A few weeks ago I took stock of the web analytics market, particularly looking at some of the key trends in Europe. This week to get a sense check from the position of someone in the US, I turn to a fellow WAA Board Director and friend Avinash Kaushik. Avinash is also an Author and one of the leading thinkers about web analytics and where it’s heading, having actually “been there and done it” previously at Intuit software.

This is what Avinash had to say.

Avinash, you had a busy year in 2007. What were some of the highlights for you?

It has indeed been a hectic year, becoming an Independent Consultant and Analytics Evangelist role at Google and publishing Web Analytics: An Hour A Day in June. Along they way speaking at conferences and running around the country became normal! Oh then there is the blog, Occam’s Razor, my baby (!), that took more time than I could ever have imagined.

I think the biggest professional highlight has to be the book. In five months sales have vastly exceeded my expectations. Since all of my proceeds go to charity (The Smile Train, Doctors Without Borders) it has meant a nice amount raised for them.

The book is a great primer and reference document for all things “web analytics”. But in this fast moving industry, isn’t it a risk writing a book? Are there some parts of the book that you think you might have to rewrite soon?

The core of the book I think will stand the test of time (and by that I mean five years at most! ). But there are many sections I would update. The book has been out only five months but I would add new things to the SEO section. Ditto for blogging metrics, I have slightly changed two of the six in the book and added a brand new one. I touch on Social Media but when I write the next version of the book I think things will be more settled and I can add more interesting things.

New tools will come with time, as will new sources of data and my book, or and those of others, will accommodate for that. But the biggest goal of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day is to teach you a new way of thinking, that I think will be relevant for quite some time to come.

All that said Willem from Wiley was over the other day asking me to start work on the next version!!

What do you consider to be some of the key industry developments to have been in 2007?

I get the distinct feeling that we will look back at 2007 and remember it as a turning point, a good one, for the industry.

Why is that?

Every site in the world seems to have Google Analytics – a leading indicator that even the most common person with tangential interest in data now has access to a great web analytics application. More interest translates into more mind share.

The industry has consolidated quite a bit. Omniture has built on top of its already impressive growth by acquiring Visual Science (/WebSideStory / HBX), in addition to Instadia (Analytics + Surveys), TouchClarity (Behaviour Targeting) and Offermatica (Multivariate Testing). This year all roads seemed to lead to Salt Lake City!

WebTrends is going through some temporary management turmoil, but with its excellent set of solutions I expect them to come back strong.

There were more web analytics consultancies launched, more than on you can count. Ditto for web analytics conferences. Actually a real interesting trend was how many non-analytics conferences had “web analytics day” or “web analytics pre-intensives” – a real sign of growing demands.

It was also a year of Web Analytics 2.0. An expansion of the core definition of what web analytics is, stretching is beyond just clickstream to include qualitative research, testing, competitive intelligence, multiple dimensions of outcomes etc.

So what are some of the key drivers?

Many, if not all, of the trends above were driven by a singular phenomenon: The web is becoming serious business.

It seems odd to say this in 2008 but in many companies web, and web analytics, have been a silo that someone else is taking care of. Websites are becoming the most important customer touch point and the most important revenue generator even for businesses that are not first of mind.

The consolidation in the industry, the increase in interest (tools or conferences) and expansion of the definition is a reaction to the demands now being placed driven by a desire to move beyond printing reports (to perhaps printing money!).

How would you assess where the web analytics industry is at the moment from the point of view of software vendors?

Full of opportunity.

Money and fame awaits all. Well at least those who are willing to work hard.

The vendors have done well thus far, mostly, but they are still scratching the surface of what is possible. Many big websites still don’t use web analytics. There are many growth opportunities in the Software market (aside from the current favourite child: hosted). We are not even scratching the surface of integration with data from other parts of the company and other tools should we decide that web analytics is not a silo but a part of “Business Analytics”? So there is a lot to do and appropriate financial rewards for companies that help accelerate the move beyond clickstream.

What about the people side, i.e. the end users and consultants?

