• How can we help you?

    If you’re here, based on our analytics, it’s for one of two reasons: You found some old posts we wrote about Excel nearly 10 years ago or you need help unlocking the value of your investment in Google or Adobe Analytics. For the former, we hope the content we have proves helpful, and for the…

  • Advanced Analytics Education Dates Announced

    Based on the very successful roll-out of our Advanced Analytics Education offering at ACCELERATE 2013 Analytics Demystified is delighted to announce our “Adobe Intensive” sessions in Portland, Oregon April 23rd and 24th, 2014. We will be packing decades of knowledge into two days of Adobe-centric training and covering Adobe SiteCatalyst, Adobe ReportBuilder, Adobe Discover, and Adobe Target, all…

  • DAA SF Symposium Presentation Now Available

    My presentation from the Digital Analytics Association San Francisco Symposium is now available on SlideShare: What the ‘Quantified Self’ movement and really, really personal data means for marketing, analytics and privacy? At the intersection of fitness, analytics and social media, a new trend of “self-quantification” is emerging. Devices and applications like Jawbone UP, Fitbit, Runkeeper,…

  • TMS Best Practices: Get the Data Layer Right

    Over the past year or so, I’ve had the opportunity to see some “do’s” and “dont’s” when implementing a tag management system. I thought today I’d share some thoughts on the most important item on the “do” list: Every good TMS implementation I’ve seen is supported by a carefully planned, well-documented data layer. The initial…

  • The problem with "Big Data" …

    A lot has been written about “big data” in the past two or three years — some say too much — and it is clear that the idea has taken hold in the corner offices and boardrooms of corporate America. Unfortunately, in far too many cases, “big data” projects are failing to meet expectations due…

  • An Aspirational Report Structure

    The life of an analyst invariably includes responsibility for some set of recurring reports: daily, weekly, monthly, and even quarterly. I hate reports. Or, to be more precise, I have come to hate the term “report.” (I’ve also developed something of an aversion to the term “analysis,” but that’s a topic for another day.) To…

  • Announcing "Team Demystified" Analytics Staffing Services

    Last week at our annual ACCELERATE conference Analytics Demystified announced our new “Team Demystified” web analytics and optimization staffing and contractor services offering. In a nutshell, “Team Demystified” is a response to the profound unmet need for experienced analytical professionals within our client base, a need that we have repeatedly been asked to help fulfill.…

  • Better ways to measure content engagement than time metrics

    I spent five years responsible for web analytics for a major ad-monetised content site, so I’m not immune to the unique challenges of measuring a “content consumption” website. Unlike an eCommerce site (where there is a more clear “conversion event”) content sites have to struggle with how to measure nebulous concepts like “engagement.” It can…

  • Shipping, Discounts & Taxes [SiteCatalyst]

    If you are an online retailer, it is likely that your orders that contain shipping, discounts and/or taxes. Over the years I have seen some good and bad ways to track shipping, discounts and taxes in SiteCatalyst so I thought I would share some tips that I have found helpful. The Basics To start, let’s…

  • Why I Don’t Put Recommendations on Dashboards

    WARNING: Gilligan contrarianism alert! The following post posits a thesis that runs contrary to popular opinion in the analytics community. Many companies these days rely on some form of internal dashboard(s). That’s a good thing. Even better is when those companies have actually automated these dashboards – pulling data from multiple data sources, structuring it…

  • Data Privacy: It’s not an all or nothing!

    Recently I have been exploring the world of “self quantification”, using tools like Jawbone UP, Runkeeper, Withings and more to measure, well, myself. Living in a tech-y city like Boston, I’ve also had a chance to attend Quantified Self Meet Ups and discuss these topics with others. In a recent post, I discussed the implications…