Guest Post by Aviansh Kaushik (The author of the recently published book Web Analytics 2.0 , the leading web analytics blog Occam’s Razor and the best selling book Web Analytics: An Hour A Day.)

The world of “web analytics” seems to have been around forever. We have practitioners and vendors and a well established system of working and thinking. Yet companies are frustrated at their ability to fundamentally understand the data and take action. I have come to the conclusion that there are multiple forces that are at play and the world of traditional web analytics is now dead.

What does the world of traditional web analytics look like?

If we measure any of the following it is likely that we live in the world of web analytics:

• Page Views
• Path Analysis
• Track HITS
• Daily Unique Visitors (!!!)
• Top Exit Pages on the Site
• Visitor Screen Resolutions

The core outcome of measuring these “KPI’s” (Key Performance Indicators) is that we can take very little action. Almost all of the time their key contribution to our business is that they distract us from focusing on what’s really important to the business and our customers.

I believe that we are now living in a world of Web Analytics 2.0. A world were web analytics is not limited to data available from clickstream tools like Omniture, Google Analytics, NedStat etc. Rather it also includes on using qualitative tools like surveys and lab usability tests to understand customer needs, it includes leveraging the power of testing and experimentation and finally it also includes robust competitive intelligence analysis to “spy” on our competitors.

A key shift in the Web Analytics 2.0 world is that we don’t simply measure KPI’s but rather we do Key Insights Analysis (KIA’s) such as:

• Click Density Analysis
• Visitor Primary Purposes
• Task Completion Rates
• Segmented Visitor Trends
• Raw Voice of Customer Pareto Analysis
• Multi Channel Revenue Impact

You know you are truly delivering web insights when you realize that every piece of data you look at drives action and not just action but action that adds to whatever bottom line Outcomes that our companies are trying to achieve for our company customers (note that important difference, not outcomes that your boss wants, not outcomes that his/her boss wants, but Outcomes that your customers want).

The world of Web Analytics 2.0 takes time to move into but once you get comfortable in it you will have achieved a long term strategic advantage.

Good luck!

The above article has been taken from the InRev’s quarterly Newsletter.