• 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…

  • The Anatomy of a URL: Protocol, Hostname, Path, Parameters

    Put this post in the “very tactical” bucket, covering some things I’ve found myself explaining off and on over the years. Just last week, I wound up digging into an “oops” on some client work that was partially triggered by someone’s limited understanding of how URLs work., and, as I did a quick Google search…

  • Site Performance and Digital Analytics

    One of the issues we focus on in our consulting practice at Analytics Demystified is the relationship between page performance and key site metrics. Increasingly our business stakeholders are cognizant of this relationship and, given that awareness, interested in having clear visibility into the impact of page performance on engagement, conversion, and revenue. Historically speaking…

  • Four Dimensions of Value from Measurement and Analytics

    When I describe to someone how and where analytics delivers value, I break it down into four different areas. They’re each distinct, but they are also interrelated. A Venn diagram isn’t the perfect representation, but it’s as close as I can get: Earlier this year, I wrote about the three-legged stool of effective analytics: Plan, Measure, Analyze.…

  • Digital analytics is like basketball …

    If you follow me you know I’m a huge fan of digital measurement, analysis, and optimization. I’ve written books about it, I’ve given talks about it all over the world, and for the last five years I have been building a rapidly growing company around it. The Analytics Demystified brand, at least according to Google,…

  • 10 Tips for Web Analytics Wednesday Awesomeness

    I’ve become enamored with the “10 tips” format for organizing information (thank you, ACCELERATE), and I’ve had a couple of recent situations where people I know have asked for my advice on getting rolling with or successfully sustaining Web Analytics Wednesdays. A couple of years ago, someone actually tried to get a group of WAW organizers…

  • Cart Persistence and Duration [SiteCatalyst]

    I was recently working with a client who had some interesting questions. In general, he wanted to see different derivations of how long products had been in the shopping cart prior to being purchased. Some of his detailed questions included: Of all visitors hitting my website today, how many already have items in their Shopping…

  • Optimization Test Techniques – Part I of II

    As I talk to more and more companies that are using testing solutions, I find many of them are unaware of the test techniques that are available in their testing platform.  Testing solutions available today offer more then just A/B and multivariate testing capabilities.  There are different techniques around multivariate tests but there are also…

  • Digital Analytics: From Data to Stories and Communication

    This will be a quick little post as I try to pull together what seems to be an emerging theme in the digital analytics space. In a post late last year, I wrote: I haven’t attended a single conference in the last 18 months where one of the sub-themes of the conference wasn’t, “As analysts,…

  • ACCELERATE Chicago Debrief

    I’m on the plane returning home from the second ever Analytics Demystified ACCELERATE Conference and I can’t help but smile as I think about what an incredible event this was. For starters, demand for this event maxed out the ~200 person capacity of our Chicago venue at the Gleacher Center, but we managed to comfortably…

  • Are Your Employees Wasting Your Marketing Budgets?

    Every once in a while, especially when I am working with large clients, I ask them a simple question that befuddles them. The question I ask is this: “Do you know much money you are spending each month on paid advertising that is being used by your own internal employees?” After they pause for a…