One-on-one with Jason Burby

By Marvin Pyles
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Published on Mar, 03 2008 in Analytics, Business Intelligence
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Jason Burby is one of the most well-known voices in the Web analytics space. He’s the Chief Analytics and Optimization Officer for ZAAZ, a Web business consultancy that helps companies better use web analytics data to improve site business results. Jason has worked with some great organizations such as Washington Mutual, Wachovia, T-Mobile, Converse, Alaska Airlines, Microsoft, Sprint, Levi Strauss, Qwest, and A&E Television Networks.

Jason’s schedule is extremely busy. He speaks frequently at conferences and seminars helping spread the word on the effective use of Web analytics. Additionally he is the co-chair of the Metrics/KPI committee of the Web Analytics Association. He also writes a regular column on web analytics over at ClickZ and he’s the co-author of the very popular book Actionable Web Analytics: Using Data to Make Smarter Business Decisions.

A little while ago, I was able to briefly talk with Jason regarding his thoughts on the trends and the current state of the web analytics industry.

Are you still finding yourself educating and evangelizing the importance of web analytics?

Jason - More people definitely recognize web analytics as valuable. They’re spending a tremendous amount of money on outstanding tools, but they’re struggling to really figure out how to use them. They know they should be looking at the data. They know the data provides insight, but very often they’re looking at web analytics from the “rear view mirror” standpoint--What happened last week, or what happened last month? Not the idea of what happened last month and what we can do to improve the site going forward. The awareness in general of why analytics is important is out there and there’s less education around that. But that means there’s been more education around how to use web analytics than how it to evidently improve your business.

Can you discuss the major trends that are driving the demand for web analytics?

Jason - There was an interesting study done by Shop.org last year looking at the decline of conversion rates. Which is interesting when you look at how people have been focused on improving site performance, but at the same time the overall conversion rates for ecommerce sites have been declining. There’s a [buying] shift: more choices, people being able to research who they’re buying from, finding the best deals from shopping bots. All of that has led to putting more control in the visitors’ hands. What that means is a company needs to work harder than last year and before to convert people into buyers.

One of the big trends is [companies] are getting more aggressive, getting more focused on their ad spends. People want to make sure they’re getting the most from their advertising dollar. Companies are getting more sophisticated on not just what ads they buy or what "creative" they show on the ads, but on how to convert visitors to buyers. Some of the other big trends are obvious: the move to AB testing, multivariate testing, and behavioral targeting. Still only a small fraction of companies are using these types of testing. However, more and more companies are really going after it and looking to take advantage of this type of testing over the next 12 months.

Another trend is looking outside of just behavioral data. We’ve seen in the larger companies that there are different silos of data. So the behavioral data and your web analytics database sit in one area. But your attitude data may be run by a completely different group that doesn’t talk to the other group. So the people managing the pricing and offering data sits one place and the people running ads are sitting elsewhere. There’s tremendous value in combining web analytics data/behavior data with attitude data, competitive data, CRM data and social media data. Some companies are making a concentrated effort to combine these types of data to get a greater insight.

Marvin Pyles has worked in the "trenches" of software development. He has gained considerable experience in the content and collaboration industry working for as a analyst for various companies including United Parcel Service, Sapient, Inc., Keane, Inc, and First Data Corporation. Marvin has written several in-depth articles and case studies on enterprise applications for various private firms & publications including Intelligent Enterprise and KMWorld.

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