There is a read dearth of skilled practitioners in our industry. And that has stunted the amount of progress that can be made (because the 10/90 rule still applies – spend $10 on software/services and $90 on people who can actually analyze data and produce insights). If you are a skilled person, you can name your own salary (but make sure you are on the web analytics 2.0 continuum and not 1.0), and if you are someone who wants a great Analytics career then now you know where to find it.

Consultants will thrive in any field where the rule is 10/90, because they can bring their expertise to bear on the $90 part of the equation. Additionally because of increase in the demand you are noticing many more consultancies (mom and pop and grandpa included), and an interest from the “big boys” for mature web analytics consultancies (example: our good friends Zaaz acquired by WPP). To make optimal amounts of money Consultancies, like other companies, are finding that they can’t be a one trick “let me parse your log files” pony. They are being forced to evolve into areas such as multivariate testing, competitive intelligence, usability etc.

What are some of the key trends that you see at moment? Where’s the market going?

The problem with Web Analytics 1.0 is that it is an exercise in data torture and reporting with long lags in taking action (if any). Data torture needs to get automated and expanded, decision making needs to get automated; people need to be left for smart hard things (vs. what happens today!). Smart companies will start to exploit more things like Multivariate Testing, Onsite Behaviour Targeting etc because in each case you are leaving humans to understand customers and create content and you are letting intelligent solutions create the right customer experience based on data. Won’t happen overnight, but are on this train for good.

I also believe that 2008 will see a more serious attempt to get Web Analytics to become a part of “Business Analytics”. We are still a silo in most companies (data and people!). We will see more collaboration and innovation in helping web data become a core part of the company data to truly give end to end visibility (and maybe the holy grail of multi channel analytics / impact). Won’t happen all in 2008, but we might get serious.

I am optimistic that we don’t have untouchable islands of data like we do today. Search Engine Optimization, RSS, Social Media, etc. They are all becoming mainstream yet the current generation of tools mostly stink at tracking them. You can track them, but if you are willing to row your leaky boat all by yourself to that island. I think this will change.

Oh and we are not done with consolidation in the industry.

It’s going to be fun!

I reckon so, thanks Avinash

This post originally appeared on Applied Insights’ blog. Foviance acquired Applied Insights in November 2008, with Neil Mason joining us as Director of Analytical Consulting. As part of this acquisition, we’ve incorporated Applied Insights’ blog into our own.

For this week’s blogchat I caught up with Brian Clifton who is Head of Web Analytics in EMEA for Google. In that role Brian is responsible for the development of Google Analytics in Europe and I was interested in his thoughts about the effect that Google Analytics had had on the web analytics market and also on that thorny issue of data privacy.

Here’s what he had to say…

Brian, how would you assess the impact that Google Analytics has had on the market here in the UK and the rest of Europe as well?

The biggest change has been the huge growth in adoption. Web analytics has gone from a relatively small niche industry to something that is now almost integral with online marketing. The analytics industry is now at least 10 times bigger today than it was a year ago. What’s encouraging for my team is that the growth in adoption matches that seen in North America. Having been in the industry for many years, it really is fantastic to see how much benefit companies are getting from understanding more about web analytics.

Do you see any differences between the various markets in Europe that you operate in?

Measuring success is a key part of search engine marketing and search in general and this is the case in all European markets. As you can imagine there are always differences between markets but what is exciting is that across the board growth is strong. It shows there is great demand for such products and we will continue to work hard to analyse individual market requirements.

How do you address the data privacy issues that have been raised about Google Analytics? Do you find that it is a barrier to adoption by some potential users or in particular markets?

As you know, Google takes user privacy extremely seriously and it’s worth setting out how we approach the issue. At Google we build privacy protections into our products from the ground up, and none of our products use any personal data unless that use is fully disclosed in a privacy policy.

We always ask people to actively opt-in to services that use sensitive data, we allow people to use most of our services anonymously, and we even tell them how they can disable our cookies that they have been sent. Moreover, we think it’s important to be clear about what our position is, so we write our privacy policies in clear, simple language so that users can easily understand them – they are not the usual legal jargon.

Of course, for advertisers we also wish to provide accountability and transparency for our advertiser solutions (Adwords, Adsense etc). Hence Google Analytics is a trust building tool. Google will never do anything to harm that trust relationship as that would severely damage our business.

