A New Year’s Message from the WAA Chair of the Board: A 2012 Web Analytics Pledge

As the New Year begins, I pledge to better myself by helping others more.

As the old year fades into the past, I pledge to help grow the industry by being more inclusive and broadening my reach.

As the daylight dwindles and then returns, I pledge to expand my vision to every marketing metric I can get my hands on, whether it’s web data, email data, social media data, mobile data and/or etc.

As I struggle to write “2012” instead of “2011”, I pledge to tell people I am in marketing analytics, digital analytics, even business analytics, rather than saying I am in web analytics.

As the WAA enters its seventh year, I pledge to encourage new people to join and current members to participate while continuing to recognize those who contribute so much.

As the “United Nations General Assembly has declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives, highlighting the contribution of cooperatives to socio-economic development, in particular recognizing their impact on poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration” (Wikipedia), I pledge to help new people find jobs in marketing analytics and continue my social media activities to improve our common bond.

As 2012 has been designated Alan Turing Year in recognition of the centennial of his birth, I pledge to be more tolerant of all people and less tolerant of times that I sound more like a machine than a person.

As more senior executives recognize the value of customer data exploration and correlation, and consider multiple analytics alternatives, I pledge to embrace new ideas and methods rather than denunciate others for encroaching.

Oh!…and eat less and exercise more.

Can’t forget that.

Jim Sterne
Chair, WAA Board of Directors

From your President – Peter Sanborn: How did you start your career in web analytics?

The answer is rarely the same. Unlike other careers, like accounting or law, web analytics professionals generally don’t follow a standard career development path.

It’s a newbie industry and each of us is, to a degree, a professional pioneer. Ivy League credentials are good, but the ability to unearth data to improve business results and increase customer satisfaction is what matters most.

However, we are the first wave of analytics professionals. We’d be short-sighted to think that the pioneer path is a sustainable model for developing the next generation of analytics leaders. If we want to nurture analytics professionals for generations to come, we have to think differently.

And WAA has several initiatives underway.

First is the Web Analytics Certification Program. The purpose of the program is to provide a mechanism for individuals to obtain professional recognition after demonstrating their knowledge of and competency within the web analytics industry. Certification will be issued to each qualified person upon meeting WAA’s required education, experience, and examination requirements. Corry Prohens, owner of IQ Workforce, said it best:

“The Web Analytics Association's Certification™ program, as a symbol of excellence, represents a huge advance for the web analytics community and a victory for all companies and organizations that want to be data-driven. We know that having the right tools and technologies is only half the battle. Acquiring the talent that is capable of taking the data and making an impact on the business is where the rubber meets the road.”

To that end, I’m excited to introduce two new related projects:

Analytics Career Development: The goal of this program is to create resources for WAA members that tell them more about what a career in digital measurement looks like, the roles and how they fit into corporations, job expectations, etc.

The project is led by Michele Hinojosa, Red Door Interactive, and winner of the “Rising Star” award at the WAA Gala this past spring. The team has conducted a number of interviews with folks in the industry and is putting the finishing touches on the written plan.

They also will start talking about this topic at upcoming conferences. To that end, there will be an "Analytics Career Development" panel at eMetrics NYC on October 21. The panel will consist of the following WAA Members: Shari Cleary (MTV, client-side, large team perspective), Nancy Koons (Vail Resorts, client-side, small team perspective), Matt Gellis (Keystone Solutions, agency/consultancy perspective), and Michele Hinojosa.

Encouraging Careers in Digital Measurement/Web Analytics: The goal of this program is to address the shortage of talent in the industry and help attract more people to careers in digital measurement. This program is aimed to provide information and encouragement to people to consider a career in digital measurement. The plan is to form a Task Force to help guide the development of the program and get it started quickly. As a first step, WAA will create a section of the website that will contain articles as well as provide resources. An outreach program will also be designed to contact universities and other educational organizations to spread the word to their students.

For more information on, or to help out with, either of these projects, contact the .

Recommendations for the .Gov Task Force

Author: Larry Freed. Originally posted at FREEDyourmind on July 28, 2011.

