A fundamental misconception of web analytics

The Wall Street Journal did a whole series on “What they know”. Online marketers – especially when it comes to ad networks, web
analytics and behavioral targeting – are depicted as evil spies and
Cookie Monsters. Call it sensationalist, biased or even lies and
fallacies; it depicts what is generally perceived outside of our little
web analytics industry. If we listen to the WSJ, even underlying
concepts of Web 2.0 such as embedding widgets on a website is evil.
Their analysis revealed content (and most likely, cookies) being served
by a 3^rd party… Bad, bad, bad! It goes beyond web analytics,
but when threatened and called upon, people react and as is often the
case, external events forces us, web analysts and the WAA, to act.

A fundamental misconception of web analytics

Over the year I have taught over 700 people on the fundamentals of web
analytics trough courses at UBC, ULaval and my workshops. Oftentimes, a
fundamental misconception about web analytics takes the form of “With
the help of Google Analytics (or whichever tool), I can find dimensions
such as number of visitors from a city, the source and frequency of
their visit, recency of visits, keywords used, etc., however, how can I
find “who these visitors are?” How can I find their contact details so
as to start a personalized initiative?”

First, we need to understand the fundamental difference between Web Analytics and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Read more from Stephane Hamel: Web analytics, privacy and the WAA code of ethic::immeria::web analytics::Stephane Hamel