One of the latest announcements has been the entry of Google into the testing market through the launch of Google Website Optimizer. What was the rationale for that development?

Google Analytics is a great tool for web site owners to understand how visitors interact with their web site. It tells you what has happened, but it cannot tell you what to do next. That requires intelligent people to analyse and interpret the data then test for improvements. The WSO tool is the testing platform to do this – completing the loop of Measure, Analyse, Act.

How do you see the web analytics landscape developing over the next couple of years? What are some of the big issues that need to be addressed?

Although analytics is becoming mainstream for pro-active online marketers, there are still companies that have not yet really touched the potential online medium for marketing and how it can radically improve their return on investment. Part of our work is to show the opportunities that online marketing can offer. It wouldn’t be right to pick out one sector or another as there are opportunities for companies across them all to better reach their customers. Analytics is a crucial part of this equation and it’s a fantastic moment for the industry as we are seeing companies understanding better how their customers interact with them, which is good for us all.

With such huge adoption numbers, I feel training and education is the next opportunity for development. The Web Analytics Association is making great progress in that regard and I look forward to more education and training initiatives in the future. I also believe the industry’s terminology will simplify along with the products in terms of setup and User Interface. Once this happens we will see the integration of web analytics data into the heart of organisations. No longer a separate tool for the web, web analytics data will be a part of every day business intelligence metrics.

How will Google be addressing those issues?

We are always keen to do what we can to work with marketers to make tools useful to them – that’s why we value feedback from our users. We will continue to develop innovative ways to help people and we’re currently working on adding a GA course in addition to the regular Google University series that runs at conferences and exhibitions, such as Search Engine Strategies. And that’s not all – as you know, we just announced the new Website Optimizer multivariate testing platform and that Google Checkout now works with Google Analytics.

Without giving specifics, I think there are other integrations that make sense for Google Analytics, but you’ll have to stay tuned to hear what those are. We have hired some of the best minds in the industry and have partnered with many of the top analysis companies to provide professional services.

Finally, what keeps you busy in your spare time – assuming that Google lets you have any?

Well I still get chance to go down to the gym, though my judo black belt seems to be a long way away. Golf is what I am currently using to relax me, though it is strangely addictive!

Thanks Brian.

This post originally appeared on Applied Insights’ blog. Foviance acquired Applied Insights in November 2008, with Neil Mason joining us as Director of Analytical Consulting. As part of this acquisition, we’ve incorporated Applied Insights’ blog into our own.

I first met John Marshall at the Emetrics Summit in Santa Barbara in 2003. I was immediately struck by his vision for ClickTracks and web analytics in general. I have enjoyed meeting up with John at various events, as he always has something interesting to say in an interesting way.

John was on holiday here in the UK last month and and I managed to persuade him to meet up and share his thoughts on various topics to do with ClickTracks, Google Analytics and the state of the web analytics industry amongst other things.

Here’s what he had to say.

One of the things that I thought would be interesting to talk about is the merger of ClickTracks and J L Halsey. I was wondering what the main drivers for the merger were from your perspective?

I’m primarily motivated by delivering really great products to customers. ClickTracks was not VC backed, and that gave us considerable freedom to consider different opportunities. We can do what’s right for the customer, knowing that everything else follows.

The opportunity from Halsey was the right one for us, for several reasons. The first is that we retain our independence and that’s important for me. The second is the changing landscape for online marketing. Our product has been known for customer acquisition analysis and that is primarily search marketing. By contrast, customer retention marketing is the poor cousin. Search marketing has been so easy and effective that there hasn’t been any need to spend time on customer retention marketing.

Companies focus on customer acquisition and don’t really worry about customer retention and everything still works. However, there are some changes coming about. The rising cost of PPC is forcing companies to think about customer retention. You’re seeing the start of this trend.

The other companies involved in J L Halsey are mainly about customer retention, email and RSS feeds, and finding ways of getting the customer to come back to the site. ClickTracks is not so well established in that particular field, and that gives an opportunity to build some really great products and focus around professional retention analysis, and that’s it. That’s what we want to do!

So, it’s email marketing integration that you are looking to do next?

