Web Analytics & Kaizen: Change for the Better

Guest writer: Michaël Notté

Web Analytics often bring lot of promises and hopes – not to say dreams. Yes, vendors will tell you all the added value and benefits you can get from their fantastic tools and why you must do Web Analytics. Books will list you all the great things you can possibly achieve. But many will omit to say the following inconvenient truth: Web Analytics are NOT easy and it takes time. Lot of time. I think many companies don’t really know what they will face when starting a Web Analytics project – especially in Europe where Web Analytics is rather “young”.

So you finally convince your management to invest in Web Analytics. You went through the selection process and you’ve chosen the perfect tool. Congratulations. You think the hardest part is behind you? Well actually it’s not. You’re just ready to embark for a long, very long journey. And a though and hard one parsed with many challenges. Be prepared!

Of course there will be the usual tasks: set-up of the tools, definition of reporting needs, implementation of the tags in your sites, configuration of the reports, delivery to business users and more. But these are only the tip of the iceberg. There is more under the water. Be aware! You don’t want your WA project to be another Titanic, do you?

What are some of these challenges that you’ll have to face - especially if you’re in a large company or complex structure where many sites coexists with content produced by many actors (internal vs. external) and on different platforms? Based on my own experience, here are the big challenges we faced (or we are still facing)

• Data consistency and quality: Make sure that data are accurate and consistent so you can compare “apples with apples”. It is far to be easy when you’ve many sites with content produced by internal departments, external Web agencies, on various platforms.
• Flexibility: You have to deal with the reporting needs of various stakeholders, from global management to local/national marketers in a context where various content and technologies can coexist.
• Organisation & integration: Web Analytics is a process and you need to integrate it in your organization but also in your technical infrastructure. You have to define roles & responsibilities. You need to have methodologies. You need resources. You need brains.
• Education & communication: You will have to learn how to use the data, how to interpret them, how to make them actionable. And every website, every business is different. Learning takes time. You will have to spread insights and knowledge across you company, across departments.

I won’t detail these here (for more on this, see the presentation I did at the first Belgian WAW) but my big advice on how to tackle these and be successful in your WA journey is: proceed step by step and try to achieve continuous improvement at each step.

“Continuous improvement”? Sounds familiar? Well Web Analytics is all about that. But then why restrict this principle only to your online business? Apply the same principle to your project itself. Japanese have a word for that principle of “continuous improvement” – Kaizen. It literally means, “Change for the better”. Why doing Kaizen?

Well one of the biggest mistake you could do when you start a WA project is to try to deliver it all in one big shot. To promise to your business that in 1/2/3/n year time (choose most appropriate value) they’ll be able to do whatever is possible with WA and achieve incredible results. Why?

It will make your project more complex, much longer and more time-consuming. It might be demotivating for you and your team because no result will be delivered before some times (if any). It will also mean huge costs that may difficult to justify (and that will put big pressure on you). There will be a higher probability that you will fail to deliver all your promises in due time with the consequence that your Web Analytics project may loose all credibility (or even worse sink like the Titanic).

And if you don’t fail, will the business be “mature” enough to use all the complex but valuable information that you’ll provide them? What’s the point of providing tons of reports & data if no one knows what to do with it? It is very frustrating to spend lot of time to deliver state-of-the-art detailed reports when your business will only look at the simple data (visitors, visits, visit duration, visit length…) – at least in the beginning.

Instead of the big project approach, you should rather go for an iterative and incremental approach. Split your WA project in smaller parts, with “smaller” (i.e. more reasonable and realistic) objectives – don’t aim for the moon. Just make sure that each step will bring you closer to your final ultimate goals. And at the end of each step, take into account the lessons learned and adapt your plans accordingly.

Even if this may take more time to do your complete project, this will make it easier to manage but also to achieve it. At each step you should try to deliver real results. Start with basics and once your business have reached the limits, go to the next step and provide them with more data to chew. If your make your business happy, they’ll ask for more – believe me.

Adapt your WA project development plan as your business and you get more and more mature. No need to go faster than necessary. Focus on the essential and more important needs first.

By splitting your project, you also split the costs. Smaller budget is easier to get. But also as you will deliver results, it will be easier to justify increase of budget in order to go to the next level. You will get more support, more resources and more money. And your project will get more visibility inside your company. Always good for you.

All in all, this will make your project much more motivating for everyone involved. You will get results and rewards while your stakeholders will be all excited with all the insights they will get. All this will set new challenges for everyone, as everybody will be willing to go for more.

So Web Analytics is a long and hard journey but it is not mission impossible. Just be aware that it takes time to get there. If you go step by step, trying to “continuously” improve, rather than climbing the mountain in one go - it will make your life easier and you will have higher chances to be successful in your quest.

Patience, perseverance and Kaizen – these are some of the keys to successful Web Analytics.

Michaël Notté
Senior Application Analyst – Web Analytics & Internet
Automotive – European HQ (Brussels, Belgium)

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