This spring, President Obama signed Executive Order 13571, “Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service,” which requires federal agencies to strengthen customer service, specifically the manner in which they deliver services and information via the web.

As part of the president's Campaign to Cut Waste, the effort is designed to eliminate or consolidate redundant websites and improve websites that are outdated, difficult to use, or poorly maintained. The desired outcome? Taxpayer money will be saved AND citizens will have an easier access to the content they need.

The .gov Task Force, which was formed in July 2011, now has the difficult task of paring down at least 25% of the more than 24,000 federal government websites in existence today. While the task force is planning to seek qualitative feedback from the public on which sites to cut, it has yet to establish criteria on which it will base its final decision. It is important for the task force to base its decision on the right mix of quantified data (both behavioral and attitudinal) in order to make uniform decisions across the board.

As the government begins the arduous and important decisions of deciding which websites are eliminated and which are consolidated, three critical components must be in play:

• The volume of traffic on the website and other critical behavioral metrics
• Information redundancy
• The website's value to the citizens who regularly use it.

Web traffic alone isn’t enough to justify to cutting a website because that site may contain valuable, highly targeted content that isn’t available anywhere else. Considering whether the site duplicates content is another important consideration, but determining overlaps will be long and arduous with 24,000 sites, or even just with the roughly 1700 federal domains. Therefore, an assessment of the quality and value of the specific sites to citizens is a critical component to determining whether a site is necessary.

Right now, more than 230 federal websites work with us to measure, monitor, and improve citizen satisfaction, and the ACSI methodology that we use to power our technology has been the standard metric for e-gov sites since 2003. We've collected more than 7 million surveys from visitors to federal websites since 2001, including more than 4 million since President Obama’s 2009 inauguration. There is data available on many sites that could guide these kinds of decisions, and certainly any or all of the 1700 .gov domains or the 24,000 federal websites in existence today could be measuring the citizen experience as one mark of success.

We released the second quarter ACSI E-Government Satisfaction and Transparency Index yesterday, with satisfaction scores for more than 100 federal websites and transparency scores for more than 30 websites. You can get it on our website for free and see that there is a compelling case to be made that not only can federal websites be an efficient, cost-effective means of the government meeting its citizenry's needs, but that the means to evaluate, consolidate and improve them are already available. We're also hosting a free webinar to look into the ACSI E-Gov Index Q2 results in more depth... we'd love to have you join us and ask any questions that you may have.

In the meantime, are there other criteria you think the .gov task force should be using to consolidate and pare down websites? Leave your thoughts in the comments at FREEDyourmind.

From your President – Peter Sanborn: What the Industry Outlook Survey Means to Me

Every year, WAA surveys web analysts around the globe. In reviewing this year’s results, it struck me that our industry has evolved from the youthful childhood stage into the thrilling, but somewhat awkward, teenage years.

On the positive side, it doesn’t look like we’re having any problem getting money from Mom and Dad. In 2009, 40% of respondents said that getting funding would be their biggest challenge. This year, it didn’t even make the top ten concerns; only 15.5% said funding would be a challenge.

But, like a typical teenager, we don’t feel like anyone understands us, or listens to us. Respondents ranked their #2 challenge as “the perceived value of web analytics.” 31% of respondents said that their Executives lacked awareness of, and support for, web analytics.

Despite this, the hormones are raging and we’re ready to attack the problem. 70% of survey respondents said that ensuring business decisions are driven by analytics will be their top initiative this year.

This got me to wondering. How you would turn that goal – ensuring that business decisions are driven by analytics – into an initiative? To do so you’d need a deep understanding about how people and institutions make decisions.

That’s generally not the realm where data analysts thrive. We’re really good at reading numbers and analyzing how to optimize them. But, we’re not so good at reading people and knowing how to optimize their decision making. How many web analysts have you met that have formal training in psychology?

We’re constantly seeking ways to make the data more actionable, but I wonder if we should be more focused on making the analyst more influential.

