Nothing wrong with using tools to help you achieve your goal, but remember what that goal is…connecting with other people.

I see the points you're making and I do agree that analytics can help you understand your customer base. I guess the main point I was trying to make it that is is just another tool to use that shouldn't take precedence over true communication with these same customers.

After all, as I mentioned, analytics will tell you what they're doing but it's the friendly voice of in-person that helps then turn into sales. The tools help recognize these people but it's still just a tool – too many people get swept up in believing it's the answer to all their problems and, while it helps, the problems will remain without personal interaction.

Cheers for stopping by and sharing your insights, always appreciated.

I believe that web analytics answers one question very well "What did my users do on my web site". Without knowing what they did, you'll have a very hard time understand what to ask so that you can get constructive feedback and value from your client. Without web analytics, you are blind, asking users questions in the dark based on your user experience, not on hard facts.

So, Danny, I respectfully disagree. You cannot live by "focusing on your clients" at the expense of statistics. Web analytics tools do not "take you away from the most important analytic source – people". A web analytics implementation is not 'just' technology. Web analytics stats are nott 'just' numbers. Web analytics data ARE "your people". Hidden in the numbers are hundreds, thousands, millions of customer stories – representing each and every one of your customers.

Voice of the customer tools (ex: iPerceptions – why did they do it), web analytics (ex: google analytics – what did they do), performance monitoring (ex: gomez – could they do it), A/B testing (ex: web site optimizer – what do they like better), web interaction analytics (ex: crazyegg – how did they do it), are the online equivalents to the real world "5 senses". Without those, your business is at a severe disadvantage. Without them, your website will make mistakes more slowly, and won't innovate as quickly.

Parting thought – a small story that reminds me how the customer, despite being always right, doesn't necessarily know how to articulate it. I interviewed a Director of Analytics at a large ecommerce site recently. They told me that during a voice-of-the-customer implementation, customers kept on asking for 'more product "a"'. They obliged, serving twice as much to one segment and the same amount as before to another, using Google Website Optimizer to track the A/B split. It turns out that offering more products actually hindered the baseline sales amount of product A. Using their WIA tool (in this case, TeaLeaf), they noticed a large amount of failed searches and bounce rates from the original users. By prominently displaying the product page, by changing the description of the item and by making the URL more SEO friendly, their "C" segment, this new implementation yielded more than double the amount of product purchases in less than one month.

Yes, your clients *are* important. That's why you've got analytics in the first place

Great post! Good food for thought.

I mean, how can I visit your site from my RSS without even leaving a comment, or when I have nothing to say, browse another page or two — hence decreasing the bounce rate?

While search engine traffic converts, not all of them are. The ones that convert well is long tail keywords…

Google Analytics also help when tracking effectiveness of a web site, because like it or not, the Web is frequently still the final destination to get people to buy a product or service. For me, email and Twitter drive traffic to the Web, and GA tracks the traffic well.

Using both together is the way forward.

Thanks for sharing your views, appreciate it.

Often a relationship starts with the first tentative steps online before any other contact is considered; before you can start developing it. If used properly, analytics data is internet marketing with the lights on.

Take the obvious (and probably most widely understood) metric: bounce rate. If 90% of visitors to a page are bouncing, why are they not digging deeper into your website? Is there a mismatch between organic queries and/or paid keywords and the high-bounce page? Are all sources of visitors exhibiting the same behaviour?

One could argue that a high bounce rate is to be expected for a blog: a visitor reads the post of interest and exits. OK, create a bounce segment that takes into account time on site or repeat visits. There are lots of ways to slice it up.

The bottom line is, yes, don’t forget you’re dealing with people as they buy products/services but why not use what tools you have get more of an insight into group behaviour and how well your website is meeting its needs? If necessary, make changes to improve engagement then maybe, as individuals, they’ll want to get to know you better!

Regards

Andy

Cheers
Debs

It reminds me of an old saying that one of my mentors instilled into me: "Communication + Unity = Community" – may be cliched but still rings a very true bell.

Keep up the great work!

Shay West (@shaywest)