Resources
Everyone has an opinion about marketing, analytics, and social networks. Some say it’s difficult, some say it’s easy, but all agree with the consultant’s favorite answer: It Depends! Here are some resources to help you quickly rise to a mastery level of each of these subjects and stay on top of industry best practices.
This is the place to go for just about everything related to web analytics. Not only will you find smart people with plenty of experience, who are happy to help out anyone from beginners to Ph.D.s, analysts to marketing directors, IT engineers to business unit owners, but you’ll swear they were just waiting for you to post your question so they could jump in and add value.
Folks there, like most web analytics practitioners, and probably a little like you, have backgrounds in all sorts of different industries and are curious and adventurous explorers by nature, both physically, intellectually, and certainly about all things online.
Come join us as we make the web a better place!
Web Analytics Books
Let’s start with the classic, Eric’s Web Analytics Demystified.
Everybody owns a copy, and there’s a good reason why. It sets up our industry with a common vocabulary to exchange best practices, especially as they change over time.
Next up is Avinash’s book:
Another must-read, for several reasons, not the least of which is that Avinash is a cool guy, and his enthusiasm will inspire you to push through the roadblocks you’re likely to encounter in your organization to get things done. Even if your organization consists of: you.
Ask Jason and Shane if you want to know how to make your analytics actionable.
Otherwise, you run the risk of generating a bunch of doorstop reports, instead of adding true value to your organization.
Another one of Eric’s books:
Written in the O’Reilly “Hacks” style, this one is full of short tips and tricks to jump start your thinking about using analytics to improve your web site. I find it especially useful when I get bogged down in whatever projects I’m working on at the moment. Like a zen master’s thwack to the head, it surprises you into thinking about measurement in a different way, reminding you of other approaches to extracting meaning from a bunch of data.
No analyst is worth their pay if they can’t toss around Excel spreadsheets better than their MBA-wielding bosses. That’s where this comes in:
Plenty of ways to do the things you expected Excel to do, but don’t want to waste time reinventing on your own.
More Web Analytics Books
I haven’t read these, and don’t know the authors, so my recommendation is that you read up on reviews that others have written, flip through them yourself, and decide if spending the time on them is worth more than spending some quality time with your analytics package and playing with some spreadsheet data. In general, you’ll be better off reading some blogs and trying to implement the ideas there … though these might make for some great train or airplane reading. If you’re one of the authors, or want me to link to a review of one of these books, please let me know!