Despite what traditional economists want us to believe, decision making is driven by emotional and cultural dynamics more so than rationality and cool-headed risk/reward analysis. So your data may be more action-packed than Pirates of the Caribbean, but if it’s not delivered in-tune with cultural dynamics of the group you are trying to influence; it’s never going to become the blockbuster you want it to be.

Toward that end, I’ll suggest a book to put on your summer reading list that sheds light on this topic: The Social Animal by David Brooks. You can read an excerpt of the book in this New Yorker article. It’s an entertaining read that unpacks a treasure trove of academic and business research on this topic.

And if you’re interested in seeing the results of the WAA Industry Survey, members can get the full results.

Top Ten Misconceptions about Web Usability

Author: WAA Member Irina Romanova, Web Analyst, Rogers Communications Inc., Canada
May, 2011

1. Usability is a new field

Usability has existed since cavemen started working on their stone tools to get them right, i.e. usable. Whenever humans invented anything new they tended to make it in a way that would help them achieve their goals. Web Usability started its development the moment we recognized the web. The closest ancestor of Web Usability is Usability of Software Applications that includes Application Architecture and Graphic User Interface (GUI).

2. Usability is not serious and is not significant for business profitability

Better usability is directly related to increased revenue. In addition, some of the proven advantages of good usability are reduced development/maintenance and support costs. Strengthening web application usability encourages user adoption and contributes to ROI. A bad user experience can be extremely costly. Behavioral design is key to e-commerce success. Users who find it hard to locate a product or successfully use the checkout process will likely go elsewhere and often do not return. “Easy to place an order” – this is the main reason why people are shopping on the web, ahead of “large selection” and “lower prices”. According to Forrester Research, e-commerce sites can lose up to 50% of potential sales if customers have difficulty finding merchandise. …and 40% will not come back.

Usability methods play a significant role in revenue growth. Slight improvements in usability can increase revenues by 10% - 35%. Simply making product information easy to locate can increase sales by as much as 225%.

The importance of usability in increasing ROI cannot be underestimated as typically it doubles the conversion rate.

3. Usability is not a science

Being scientific means relying on observation and measurement rather than intuition.  Web analytics controlled experiments, case studies, multivariate testing, behavioral analysis and surveys are all used to make better decisions in usability.

Most theoretical and methodological inspiration comes to usability from psychology. This includes research methods from social and experimental psychology, sensation, motivation, emotion and perception.

Other fields playing a role in usability development include social sciences such as anthropology and sociology.

4. Usability cannot be objectively measured and analyzed

A website cannot be considered usable simply because an ‘expert’ says it is or because the website was created following checklists and guidelines.

A website becomes usable when there is evidence that users find it easy and fast to complete their tasks, errors are rare, key business metrics report an increase in conversions and surveys are showing visitors’ positive attitude.

Web Analytics is a powerful tool for providing evidence of web usability effectiveness - evidence that can be precisely measured and scientifically analyzed.

5. Usability is Graphic/Web Design

It is very common to confuse web usability with good web design. “If visitors do not like a website then let’s impress them with graphics…”

Although it is important that a website be nicely designed, graphic design has little to do with web usability and changing the graphics most likely will not significantly improve usability or increase conversions. To be usable a website has to provide visitors with a good user experience and call them to action. From a visitor’s perspective the website has to allow them to find what they are looking for and complete their tasks with ease and without delays.

The bottom line is – web usability is the ability of a visitor to successfully use a website. Impressive graphics cannot make a web application usable if it is not built for usability.

6. Usability is a matter of opinion or taste

Taste is an aesthetic rather than a functional consideration, while web usability is a matter of success in web functionality.

For example, giving self-explanatory names to menu items and buttons is not a matter of opinion or taste.

Everything has to make sense and the majority of not-technical users have to understand a website’s “language” and predict its behavior.

Even color schemes and layouts can be scientifically optimized based on usability studies, research and analysis, independently of opinion and taste and be able to serve the needs of a majority and variety of visitors.

