Drowning in Analytics? What to Look For

In my almost 2 years of handling Google Analytics, I feel sometimes that I'm going on and on, around and around with data, and still feel, at the end of the day, that I do not know a website's customers.

Sometimes, I do feel that, especially when there is one product that I cannot figure out why people are buying so much, or not at all.  I will be totally honest.  I have looked at what they look at, looked at what they buy, walked backwards to see how they moved forward in the store, but still somehow, something may be amiss.

In Avinash Kaushik's Analytics an Hour a Day, he clarifies what one should look for in tracking analytics.  It is only now that I realize, I'm not lost.  I'm on the right track, it's just that I see the trees for the forest.  There are days when I face a different aspect of analytics, and another aspect on another day.  Then I totally forget to see the bigger picture and the implications to sell off a product.

I'm sure most of you analytics specialists are already doing these, but lemme just lay it out in 1 little space. 

What to look for in monitoring analytics:
1)  What does your customer want from your site?
2)  When customer gets to the store, what does he do there?
3)  Was the sale closed?

You will find that there are different data involved here.  You will have to combine different information from different sources.  The ones below are simplest, easiest ways to get metrics but of course there are more methods.

What does the customer want from you in the first place?  Some ways to find out:
-  Ask customers.  Personally or through forms.  You can do it, don't be shy.
-  What did the customers click?  You can see this through the map overlay.  You'll see which buttons or categories that people really like.

What does the customer do in your site?
-  Your analytics software will be mainly in charge here.  Keep those eyes open.

The end sale or conversion.  Did you bag it?
-  You can check your analytics' e-commerce section here or your website's accounting system for sales closed.
-  You should also read the numbers from sales generated  from offline methods.

Then put into consideration all your marketing and sales operation, on and offline and hopefully the trees AND the forest help you make crucial decisions to further your company's purpose.

Thank you Avinash for the enlightenment. :-)



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