It’s funny how some things just seem to happen. A slight preamble to the meat of my post. I “met” Brian Clifton on the Internet. It sounds nasty, but that’s the truth. Brian is amongst a core group of what I like to call ‘Web Analytics Visionaries’. Our initial meeting was somewhat uneventful. I saw a LinkedIn Group that intrigued me….. read some posts and decided to join. No sooner had I joined and I was in conversation with Brian Clifton! Pretty cool as I was just delving into the First Edition of Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics.
Pretty soon we had built up enough trust that Brian floated the idea of sharing a couple of Chapters of his new book with me for ‘review’. Yikes! I have never reviewed anything. How do I feel? Honored? Scared? Nervous? YES!
No matter, here goes!
Here’s how the new book (which will be generally available in March) is laid out:
Book Introduction – of course!
Chapter 1: Why Understanding Your Web Traffic Is Important to Your Business: introduces you to the world of web measurement, where it fits in, and what you can achieve.
Chapter 2: Available Methodologies and Their Accuracy: provides the context of what can be measured via web analytics and its limitations.
Chapter 3: Google Analytics Features, Benefits, and Limitations: focuses on what Google Analytics can do for you.
Chapter 4: Using the Google Analytics Interface: walks you through the user interface, highlighting the key functionality.
Chapter 5: Reports Explained: reviews in detail the top reports you need to understand.
Chapter 6: Getting Up and Running with Google Analytics: gets you quickly up and running with the basic install.
Chapter 7: Advanced Implementation: takes you beyond the basics to give you a more complete picture of your website’s activity.
Chapter 8: Best-Practices Configuration Guide: provides you with the knowledge to define success metrics (KPIs) and segment your data.
Chapter 9: Google Analytics Hacks: gives you some lateral thinking for adding extra functionality to Google Analytics.
Chapter 10: Focusing on Key Performance Indicators: is about how you focus on the metrics most important to you—KPIs and the process required to build them.
Chapter 11: Real World Tasks: jump-starts your analytical skills by showing you how to identify and optimize poorly performing pages, site search, and online and offline marketing. Website Optimizer is introduced as a method for testing a hypothesis.
Chapter 12: Integrating Google Analytics with Third-Party Applications: shows you how to integrate data either by capturing cookies or using the new Google Analytics export API.
Appendix A: Regular Expression Overview: gives you an introduction to understanding regular expressions.
Appendix B: Useful Tools: describes some useful tools for helping you implement and use Google Analytics.
Appendix C: Recommended Further Reading: gathers together books, blogs and other web resources that can help you.
Brian has shared the Book’s Introduction with me, along with Chapters 1 & 10. This is sad inasmuch as reading what Brian has sent only makes me more anxious to read what I don’t have!
I am admittedly a Google junkie. Google Analytics (especially) and everything about it is what really turns my crank. Nevertheless I am pragmatic and honest enough to provide a fair and balanced assessment of what I have read.
If you have had the courage ( 
) to read some of my Blog posts you will have probably noticed that I follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principal. That and a smattering of humor seems to get my point across to the largest segment of my target audience. Brian does the same thing (less the humor). He writes in a manner that is easily understandable, but at the same time, is effective in conveying complex theories & strategies to the largest segment of his target audience:
- Marketers
- Webmasters
- Senior Managers
Delving a Bit Deeper
Introduction
This sets the stage for the book. Brian outlines a brief yet concise history of the Internet from its inception – basically how we got to where we are. He then discusses his targeted audience (as mentioned above).
The content is not aimed at the complete web novice, nor is it aimed at engineers—I am not one myself. Installing, configuring, or using Google Analytics does not require an engineer! Rather, I hope that Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics will appeal to existing users of business data as well as readers new to the field of web measurement.As the title implies, this book is intended for people who want to go beyond the basics of simply counting hits.
You will learn how to implement and use Google Analytics in a best-practice way. I deliberately emphasize the word use because this is the primary purpose of this book. That is, you will learn how to leverage Google Analytics to optimize your website—in terms of marketing, user experience, and ultimately conversions, all based on solid reliable data.
A well laid out groundwork – IMHO.
Chapter 1: Why Understanding Your Web Traffic Is Important to Your Business
This chapter contains a great explanation of why spending money on a web presence is totally useless (my words) unless you have a strategy to measure and leverage what is happening on your website.
Web analytics is a thermometer for your website — constantly checking and monitoring your online health.
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
Brian seems to know exactly when to add key information as witnessed by his strategic insertion of a hint to perhaps make sure that you know what the terminology you will be reading about really means:
There are liberal smatterings of interesting graphs and alike throughout. I won’t share them as 1: I am not sure if I am allowed to & 2: I don’t want to spoil the surprise!
Basically, the Why, What and Where (GA can help).
Chapter 10: Focusing on Key Performance Indicators
By this point the reader has pretty well got the gist of how to measure site performance using Google Analytics. NOW things get more interesting as Brian takes a deep dive into KPIs and how to leverage them. This is basically a great tutorial into how to take the reams of data you get from GA and framing it with clear and concise measurements that you use to help move you/your business/your website forward!
Pay attention here is you will learn something you did not know; no matter your experience level. I did (blushing).
I like real-life examples as they help me understand things better. Brian does not disappoint as he provides a generous listing of examples throughout:
A home furniture store that does not have a transactional website produces a printed catalogue each year (at great expense!). However, which products make it into the printed version is a mixture of experienced guesswork and luck, based largely on the whims of fashion trends. By analyzing the interests of their web visitors (objective), they wish to better predict and select with greater confidence which items should go into their next catalogue (result).
Easy peasy!
What good is a KPI if you can’t action it? Brian explains things in depth. He also provides some nifty examples of some general KPIs (sorry no list!).
Brian also dives into Segmentation and even better Google’s (superb) Advanced Segmentation! Can you say slice and dice?
This is a long Chapter – ~ 50 pages. It is choc full of everything you need to know and measure along with great examples and Brian’s personal insights. I cannot hit on everything as I would simply be spoiling the surprise. Plus I wouldn’t come close to explaining things as well and in such a consumable manner as Brian did.
BTW: You may be asking yourself how long this information will be of longterm use as Google is constantly adding to & innovating their free offering. Skip to the end of my post for the answer!
My Opinion (At long last!)
My overall opinion? If you are into Google Analytics and really want to delve into what makes a particular web presence tick, along with all of the associated metrics, etc…. This is a must read. No ands ifs, or buts. You can read the book from start to finish if that is what you want to do. Or you can simply jump to any Chapter and get to work on a specific concept or problem.
From what I have seen things are well laid out, logical, and well-articulated.
Brian realizes that Google is constantly updating their free Analytics offering. These updates can quickly outdate a book. He understands that and has (wisely) created a companion website where updates and other nifty tools will be published.
Net net, I have set asides funds to purchase Brian’s latest (apparently ”Biblical” +500 pages) musings on Google Analytics. BTW the First Edition (March 2008) had 360 Pages.
Disclaimer: I have not received any type of compensation for this review. It had to be said as my compliments seem a bit extreme – even to myself.