7. Usability can be reviewed after development and later optimized by “trial and error”

It is a known fact by usability aware companies that it costs 10-100 times more to correct usability issues after development as compared to cases when usability was addressed from the start of the development process.

Usability has to be evaluated as a critical component of web applications together with architecture, technology, design and functionality.

To be able to conduct this evaluation, a business has to start from outlining business and users goals and creating a plan to guide visitors through the process of completing their tasks and building a painless and enjoyable experience.

This has to include the ability of the application to quickly answer a visitor’s questions with easy explanations and then clearly present them with their options. Some of the methods of early stage usability evaluation include creating and analyzing personas as users’ representatives and conducting activity analysis.

To maximize usability and move it to acceptable level systems require incorporating user feedback as part of the analysis for ongoing usability improvements.

8. Usability issues can be resolved by brainstorming

Although usability is relatively intuitive and not overly complicated, it requires relevant education and experience in web development, web design, marketing and web analysis in order to conduct productive usability testing and to develop working recommendations that can quickly and positively affect website conversions.

Usability is fundamentally not a matter of taste and producing valuable usability recommendations requires knowledge of usability standards, case studies, usability principals and trends.

9. Usability can be separated from accessibility

To build really usable web applications, developers always have to keep accessibility in mind, as accessibility improvements positively affect the usability of web applications especially when addressing people with limited abilities or computer literacy or when using different devices and technologies.

Goals, approaches, and guidelines of usability and accessibility are closely related and overlapped. That is why it is vital to address them together during the development stages.

10. Usability is Branding

This conception has been advanced by those who see usability simply as a marketing tool which indicates a lack of understanding of how these considerations differ.

Beginning with definitions, Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object.

Conversely, Branding is a process of creating a brand as an identity of a specific product, service, or business.

While, the visitors’ experience may have a great impact on a brand, it is possible to develop a brand that has nothing to do with a usable product or, alternatively, to create a very usable website without attaching it to a specific brand.

Why making the privacy debate solely about advertising & marketing is to do the general web user a disservice

Never has web analytics been more misunderstood and treated with more suspicion in Europe than now. Legislators and members of the public could be forgiven for thinking that we analysts spend our days laying sneaky traps to steal their personal data and ram back-to-back behavioural advertising down their throats.

Data protection and privacy legislation, even what constitutes personally identifiable information, is more complex and fundamentally different to that in the US –with Germany very much at the forefront of this (see examples here). Any widespread negative business or industry wide impacts from this legislation will in no way outweigh the rights of the user.

European analysts potentially face the stark prospect of either better communicating the value of what they do to the public & their representatives or finding the tools and techniques of their profession severely constrained.

And why is this? It is because web analytics is entirely synonymous with advertising and marketing, an industry that is often viewed with suspicion (often unjustified) by those it seeks to influence. And because advertising and marketing thrive on really getting to know customers to the nth degree, European legislators start to become uneasy when they feel that a line is crossed and personal data is being collected and profiled without the participants’ knowledge. It’s a cultural thing and is seen as protecting consumers from more predatory forms of the market and influences.

But those of us in the industry know that web analytics is about so much more than marketing and advertising. Web analytics is also about website optimisation, including accessibility and user experience.

Through our guidance, we also help make web sites easier to find, easier to use, accessible to all and accessible from multiple devices. We make it possible for citizens to participate far more actively in news, community and civic events. We allow businesses to trade widely and consumers to have choice.

In this the web analytics industry is working directly in the interests of the public, by trying to make their internet experience fairer, better and more productive. To restrict this due to issues relating to advertising targeting is to do a disservice to those internet users.

It is no exaggeration to say that EU based web analysts play a role in delivering on European Commission objectives, for example by:

• Ensuring that users in multiple countries have equal access to quality, reliable information and that the public can successfully answer their questions & solve problems online
• Providing the online resources that mean citizens can travel, study, work, trade and shop across the single market
• Providing citizens with ways to participate in the governance of the EC and to hold their governments accountable for expenditure and actions
• Ensuring their own organisations’ websites meet the specific EU commitments to guaranteeing digital access to all users, including those with disabilities

As a European based Board Director of the WAA (and to be transparent here, a Google Analytics Certified Partner), I believe that to have a role in the European privacy debate, the web analytics industry needs to actively demonstrate to governments that we are in fact working for customers, not against them; for transparency, not against it. And, yes, things like the WAA Code of Ethics are a part of this.

