Today's Analytics Tools Are Broken
This was originally posted on Quora, Inside the Product, on 2/2/2013.
As Tom Tunguz recently pointed out, Data is Useless Unless You Can Act On It[1]. Unfortunately, the majority of analytics solutions are limited to simply telling you what happened and do little to communicate why something happened, let alone how to improve it.
When looking at your metrics, you should be seeking to answer:
What happened? (information)
Why did that happen? (insight)
How can I improve? (action)
Take Measureful as an example[2]. They claim to help communicate data into decisions yet their current product, like most analytics solutions, is missing the why and how. Here’s a recent website report I received:
This immediately prompts me to ask:
- Which pages are users bouncing from most often?
- Where did the additional traffic come from that led to a 26% increase in visits? Organic, search, WOM, referral, paid?
- Are there traffic sources that are driving significantly less engaged users, reducing my page views per visit? Which landing pages are performing especially poorly?
Each of these questions requires me to dig deep into Google Analytics (assuming you’re tracking all the necessary data) which takes time and is prone to human error. And only after you’ve invested the time to research will you discover if there’s anything insightful.
We’re all busy. Analytics tools should be providing answers, not a to-do list.
There’s a huge inefficiency in the market, currently filled by full-time data analysts and user acquisition marketers seeking the why. Those that can close the loop from what to why to how and take action on those learnings, will have a much greater chance of success.
I’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter (@rrhoover). Which analytics tools are doing it right?
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[1] My response to Data is Useless Unless You Can Act On It
[2] I’m not trying to be a Startup Seagull - I really like the direction Measureful is heading. This is just one example amongst many others.