Tag Archives: actionable insights

None Is Not An Option!

“None” is a telling symptom of a problem and “None is Not an Option” encapsulates an approach to diagnosing and resolving the problem. When reports are designed such that None is Not Option and “None” appears in a report, it becomes an important tool for diagnosing the problem. The resulting reports not only cover all user behaviors but with discipline allow the reports to address multiple questions and with extra diligence support multiple actions.
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Segment or Die: The Mechanics of Segments

If you have not yet discovered that segments are the life blood of analytics then consider the following as a quick review of how segmentation is used to convert measures into actionable insights. In part 1 I deal with the basic survival skills of segmentation analysis. I use the much maligned and debated bounce rate metric to illustrate the mechanics of segmentation. For all others you treat this as a quick review before we get to the hard stuff. Continue reading

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From Worst to Best: How to Report Metrics & Measures

No issue is more controversial and yet more fundamental than visitors vs visits. Several experts have put forward strong cases for unique visitors being “the worst metric”, “wildly inaccurate”, “no basis in reality”, the methods for determining unique visitors “render the resulting numbers useless!” I have taken a fundamentally different position in what I consider my best advice to web analysis. Caught in the head lights of expert opinion, it looks like I have some “splaning” to do. So do I crash burn or do these experts even have a chance. Read on to see how I work my way out of this predicament. Continue reading

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