Dennis R. Mortensen talks about his new Web Analytics book and recent Yahoo! Web Analytics release

Today’s post is an interview with Dennis R. Mortensen, who sat down with us to talk about his brand new Web Analytics book, published by Wiley, and the recent release of Yahoo! Web Analytics.

Dennis is a pioneer and expert in the Analytics industry. He is an accredited Associate Web Analytics Instructor at the University of British Columbia, the author of Yahoo! Web Analytics: Tracking, Reporting, and Analyzing for Data-Driven Insights, and a frequent speaker on the subject of analytics and online marketing. An entrepreneur, Dennis was the COO of IndexTools until it was acquired by Yahoo! in May 2008. Today he is the Director of Data Insights at Yahoo!, sits on the Board of Directors at the Web Analytics Association, and maintains the highly popular analytics blog, VisualRevenue.

New features for Yahoo! Web Analytics were recently released. For Merchant Solutions customers, these included new demographics and interest groups reports, along with segmentation and cross-reference filter capabilities. What kinds of insights can merchants gain from these new features?

I honestly believe that there is an unlimited amount of insight that one can gain from this. The biggest barrier to a successful analytics practice within your company is not the analytics technology anymore – it’s likely to be the amount of time you, as a merchant, dedicate to the process. I, of course, believe that this is one of those processes that you should force upon yourself or your team, and that it should be no less than a weekly activity.

What I really like about the new release is the opportunity for merchants of all sizes to gain detailed insight and information on the demographics of their leads and customers, and that this information can be segmented down to individual products or groups. This is typically something that is exclusive to the enterprise company. Imagine the ability to get understanding and insight such as:

Target Segment for Product X = Female New Yorkers between the age of 18-24 with high interest in sports!

If that isn’t sexy, I don’t know what is. AND remember, this is something you can go do today. It’s not the only thing you can do, of course, but I believe it shows the value of the new dimensions. The most beautiful part is that we don’t just provide this as pretty reports, but as actual dimensions in the system, so you can use this to slice and dice your data any way you want. Creating a simple report on gender and average order value, as pictured below, is easy and super powerful, showing that the average order value from males are +$100 more than from females.

Report on gender and average order value.

Even with all this data at their fingertips, a hindrance to many busy merchants is lack of time in their day. If you had to pick key metrics that merchants should keep close tabs on in the limited time they have, which would these be, and why?

If you have very limited human resources, I suggest that you rely on Alerts for metrics such as:

• Visit to Sale conversion rate
• Average Order Value
• Traffic Distribution

Make sure that you are keeping an acceptable visit-to-conversion rate while maintaining an acceptable average order value – and should you not, be sure that you are alerted instantly. Finally, knowing that there are no major changes in traffic influx, makes sure that you don’t lose out on a potential opportunity. Remember, alerts aren’t just for negative scenarios.

Create automated alerts to stay on top of your key site metrics.

You recently published the book Yahoo! Web Analytics: Tracking, Reporting, and Analyzing for Data-Driven Insights, a resource that promises to give readers "Yahoo! Web Analytics secrets and tricks not found anywhere else." Which topics covered in your book are a definite "must-read" for online store owners?

My philosophy in regards to Web Analytics as a whole today, is that you should focus on three different but equally important tasks. I have divided the book into those three parts to reflect these broad tasks: A) Collecting Data, B) Reporting on Data and C) Deriving insight from Data. Depending on one’s vantage point, one or more of the chapters will be in focus.

The book of course holds tremendous value for all existing users of the system, and will be a hefty resource for all those new accounts we are setting up these days. BUT I feel it is important to mention that it actually holds great value beyond users of Yahoo! Web Analytics, or this is at least something I tried to author.

Yahoo! Store owners have the luxury of not having to tag their sites manually, so as a first step I would actually recommend Part II about reporting on your data and Part III on deriving insight on your data. Once you master this, to become a true web analyst Ninja (as my good friend Avinash Kaushik would call it), you can go back to part I and look into more sophisticated data collection methodologies. These are the two MUST-read chapters, even though I believe the whole book is a must-read of course:

• Merchandising Tracking (Chapter 4)
• Merchandising Reports (Chapter 10)

That said, I believe that dependant on one’s vantage point, certain chapters will be in focus, such as:

• Campaign Manager: Paid Search Analysis and Optimization with YWA (Chapter 11)
• Web Analyst: Using Segments in YWA Reporting (Chapter 7)
• Manager: Using Dashboards in YWA (Chapter 9)

You can find the official book page on my blog, and you can go get a sneak peek of the book at Google Book Search or over at Amazon.

Front cover of Dennis R. Mortensen’s new Yahoo! Web Analytics book

Yahoo! Web Analytics is available to and used by merchants of all store sizes and experience levels. How helpful is your book to merchants on each part of this spectrum?

I don’t necessarily believe that the book caters to a specific store size or experience level. I am more eager to believe that it depends on the person and what they want out of it. I left nothing out from a feature set point of view and as such it is indeed sophisticated in its attitude, but I tried to include examples and use a language that makes it pleasant to read. I believe the bellowing two testimonials might confirm that:

"As the individual who drove the initial development of Yahoo!’s Web Analytics tool, Dennis managed to conquer mind-numbingly complex issues by presenting them in a simple and useful way. It’s no wonder that he did it again with his Yahoo! Web Analytics book."

Bryan Eisenberg,
New York Times bestselling author of Call to Action and Always Be Testing, and cofounder of FutureNow Inc.

"In Yahoo! Web Analytics Dennis Mortensen manages to do the impossible by adding real value to our knowledge of web analytics in an already crowded market. His clear language and excellent examples make this book required reading for any web analytics practitioner interested in extending their use of freely-available tools. Dennis is one of the best and brightest in the web analytics industry and Yahoo! Web Analytics reinforces that with every page."

Eric T. Peterson,
Author, Web Analytics Demystified

Thanks, Dennis, for taking the time to talk with us about your new Web Analytics book, and the recent Yahoo! Web Analytics release.

For merchants attending Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Boston next week, you can talk to Dennis about Yahoo! Web Analytics in-person – be sure to stop by the Yahoo! booth (#449). Dennis will also be presenting at the inaugural Yahoo! Merchant Summit, being held in conjunction with IRCE on June 18.

Jennifer Farwell
Yahoo! Small Business