actionable web strategist comes in.
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I went to a specialty store the other day looking for running shoes. I did some research prior to my visit and walked in with an idea of what I wanted. Consequently, the sale person left me alone, but not so for the poor 50-something next to me. And I essentially got to watch the sales pitch as a bystander… biomechanics this, biomechanics that, and now, you want to buy the most expensive shoe which supports your biomechanics. The guy was so out of his element with “biomechanics” I’m fairly certain he just bought the shoes because he was told to, not because it was right. Now, the reality is the sales person doesn’t want a return and the store has a good reputation so they probably steered the guy right. But I think they did so without educating the customer.
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Why? Well, Let Me Whip Out My Crystal Ball…
I love analytics and as in any loving relationship, you take the good with the bad. Depending on your definition of analytics, the bad is usually in regards to intent. No data set in the non-VoC view of analytics will show you intent. You can get at dependencies, probabilities, and even conversions, but not intent. And what it the one question you get all the time from your marketing cohorts… “Well, why is that?”
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It’s my intent in every post regardless of topic to emphasize a very linear approach to analytics so that someone coming to this site and reading these posts can pick up on a thought process. As a web analyst, you’re the unofficial policeman for making sure your organization is thinking about what’s going to happen on the other side of the initiative. I find that the tactical nature of most online initiatives are superseding strategy — host a give-away, measure everything, find a random success story somewhere after it’s done.
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