Yes, and it’s difficult to do well. We’ve done it in the past, with partnerships, but I thought the solution just didn’t work easily enough for the customer. Now we can bring our customer acquisition analysis expertise to the problem of retention analysis. So we get to play on both sides of that equation. I think successful companies have been doing one or the other. There’s not that many companies that have been doing both, but I think they’re going to have to, because customer acquisition costs are just going to continue to go up.

What’s your perception of the way that Google Analytics has impacted the market generally and ClickTracks specifically over the past year?

We said, when Google Analytics first shipped free, that the interest in our product would go up. Some people thought that was gibberish, but it has proved to be true. In my opinion, Google Analytics is one of many products that I would classify as stats programs. I don’t actually view Google Analytics as an analytics program, because I don’t think you can easily or flexibly do what we define as ‘analysis’.

So, how do you differentiate between reporting and analysis? What actually is web analytics?

Reporting is “Today I know of certain things that I’m going to want to calculate” and I build a stack of tools which usually are wired directly to the website, so that the website is an expression of the data that you want to know. It could be something fairly simple like how many page views does this page get from pay per click visitors. So you need to know in advance that you’re going to want to get that number and you build your site in such a way that that number falls out of the process. Analysis gives you the ability, after you’ve done the data collection, to go back through historical data and say “OK, what was that all about?”.

“Reporting” requires that you know what you’re going to want to know, whereas “analysis” gives you the ability to learn “on the fly” what you don’t know, and then to know it. I think that’s fundamental and I think that Google Analytics shoots to the top of stats programs. ClickTracks was never designed to be a stats program, but it’s a really good analysis program – at least in my humble opinion! But that’s what it was built for; it was built for analysis.

The other thing that’s been interesting is the data privacy issue. We thought that customers would not be aware of the fact that in return for Google doing all of this stuff for free with your data, that Google is going to get your visitor behaviour data. We thought that customers initially wouldn’t be aware of that, but they are. There is some legitimate concern over the issue. So we did particularly well out of that. With our product, you can get the software, or you can get it as an ASP, and because we offer the software, we’ve got a really good answer to the data privacy issue. Not only do we promise that we’re not going to expose your data, we’re actually make it impossible for us to expose your data. You own the software, you own the servers, you collect the data, it’s yours, we don’t ever see it.

So overall, Google Analytics has substantially increased awareness of the need to get good data somehow, and then it’s a question of which route you choose.

One of the trends over the last couple of years with other web analytics systems has been the ability to either to get direct access into their data warehouse or the ability to export pretty granular levels of data into other systems. Is that a direction that are you are likely to go down?

One problem with that is that the customer usually wants your data to be exposed to SQL, probably with a star schema, and SQL is simply the wrong tool for the job. However, it’s the only thing that people know how to use. The trouble is that a web analytics system is dealing with so much data that if we export the raw data to people, it usually breaks. People don’t understand that, they don’t want to hear it and it’s very difficult for us to say to a customer or a prospect that they really just don’t understand the scope of the problem. We are planning to open up the database, but I but the first implementation won’t use SQL to do it because it’s just so inefficient.

So, we will do something about data integration, because people need it and want it, but I don’t think it will work as elegantly as people think it will.

How do you get over the challenge then of being able to create that single view of customer?

I’ll give you an example of a solution provided by ClickTracks that wouldn’t be appropriate and then a solution provided by ClickTracks that would be appropriate, just to give you two extremes. If the customer says, “I want a dump of all the raw data, just give me the raw data”, this is not going to work.

On the other hand, if the customer wants aggregated statistical data by segments where you might have a very large number of segments, then that technically would work. But in order for that to work, the customer has got to be comfortable with statistical sampling techniques and I just don’t see that people are comfortable with those sorts of statistical correlations. They want it to be “accurate”?.

I’ve heard you say it many times, “good is good enough”. Do you think we’re obsessed in this industry on having totally accurate data?

Yes, I do. I want people to move beyond the accuracy thing. They are beginning to, through constant efforts by me and a few other lone voices in the wilderness!

One of the things I’m interested in is your perspective on where we are in the UK and Europe when it come to web analytics compared to the position in the US. What do you think are some of the main differences?

