It seems that it's really easy to get lost in all the amount of information about Web analytics that is thrown at us at a given time. The Internet involves in such a fast paced, that even most experts can't keep up with it. You can find many information on the Internet about Web related software, some of it may be correct in some would just be on a valuable. When I want to read unbiased and professional articles about Web analytics, I turned to Avinash Kaushik's blog to really get a valuable insight of the Web analytics world. The latest article that I've read is called "10 fundamental Web analytics truths: Embrace 'Em & Win Big".
Avinash Kaushik talks about the importance facts that every website owner or business owner that utilizes Web analytics solutions should know about. He touches subjects like multiplicity as a key to Web underlining success that will give you a better insight of your website's visitors. He talks about enterprise Web analytics solutions like Omniture, which are very expensive and it will not save you if you make fundamental mistakes. He talks about free and paid Web analytics solutions, and why there will never be a more powerful analytics tool that Google analytics and Yahoo! Web analytics products.
He touches very interesting subjects of like buying a very expensive enterprise went monolithic solutions instead of using a free web analytics product like Google analytics. Furthermore, he talks about the advantages of using real-time web analytics solutions compared to "regular" solutions that will analyze and present the data to late to make any valuable and important changes in a timely manner (when it is very important to take action as fast as possible). You will learn the importance of multichannel marketing, hiring a web only takes consultants and not forgetting the main reason why you chose to use a web analytics software. "Your job is to create at the customers and a healthier bottom-line", Avinash says in its article. You need to think about your visitors and not only on the figures you see on custom reports.
Furthermore, you need to understand that in order to accomplish the targets and marketing strategies, you need to change your measurement strategies and always keep up-to-date with your website audience, business priorities, available measurement technologies, etc.
One of the most interesting part of Avanish Kaushik article, talks about multi-channel analytics (online and offline). There isn't any magic solution or as Avanish Kaushik calls it "Magic bullet", that will combine online and offline statistics and do all the job for you. There are many vendors who say that they have an integrated multichannel solution that will help you calculate an accurate return of investment, but it is not the truth, or at least not told the truth. Avanish Kaushik encourage you to really understand what analytics solutions your business need, understand the differences between them. Don't just buy an analytic solution because you have to seen a sentence like "Advanced Multi-Channel Web Analytics Solution!". Always query the product that you are about to buy, because some of the enterprise products a very expensive. Even if they aren't expensive, there's no reason to pay for product that doesn't live to its promise.
For more information, visit Avinash Kaushik's article 10 Fundamental Web Analytics Truths.