To achieve this I believe we need to prove the value of what we do to the public – in terms that benefit them and not simply us. As I said in a recent interview – I want businesses that use my data to show me how my life improved as a result. (And sorry, but behavioural targeting ads do not constitute making my life better – being notified of a delay and easily rebooking my cancelled flight from my Blackberry does).

That means getting beyond talking of advertising and business optimisation and demonstrating what’s in it for the user. For tying the fate of web analytics too closely to online advertising and behavioural targeting is a risky one – and a path that does not, in my experience at least, reflect the working reality of many European web analysts.

It is my opinion that the vast majority of web analysts are not interested in using or collecting personally identifiable information, they are interested in assuring that their organisation’s web activity is effective and accountable – to its stakeholders, shareholder and the public/market. They are interested in understanding what is failing so they can identify how to fix it and create a win-win situation.

They may not be accountants – but they do work in accountability. With that comes a responsibility to the user.

The tools we use and the practices we follow are an extension of the European Commission’s stated goals on delivering a valuable, accessible for internet for all (see EC policy details in the postscript below).

On behalf of the WAA and its members in Europe, I would like to collect evidence that shows the industry champions the internet user and positions web analytics as an essential part of delivering on the EU’s vision of that accessible information society – not as the enemy of it.

Do you agree?

Do you have examples that can help us build an evidence base of how organisations in Europe and beyond are improving the experiences of their users through the use of web analytics? If so, please feel free to share your ideas here or email them to .

Vicky Brock
Highland Business Research

Postscript

In April 2004 the European Commission published its communication strategy¹ with one of its main objectives “to use the internet to associate the public in European decision making and to listen to the public and their concerns in order to improve the perception of the EU and its institutions and their legitimacy”. A further commitment followed in 2006² with the Commission “aiming to become a first class e-administration and improve its efficiency and transparency through the best use of Information and Communication Technologies.” In 2007 the Commission launched a new Internet strategy³ thereby further embracing the Internet culture and aiming at making full use of the recent online developments in communication for a more participatory experience for EU citizens.

Further EU Policies on web accessibility also must be considered by organisations – and by implications their web analysts: In November 2009 the Council authorised the conclusion of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on behalf of the Union (UNCRPD). The Convention identifies accessibility as one of its general principles and states that States Parties shall take appropriate measures to promote access for persons with disabilities to new information and communications technologies and systems, including the Internet. In 2008 the Commission adopted the Communication “Towards an Accessible Information Society” reinforcing the European Commission’s commitment to web accessibility and calling upon all stakeholders to step up their efforts in this area. In the 2006 Riga Ministerial Declaration on “ICT for an inclusive society”, agreed that all public web sites should be accessible by 2010.⁴

1. Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on implementing the information and communication strategy for the European Union

2. e-Commission 2006-2010: enabling efficiency and transparency [PDF]

3. Communicating about Europe via the Internet – Engaging the citizens [PDF]

4. Source: EU Accessibility Policy

There is a New #1 on the Web - Facebook Topples Google

If you don’t think internet is really having an impact on the speed of business consider this fact. It took Toyota 77 years to dethrone GM as the largest automaker. Facebook is on the verge of doing the same to Google in a little under 7 years*.

In September 2010, ComScore reported that Facebook attracted 620M visitors to Google’s 613M**. Given that Google has been sitting in that spot for most of this decade, it’s an impressive achievement.

What’s even more stunning is that they did it in less than seven years. Last year alone, Facebook added 200,000,000 more visitors. That’s a lot of friends. Like, a lot.

Like the entire population of France, Germany, and the UK combined.

You have to be impressed.

The Toyota to GM comparison is interesting, but the two tales are very different. Toyota’s ousting of GM had as much to do with Toyota’s rise as it did GM’s decline.