That is a very good question, and I think there are some fundamental differences that will never go away. One of the key differences is a cultural difference. There’s an old joke that American companies are run by salesmen, British companies are run by accountants, and German companies are run by engineers. I think there’s a lot of truth in that, so I have noticed that the British tend actually to be very good at the analysis process. People like yourself, who are very focused on the importance of real analysis.

Americans tends to shoot from the hip. They are more like the sales guy: “Just give me the numbers, give me a quick go through it, I can work it out, and everything will be fine”. In Germany, businesses that are hung up on the accuracy of the numbers will never make a decision. There’s just endless thrashing around in committee meetings. It’s great for building cars, but I’m not so sure that’s so good for such a fast paced environment as ours.

I think in some ways therefore that the UK is ahead of the US because of a greater willingness to grind through the numbers. On the other hand, Britain has always had rather more of a focus on branding. I’ve noticed that branding in marketing here is very important and the British are extremely brand conscious, more so than Americans. Americans have got more focus on direct marketing. As a result I think the direct marketing industry is stronger in the US, which helps web analytics.

I think that it’s superficial to say that Britain is a bit behind the US, I actually think that there’s more of just a fundamental difference than there is a time lag.

Where do you see the industry going? What will we be talking about in a couple of year’s time?

To answer your question in a round about way, when I think about web analytics, I ask myself sometimes “Am I selling a car or am selling a mode of transportation?” Is that the product I’m selling? For example, it might be that one web analytics company’s product is a car, and another company’s product is a motorbike, and another company’s product is a bus. What is a customer actually buying? Transportation is about getting from A to B.

Conversely, sometimes I think that we’re, figuratively, selling a car. In this case, the customer has already decided that they don’t want a motorbike, so they’ve decided to buy a car. And even then, I’m actually not sure that in web analytics we’re selling that car. In this market, perhaps we are just selling the engine. It’s an important piece, but the customer understands the need for an engine. The customer wants the car, and the successful product will be those that can move beyond being an engine to being a car.

Click Tracks has done OK at providing a solution and not just a box of parts–though I still have a long wish list that our product doesn’t yet do. We’re obviously going to do a lot better, because we have vastly more resources now.

I’ve started thinking that web analytics is a bit like CRM in 1990s. Everybody talks about it, but nobody actually knows what it is. Do you think that’s a good analogy?

I think there is a lot of truth in that. It might be a little unfair because web analytics is a lot less complicated than CRM. CRM had a bad rap because of the complexity of the implementation and the need for the company to change its business practices in order to fit in with the CRM system.

You say the CRM implementations were quite complex, but web analytics implementations can be pretty complex as well, and actually can involve change management processes as well…

Not if you buy Click Tracks!

So, other than buying Click Tracks, what are the secrets of successful of implementation?

I hope that shameless promotion gets expunged!

In all seriousness, we built the ClickTracks product deliberately so that it “does less”. You see, doing the more sophisticated and complex stuff is so complex that I started to become unconvinced of the benefit. I’m unconvinced that once you go through all the implementation complexities, which usually involve programming within the website, that people get a lot of value out of it. We want to make it really, really easy to do the implementation, so we just skip some of the more exotic functionality. And in the real world, a lot of people don’t do it anyway because it’s just too complicated or it just doesn’t work!

If all web analytics products had followed the ClickTracks approach, do you still think that there would be a need in the market for the WebTrends, Omniture, Coremetrics kinds of products with their feature rich functionality?

Yes I think so. An example of what Click Tracks is not built for is merchandising analysis. For example in the scenario when a consumer is looking at one product and you dynamically work out three other products to show along side that are related, we don’t do that type of analysis and we don’t want to. We don’t want to because it’s just so difficult to implement and we would rather not get involved. So there’s a need for products out there that can do that, although there’s only a small number of companies who want the data and are willing to go through the steps to get it.

We try to provide a product that’s like an iPod. An iPod does less than any other MP3 player, it has less features. But that doesn’t mean that once you have an iPod, that’s the only way you’re going to consume music. It’s just not that simple and a trend that we’ve seen is companies using more than one web analytics tool. That’s increasing. We regularly sell to people that are also using Google Analytics, for example.

