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Actionable Web Analytics: Using Data to Make Smart Business Decisionsx$5.70
  (15 reviews)
Best Price: $5.70
Knowing everything you can about each click to your Web site can help you make strategic decisions regarding your business. This book is about the why, not just the how, of web analytics and the rules for developing a "culture of analysis" inside your organization. Why you should collect various types of data. Why you need a strategy. Why it must remain flexible. Why your data must generate meaningful action. The authors answer these critical questions—and many more—using their decade of experience in Web analytics.
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Customer Reviews
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Good book for big business... but not for start-ups
By AQ0NWKIALD987 on 2007-09-08
Actionable Web Analytics is both well thought out and well written; but it's geared for big business (or medium size at least). If you're a general manager or executive type getting involved with web analytics this is a great book.
However, it's not geared toward the start-up entrepreneur. One of the sections talks about getting your "team" involved... your team being your: CMO (chief marketing officer), web team manager/leader, designer, information architect, usability expert, copywriter, developer, web analyst, strategist, channel manager, segmentation lead, etc. ,etc. For this I joked to my girlfriend that I guess i can have my meeting in front of the mirror! I'm all of these titles I guess. Another section talks about a company that incorrectly spent $150,000 per month on web analytics. While they did mention that this money was somewhat illspent, for entreprenurs this is totally irrelevant.
I gave it a good rating (4 stars) simply because I think the audience the authors intended (corporate types) will get a great benefit out of it. The book is particularly useful if a reader needs to put together a cohesive argument to someone else (e.g. upper management) that analytics (basically measurements) can help with making a company's website more profitable. To that end, the book does a great job!
A Strong Addition to the World of Web Analytics and Web Marketing
By A232YU4QL2MBQQ on 2007-05-31
I pre-ordered this book after hearing Jason and Shane speak at the Omniture conference in March. It was finally delivered yesterday and I read it cover-to-cover last night. The book provides an easy to read and easy to understand overview of what web analytics is and why it is such an important part of web marketing. It also does an excellent job of identifying key web marketing best practices and the differences in skills that distinguish an analyst that is trolling away in a cube and an analyst that CEO invites to his country club for lunch. Read this book if you want to implement best of breed strategies and tactics that work in almost any organization. Digest each page of this book and you might be the person that replaces the CEO one day.
A Waste of Time
By A1PIJ419YENN14 on 2007-11-29
I think this book is geared toward employees of companies that have no idea what web analytics are or why they would need to pay attention to them. If you are looking for a book that will go into any depth at all about web analytics, the types of data collected or what to do with it, look elsewhere.
Best web analytics book out there!
By A3PPSW4ML1PMGE on 2007-06-20
This is by far the best web analytics book out there! I would give this 6 stars if I could. The chapters on Dynamic Prioritization and Monetization carry the smartest ideas/models anywhere in the analytical literature space and they serve to build out an immensly powerful framework of thinking that can catalyze any company's ROI. While 90% of Avinash Kaushik's 480 size book revolves around carrying over several pie-in-the-sky processes from Industrial Engineering to accessorize one's day-to-day web analytics or explaining the history of web analytics, Jason and Shane really cut to the core of the important matter: driving ROI and how to achieve this. These guys have been doing this longer than maybe a handful of others on the planet so they come to the table with tons and tons of expertise and practical knowledge. They do a fantastic job talking about growing and breeding an analytical culture...another key part of the business. After all if you can obtain the the best analysis out there but can't convey the importance to the CEOs in a way that they can understand, it can only have so much power. This book equips you with schemes to empower yourself to the next stage, hence the "actionable" in the title. One can learn how to build a corporate analytics culture so that the analytics can fuel decisions and content deployment. This book is all about taking analytics to a whole new level. At the end of the day, measuring the value of investments is the key to everything. The analysis chapter is absolutely worth calling out as it devotes considerable attention to analyzing different types of sites, including subscription sites (a genre of sites generally ignored in other analytics books) as well as onsite search (another thing rarely covered). This book is for the busy person who wants to drive ROI and drive changes versus reading through the unactionable icing-on-the-cake content (e.g top 10 myths of analytics) for the sake of knowing more.
Very practical, very insightful, very useful
By A1OM7GQ90CZTWZ on 2007-05-22
The rise of Web sites as a primary channel for doing business has also created a growing demand for metrics and analysis of those sites and how they perform. Jason and Shane have been at the forefront of this effort over the past decade and have now distilled their collective experience and knowledge into this book.
For every marketing person that has responsibility for a Web site and for every business manager that is driving online revenue, this book is an exceptionally practical guide to creating ROI. Central to the premise of the book is being able to act on the data you gather. This action-oriented approach is key to making this book an effective tool for the busy manager.
In the interest of full disclosure, I work with Shane and Jason and have known them for years. I have a huge degree of respect for them both and believe this book really captures the spirit of how they work and how they help make the Web a more enriching environment for everyone.
- At least two of the chapters will change your carreer
By A1HBDC9NYE4Y8U on 2007-06-07
If you are a web analyst, definitely, definitely add this book to your web analytics collection and read the two chapters on Monetization and Prioritization. Even if you read nothing else in the book, I promise your carreer will change for the better. People will start listening to you. You will get a promotion and you will get a raise. And you will start achieving more results with web analytics. It may not even take you more than 30 minutes to grasp the essence of those chapters. Awesome. And if you are a manager of a web analytics program. Why reinvent the wheel, this book has best practices for managing.
Having been in the industry for seven years I read almost every book on web analytics. Was great to see that this book adds its own unique insights that must not be missing in ones collection.
- Right to the point
By A1L08MC7N99NL3 on 2007-08-04
Along with other classics (J. Sterne, E. Peterson) this is definitely a must have book in any web analytics collection. Straight to the point, it provides the reader not only with a better understanding of the web metrics, but also gives the reader multiple "sell"able insights of these numbers. This last point is especially important for every web analyst practitioner, in positioning himslef/herself as a business intelligence provider, rather than a computer "geek".
- Theories and theories alone!
By AGP2C81Q7FY7J on 2008-04-11
If you are looking for "Actionable Web Analytics" or how to "Use Data to Make Smart Business Decisions", then look somewhere else. The title of this book and the 5 star reviews given by some people here has misled me. I have red 75% of this book and finally decided to stop waisting my time. The book goes around web analytics and never gets into the point or give any specific practical recommendation.
It was a total waist of time and If there is a way I can return it back I will do so immediately.
- A Web Analytics Must
By A1W5RAA1RBZXO on 2007-07-18
A simple, yet powerful, easy to understand approach for all levels of expertise in the area of web analytics. For those that feel they are just keeping their head above water in the ever turbulent web data ocean, this book is a must. The layout is such that its not only a good first read, but also easily referenced later. Great effort Jason.
- It does what it says on the cover
By AHRA4SIJDCJE on 2008-01-24
This is a great book, and provides a whole program for actionable web analytics. The chapters towards the end are especially useful (data driven brief, agencies, staffing and tuning the team are all quite different to what I've seen in other references) and of course the monetising chapter is worth the cover price alone.
But what really stood out to me was what an easy read it is, Jason and Shane convey some hardcore and complicated concepts in such an easily understandable manner, it's a joy to read.
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Actionable Web Analytics: Using Data to Make Smart Business Decisions Accessories
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