Don’t Count Me!: Google Analytics and WordPress

As a new WordPress blogger, going back and forth editing pages and making sure they look terrific — I’m generating most of my own Google Analytics page views.  When I get a real page view, I want to know it!  Fortunately, if you already have Google Analytics installed, it’s very simple to accomplish in WordPress. Continue reading “Don’t Count Me!: Google Analytics and WordPress”

There is no room at the top for the hired help

Avinash Kaushik recently addressed a question perenially on our minds — how to make more money as a web analyst — by offering some very specific advice on how to choose a career path in web analytics based on your strengths and aspirations.  It’s a long post but definitely worth a read if you’re in the field.

But the subject of career path has been on my mind for awhile. Over time I’ve observed that most companies (or possibly business units if we’re talking about very large organizations) offer a rock-star career path for only one specific skillset. That is, before you can answer the question “How can I get ahead?” you’ve got to answer the question Continue reading “There is no room at the top for the hired help”

Omniture SiteCatalyst Variables 101

Data analysis begins with understanding the available data. To social scientists, this usually involves understanding your data type — nominal, ordinal, scalar, ratio. Web analysts, however, must always be concerned with the level of measurement as well — page level, session level, user level. If Omniture SiteCatalyst is your data source, understanding SiteCatalyst’s levels of measurement is key to being a good analyst. Those esoteric SiteCatalyst variables: sProps, Success Variables, and eVars, are easy to remember once you’ve seen their levels of measurement and Continue reading “Omniture SiteCatalyst Variables 101”

LinkedIn Best Answer: What should MBAs learn about marketing research?

A question was asked on the LinkedIn Q&A forum: “What should MBAs learn about marketing research?” My response was selected as Best Answer to this question, so I wanted to share.

Question (paraphrased):

What should MBA students learn about marketing research? Which research methods should they be exposed to?

Answer:

MBAs should learn to be advanced consumers of marketing research; they should NOT be learning how to actually perform the research.

Ultimately, business managers are more likely to be making the call about whether to spend resources conducting research than to be doing the research themselves. Accordingly, one of the most important things for MBAs to know about marketing research is how to make the decision of whether to initiate a research project.

On its face, the decision calculus is simple: Will the benefit of having this information exceed the cost of acquiring it? Real-world scenarios can sometimes be less clear, but this question is where you should start. Overall, becoming an educated consumer of marketing research offers a much greater benefit to the MBA than does seeing a few examples from the vast catalog of research methods.