Web Analytics (How It Works) Explained in 4 Minutes

I was tinkering around a few weeks ago trying to figure out the best way to communicate an idea out to a group of people and hit on using Snagit to record me talking my way through a few PowerPoint slides that had some basic diagrams on them and then uploading the resulting video to YouTube (in that case, as a private video). It worked great — perfectly okay audio quality (I used a USB headset) and perfectly okay graphics. Lo-fi, but using the tools I already had at hand.

Below is an audio slideshow that uses the same approach to provide a very basic overview of how page tag-based web analytics tools work. If you’re a web analyst, I sincerely hope there is nothing new to you here. But, if you’re a web analyst who has repeatedly beaten your head against a brick wall when trying to explain to some marketers you work with that they need to put campaign tracking parameters on the links they use…maybe it’s a video you can send their way! It’s right at 4 minutes long, with a subtle-but-shameless suck-up to my favorite Irish web analyst at the 1:30 mark (it really never hurts to suck up to an Irish(wo)man, now, does it?).

The video is a much simplified overview of what I went into in greater detail in an earlier blog post.

If you’d like to download the slides (.pptx) for your own use (attribution appreciated but not required, and edit at will), you can do so here.

I’d love to hear what you think (of the format and/or of the content)!