In the case of Google, there is no decline. Last year, Google grew by over 25 million visitors. These are two growing companies and, as long as the internet population continues to grow, both companies have a lot of runway in front of them.

So, if Facebook was able to achieve this growth in such a short time, who will be the "next" Facebook and will they do it even faster?

Personally, I have no idea who that will be. But there is an interesting pattern to help inform.

Up and comers always have one thing in common. The freedom to build from a blank page without having to worry about the health of a legacy business.

Microsoft outdid IBM because they didn’t have to worry about a mainframe business. Google outdid Microsoft because they didn’t have to worry about an OS franchise. Facebook outdid Google because they didn’t have to worry about a search business. XXX outdid Facebook because they didn’t have to worry about a XXX business.

So, what do you think? Fill in the XXX. First, who could be the next #1? Second, what will Facebook’s legacy business be. In other words, what business is Facebook in anyway?

Peter Sanborn
WAA President

P.S. For more in-depth analysis as well as data and charts go to Facebook Topples Google: Part II (on my personal blog)

A few asterisks for the overly analytic types :):
* The point is still debatable if you factor in YouTube as part of Google. Google plus YouTube certainly has more UVs than Facebook. But, there are probably many duplicate users between YouTube and Google as well.
** Hitwise reported that Facebook surpassed Google in March of 2010. Each measurement agency has different methodologies.

A Copy for Your Records

By Adam McArdell, Consultant, Stratigent

A common complaint I have heard from clients regarding Google Analytics involves losing one’s data to Google’s chasm-sized storage bins, never to be seen again. Sure, Google does provide a healthy API and a nice array of reporting, but what if you want to use log files to upload web data into a home-grown data warehouse? Also, what if unique analytics are being performed from old tools tying web data to offline metrics gathered from other systems?

As it turns out, Google provides a very simple way for anyone to collect and store his or her own copies of the image requests created using the base tag. Two additional function calls are required within the page tagging to collect these requests.

_setLocalGifPath(newLocalGifPath) – Sets the path for the image that will be requested from the local server.
_setLocalRemoteServerMode() – Tells the tag to fire an image request both to Google’s remote server and the path specified in _setLocalGifPath().

The following two functions need to be called on the pageTracker object before the _trackPageview() call, as displayed below.

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ?
"https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google- analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x");
pageTracker._setLocalGifPath("http://www.domain.com/path/to/ima ge.gif");
pageTracker._setLocalRemoteServerMode();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

Voila! Every page on your website will now be sending an image request to http://www.domain.com/path/to/image.gif, in addition to the utm.gif image request sent to Google’s servers. Once your excitement simmers down to a slow boil, one decision still remains; how and where will you host the image? The following two options exist with their own set of pros and cons.

1. Host the image on the main web server with all the other web files. In this situation, it should be very simple to request a 1x1 transparent pixel to be added anywhere on the server. The downside to including this method is that the analytics log entries will be intertwined with the rest of the image requests for the server, many times requiring some form of pre-processing before storage or back-end analysis.
2. Host the image on a new, unique web server instance. In this case, additional resources or technical know-how will be required to enable the tracking. However, once hosted properly, the web server instance will log all requests made to the image in their own neat file, removing the necessity for any processing on the logs to parse out the analytics data.

Additionally, following the base tag modifications, your new log files will be ready for any method of data warehousing or offline conversion analysis. If you need to bring additional data into your local logs, whether it be meta tag data used with other tools, or pieces of information scraped from the page and loaded into custom parameters, you can leverage Google’s custom variables to store all manner of information for internal use. Custom Javascript can be employed to perform any number of automated tasks, reducing a multi-step overhaul of several site parameters to a quick-and-easy file inclusion – but I’ll save that for another post. Happy coding!

If you have any questions about Stratigent’s approach to Google tagging, or if you have general comments or feedback, please feel free to email me at .

About Adam McArdell

Adam McArdell is a Consultant and guest blogger at Stratigent.

Web Analytics Code of Ethics

(The following blog post is contributed by Eric T. