Tag Archives: Visits

Visits are a Wet Blanket

Beware How You Count Events! I am aware that a large segment of the HIPPO market advocate visit based metrics*, but honestly, one can get into trouble if he blindly adheres to “Visits are what count.” All I am saying is perhaps a little more thought should be taken in setting up and serializing events. Quick and non reflective solutions can truly lead to pain down the road. 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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Funnels and the Paths They Make

My attitude is that funnels form a compelling prerequisite for action and should be an element of every actionable report. Let me demonstrate. But first we need to deal with the train wreck between funnels and paths in current web analytic tools. Continue reading

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Illustration of Skirting Axioms: Unique Visitors

I have presented the 5 fundamental axioms that define web analytics in a previous blog and also have argued that analyst and tools attempt to skirt these assumptions. This provides an illustration of what can happen when a major vendor attempts to skirt one of these fundamental assumptions. Confusion ensues. Continue reading

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Visitors vs. Visits

One would think that Visitors and the Visits they make would go hand in hand, but in some cases that is not true for many web analytic solutions. Visits or Sessions have their place in web analytics but not as prominently as one would think. Caution: This is a no spin zone! Let us take a new and honest look at this fundamental concept in web analytic analysis. Continue reading

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