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Hi everyone! This is Takashi at Web Analytics Consultants Association.
For those of you who have been following WACA’s progress in Singapore, you may have heard about our Google Analytics study groups. Save your seat for our next meetup below:
But I’m sure some of you are wondering what we do in these sessions, what we learn, and how it’s structured.
So today I want to share with you 3 key findings from a previous session we had and dig a little deeper on how these sessions work.
The Why & How
As you already know, analytics without proper implementation is not going to do anything and action-only without proper analytics set-up is just as silly.
But there is a lot of pressure to move fast on the web these days and pressure to start implementing strategy without analytics. That’s why our study group provides a safe environment for consultants and marketers to practice with real websites and real case studies.
In our study groups, we have a host (me), a client that provides their website for the study group to analyze, and participants analyzing and creating proposals for the website.
The first part goes over business analytics, frameworks, and a client interview session. The second part is about an hour long and here we dig deep into the analytics to analyze the website and come up with solutions. At the end, every participant presents his or her actionable proposals to the client.
3 Key Findings
Right. Now that we are on the same page, let me share with you key findings from our last study group!
1) Web Analytics’ impact extends beyond the web
Most people view the relationship between analytics and business strategy as a one-sided one. Business strategy wants something, they do it, and analytics reports on how it went.
In reality, web analytics has a huge role in how business strategy develops from start to finish. At the end of every study group, the many fresh perspectives each participant brings in their proposals often surprise clients. The client leaves the session with findings they can use to improve their business model and strategy as a whole.
2) Clients don’t really know what they want
This one is actually a pretty common situation.
Clients have websites and Google Analytics hooked up but they don’t know what their goals are. If you don’t have goals established, you don’t really have anything.
To decide on the goals of any website, we need to first know the goals of the business. This is why we emphasize business analysis so much; you need both sides of the equation.
3) Spam traffic
This one is a bit more specific and might sound kind of random but spam traffic from Russia is a bit of an annoyance these days.
You might have already noticed, going through your referral traffic in your analytics dashboard, that there is some traffic from Russia.
Don’t access these traffic links from Google Analytics. These are often spam attacks from Russia targeting web analysts like us.
