Asking Why
It all started in 1998 when I made a mistake at work. I was supposed to add 7 web forms to 7 websites. By mistake I only added 6 and forgot one smaller site.
About a month later I got a call from a colleague who asked my opinion on automating subscriptions as he was getting too many from abroad.
Abroad was not good
I knew I’d made a mistake because the form should not be able to be completed by anyone outside of the UK.
But then I got curious. I remembered a previous conversation a week earlier from one of the editors about taking the form off the site altogether.
There were too few queries from that newspaper but here was another one where I was getting too many.
I didn't know it then but this was the first time in my web analytics career that I would ask why. At that point, I didn't even know I was going to find out the answer with a web analytics tool.
Who Am I?
By way of a quick introduction, my name is Steve Jackson and I am a relatively well-known web and digital marketing analyst.
I've been a web analytics practitioner since 1998.
Yes. That. Long.
Google didn't exist when I started.
In addition to writing and speaking, I have consulted for companies such as Rovio (remember Angrybirds anyone?), Amazon, IKEA, VisitFinland, Nokia, Kone, Vodafone, Telia, Tui, Thompson, and EMC. Everything from telecoms to travel, lead generation to e-commerce and branding.
I have trained hundreds, if not thousands of people in person and in workshops since I started. I watched some of them become leaders of their own companies, world-class analysts in their own right using some or all of the tactics I'm going to share in this book.
The Problem
Asking Why is much harder than simply accepting the data you see and reporting it. This is what most analysts do. It's lazy and it offers little value. I want you to take the route less travelled and teach you how to do the work to become "a great" in this business.
I've seen analysts who got paid to produce reports and it's not pretty. One guy once had excel connected via a program to his analytics tool and was regurgitating data into a spreadsheet that formed pretty graphs. He sat for an hour eating a banana while the spreadsheet populated and then hit send. Job done.
He was the actual definition of a reporting monkey. No offence meant to Monkeys. It isn't the only thing though. There is a lot that is hard about this if you don't have a system to put the data into context. This book is a system designed to show how to get started using data.
It's aimed at anyone having any issues like this.
- Not having clear goals and objectives
Do you want more revenue? More sales? Leads? App downloads? SaaS trials? what is the Internet solving for your business?
- Reporting numbers instead of acting on information
Are peers patting each other on the back because our "viral" video got ten thousand views? When did the report that gets sent every month get used by anyone?
- We communicate poorly
Albert Einstein famously said that, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." If you can't communicate your findings well then you will fail to impress anyone and won't advance your career.
- Poor planning and not involving your teams
The web analytics silo, the business silo, the CRM, or other sales & marketing systems are all disconnected and in different departments. The left hand often doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
- We don't drill down to ask why enough
Segmentation of data and defining flags is rarely done by the reporting monkey. It's all about the monthly visits or the 1% improvement of search engine visits related to some campaign someone has feelings about.
The Solution
The aim is to teach how to become a good analyst but you don't need any experience to start applying the system.
You could start simply:
Start out with one question you want to answer with analytics. Learn how to do segments well and you'll fast forward your analytics competence tenfold. Learn to ask what is happening and then try to figure out why and you're on your way to becoming a great analyst. Learn how to monetise what you find and talk in the language of your business.
What the system covers
Dispelling the myths You don't need a PHD in statistics, take expensive training courses or be a wizard at programming. You don't need to be a rocket scientist. The author was an IT nerd in 1998 with zero experience when he got started.
Planning Breakdown of my first "why" into the business question framework.
The R.E.A.N Framework Learning how to apply your business to the Reach, Engage, Activate and Nurture framework. Something that took years to develop crystalized into a 10 minute process for you.
Spotting signals in your data Using segments and flags to enable you to answer the business questions you have.
Case Studies 4 real world case studies covering analytics for eCommerce, Lead generation, Advertising and a SaaS service
Step by Step process How to take planning, segmentation, analysis and communication to the next level in your work
But that's not all
In addition to "Asking why" I am offering a bonus book written by myself and co authored by Markus Sandelin.
The Sucking manifesto is a systematic way to do marketing, it has everything you need to manage marketing campaigns and systematically improve everything you do online.
The idea came when Markus said, "I wish there was a scientific way to do marketing". This led to a lengthy debate, which continued even when the bar staff brought out the malt whisky (the inspiration behind our book cover). I argued there was lots of science behind the methods we used to deliver effective online marketing campaigns. Markus argued it was more luck than science and that we largely sucked at it.
What we did both agree on was that there wasn't a simple to follow system or methodology to think about what was good, what was bad and where to start.
So what's in the book?
100 pages long. Can be read quickly in an afternoon and isn't overly technical.
A system that can be applied to any online marketing spend. Learn the 25-75-25 optimisation system specifically for advertising spend.
How to benchmark The right way to do benchmarking isn't just looking at what your competition do. We show you how it can be done with existing data or by starting from scratch.
Customer lifecycle testing When it comes to marketing, we have tons of different life cycles we are dealing with, but often leave unnoticed or neglect to give them the value they deserve. We show you how to define and measure the impact of the different customer types you have.
Working out the cost and the real value Before we start working out our costs per acquisition, click calculations and formulas, we show you how to add the business basics that should not be separated from your web strategy. Then how much value is each conversion really creating? Even more importantly, where and how is it created? Can we improve it?
19 Everyday applications The CEO of your company needs different things than the search marketing campaign manager. We show how to use the model in 19 different ways and include a case study of how it worked in the past.
What are you waiting for?
Finally, this purchase is risk free I'm confident that you will get value from these books. I am therefore offering a 100% money-back guarantee that if you are not happy for any reason up to two weeks after purchase, I will refund you in full.
Summary of what you get
- Asking why + The Sucking Manifesto
- 5 Case studies and 19 use cases across both books
- Tried and tested framework across hundreds of companies gloabally
- The REAN Model + the 25/75/25 optimisation model
- Learning how to plan your campaigns and benchmark success effectively
- Spot signals in your data of potential errors or insights
- Get a step by step process
- Learn how to monetize what you find and talk in the language of your business.
Act now before your peers and colleagues do and get ahead of the competition for that six figure job.