Switching tack, what is it that you most like about what you do?

That’s a good question. I think it’s the fact that anybody that uses an analytics tool will improve their business. It’s as simple as that. The data is just simply lying on the floor, you just need to spend a few minutes sweeping away the junk to get at some real data and you can improve your business. In fact, you can double it. We started out with that mandate to make it really easy for companies to improve their business.

A lot of businesses that we help tend to be start-ups, bootstrap companies and small companies. We sell to large enterprises as well, but it is a little bit less rewarding. I am really proud of the fact that there are small companies out there that make money and that we played a part in improving what they do. That’s pretty cool actually and it’s fun.

I’ve always been in the software business, so I have a certain sense of pride in craftsmanship in building a product, which you can’t really express in a business sense. But, you know, it’s great fun!

Thanks John.

This post originally appeared on Applied Insights’ blog. Foviance acquired Applied Insights in November 2008, with Neil Mason joining us as Director of Analytical Consulting. As part of this acquisition, we’ve incorporated Applied Insights’ blog into our own.

As part of our blog we will be having occasional “blogchats” with movers and shakers in the world of online marketing and analytics. We’ll be asking them

questions about their views of the industry and topical issues and then posting them here for your delight.

I first met Jim Sterne over 3 years ago when I travelled over to Santa Barbara for the second ever Emetrics conference. Since getting to know Jim at that conference I have been fortuntate enough to have presented at Jim’s Emetrics events in the UK and the US and to share a platform with Jim at Ad-tech in London.

I was delighted when Jim agreed to become our first blogchat victim. As anyone who knows Jim knows, he combines an immense knowledge of the space with razor sharp communication skills. I took the opportunity to ask him about what he thought about the state of the web analytics industry, the future of the Emetrics events and the WAA amongst other things. Here’s what he had to say…

Jim, you’ve been observing and commenting on the web analytics space since before it was invented. What’s your opinion of the health and state of the industry today?

First, a correction. Somebody once introduced me as the Godfather of Web Analytics and I think that’s the most apt description of my involvement. I was *not* there at the conception, nor the birth, but I am decidedly and vigorously interested in its well being.

Where is the industry today? The technology is now at that adolescent stage. It is powerful enough to overwhelm those who want to use it and very useful for those who understand how to control it, but not mature enough yet to help the majority of companies get lots and lots of work done. Only those with clear goals, have a good handle on change management and have hired or contracted smart people with previous experience are at the top of the class today.

You have also worked in Europe for many years and you know our market well. What do you think are the main differences between the web analytics industry over here as opposed to over in the US?

Both the US and Europe have a spectrum of companies from we-can’t-spell-web-analytics-and-still-track-Hits to firms doing a serious job of optimizing their websites. The distribution may be a bit different, but the best and the brightest in Europe are every bit as good and bright and the leaders in the US.

Other than that, there is the issue of US companies moving into the European marketplace. Large companies with solid technology represent stiff competition to firms born and bred locally. But while the technology is strong, the local representation is not as muscular as local firms.

So, you think that there is a viable future for European web analytic vendors?

There is a very viable future for European web analytics vendors – both at home and abroad. European vendors have several advantages. First, the “home field” advantage gives them a leg up due to cultural differences, language differences and simply knowing who the local players are. They also have more feet on the street locally – for the moment.

But they also have the opportunity to expand into the US. That won’t be easy, but it can be very rewarding. I spoken to a number of European firms that are making US plans and finding US partners to work with. The critical piece will be whether they can distinguish themselves. Can they clearly differentiate their offerings in the minds of business buyers?

Who do you think are the most interesting or innovative players in the US or European market at the moment?

“The Big Four” in the US are (alphabetically) Coremetrics, Omniture, WebSideStory and WebTrends. They are showing up more and more around the globe. In Europe, they face RedEye, SiteIntelligence, Foviance, IndexTools, and WebtraffIQ. And my instant apologies to other who are not top of mind a the moment.

As for “interesting” and Innovative” there are several who are doing interesting things, but have not broken out into the mainstream yet. Clickstream and Speedtrap come to mind as having very interesting approaches but not huge followings. ClickTracks is doing a splendid job of providing a very serviceable tool at the lower end of the price range and keeps coming up with innovations.

