Continuing my collection on Creating a Culture of Analytics I wish to contact on a really crucial side of making a tradition of Web Analytics and that’s Context.
What is Context
According to Princeton.edu context is
- Discourse that surrounds a language unit and helps to find out its interpretation
- the set of info or circumstances that encompass a state of affairs or occasion
Context takes the paradox out of the equation. As an Analyst it is extremely necessary that you just present full context when reporting your internet analytics information. Context will get everyone on the identical web page. Do not go away something for interpretation by the tip customers of your reviews, give them the insights in a simple and easy to understand format.
Let’s have a look at an instance to know crucial context is.
60 Degrees
If I say it will be 60 levels tomorrow. What will likely be you response?
If you might be in Minnesota – You will yell “Summer”
If you might be in Seattle, you’ll assume – ““Spring”
If you might be in Florida, you’ll say “ Damn… Cold”
If you might be in India, you’ll say “WTF….” (Indians measures temperature in Celsius and 60 levels Celsius is 140 F)
Some different query that may pop in individuals’s thoughts are:
- What is the temperature immediately?
- Is it regular to have 60 levels this time of the 12 months
Without context 60 levels doesn’t imply a lot. Right.
Similarly while you report your numbers and inform report on visits, web page views, time on web site and so on. it doesn’t imply a lot except you present the complete context.
Web Analytics & Context
Just saying that Visits are down by 10% from final week isn’t sufficient. You must put that 10% decline in full context. Tell your finish customers what occurred and why they need to or mustn’t fear.
So add one thing like : Visits are down 10% from final week and likewise 10% decrease in comparison with the identical time final 12 months. Prior to this week we noticed a 10% 12 months over 12 months development however final week was abnormally down. Isn’t that getting higher now?
You ought to go even additional: Last 12 months we received some free promoting from native newspaper websites that drove 20% further visitors identical time final 12 months. Since we didn’t have the promoting deal this 12 months, it impacted our visits this 12 months. We famous the potential influence of newspaper web site promoting in our final 12 months’s annual recap (right here is the hyperlink to final 12 months report – individuals neglect so remind them). If we take out the influence of spike from newspaper websites then we now have a constant sample of 10% 12 months over 12 months enhance. As famous in previous couple of reviews, that enhance is because of our social media efforts this 12 months. Now the image is far clearer. Of course you need to look into the complete influence e.g. conversion, bounces, gross sales and so on. (Note: How you current this story will depend upon what format you selected to current your report)
Now everyone is on the identical web page and is aware of precisely what these numbers imply. Without that context, everyone would have had their very own interpretations of the information. Misinterpretations result in unsuitable motion and/or distrust within the information and the analytics workforce.
Final Words
Do not present any reviews with out offering full context. Keep in thoughts that many of the canned and computerized reviews do extra hurt than good as a result of they don’t present context.
Other posts within the collection
Note: This submit was initially posted on March 4th, 2011 however it’s nonetheless very related.