In October there is the first East Coast Emetrics conference in Washington. You have changed the format for this one from previous Emetrics events in Santa Barbara and London. It’s a bigger event with a number of different tracks. What was the thinking behind the format of the event in Washington?

The Emetrics Summit used to be about web analytics. It’s changing now to encompass all ways one might measure the success of a website. So more than just clickthroughs and pageviews, the Emetrics Summit: The Big Picture is also taking into account customer surveys, performance monitoring, email marketing, search optimization. The question is, How do I know if my online efforts are paying off? How do I optimize web marketing value?

So, instead of 15 speakers and one track, the new format is 50 speakers over seven tracks. We’re also preceding the conference with a Web Analytics Association Training Day to get everybody up to speed. We want people to be on the same page when they hear the very first keynote so they can take away as much as possible from the very beginning.

Do you see the format changing in a similar way for the other Emetrics events in the future?

Absolutely. The world is changing and the Emetrics Summit is keeping up with it.

Where else are you thinking of taking the Emetrics conference to?

We’re talking about and possibly partnering with companies in Scandinavia, Asia and Australia, but it’s too soon to tell. Frankly, the work we’re doing in the next few weeks for Washington D.C. has us completely focused. Ask me again in November when I’ve had a chance to breathe a little

The Web Analytics Association has been going for about 18 months so far. You’re the President of the association. What would you say have been the main successes of the WAA in that time?

The first thing that comes to mind is our membership. We have over 1,000 people and 35 companies as members. That’s a good deal more than I had expected and I’m thrilled.

Also on the thrilled side of things, our Education Committee has done an astonishing job of getting exceptional university level web analytics courses online. Yeah, I guess I sound like a proud Godfather here, but I’ve been hearing those accolades from the students. The WAA has worked in conjunction with the University of British Columbia and the UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics is truly world class.

This is the material that’s coming to the Web Analytics Association Training Day on October 15, the day before the Emetrics Summit.

What are the main agenda items for the WAA at the moment?

Education, standards and research top the list. The WAA is dedicated to educating as many people as possible so we can grow the industry. We’re also trying to set some standard definitions so we can discuss pageviews, visits and unique visitors and be confident that we’re all talking about the same thing. And the Research Committee is tasked with finding out more about who we are as an industry. What are our titles? How much do we earn? How many web analysts does it take to change a light bulb?

The Advocacy Committee has been hard at work trying to educate the government(s) so they don’t legislate cookies out of existence while dealing with spyware and malware. That’s a never ending battle.

Finally, the International Committee has done a wonderful job of setting up local WAA groups. There is a strong presence in London, another group in Scotland and active groups in Finland, Germany and Italy. We’re continuing to grow.

Have you got another book in the pipeline?

In my head, yes. On paper, no. It turns out that running the Emetrics Summit takes up all the time that would have gone into writing another book. So the plan is to partner with a conference company that does the logistics for a living. I’ll be able to remain focused on the program and the speakers without having to manage the website, ensure that direct mail gets out the door and monitor registrations.

Once that happens, it’s well past time to update my Web Metrics book which was written back in 2001 and published in 2002. It’s only good for history classes at this point! And there are a few ideas running around in my head about the operationalization of marketing and how to ensure customer centricity that I’ll need to get off my chest once I get the time.

What do you think we’ll be discussing/worrying about as an industry in a couple of years time?

The big problems of today will not go away soon.

• Privacy
• Data management
• Change management
• Getting senior managers to Get It
• Identifying goals instead of “poking data with a stick to make it talk” (thanks to Avinash Kaushik for that one.)

Some of us are already dealing with a giant problem that everybody will worry about tomorrow: Multichannel marketing. If nothing else, mobile marketing and mobile access to websites is going to add another layer of complexity and require a few more boxes of Beecham’s Powders.

Finally Jim, what do you like doing in your spare time? Do you have any spare time?

With all the traveling I do, it surprises my wife that I like to travel for vacations. Spare time during the week? You’re kidding, right?

Right! Thanks Jim.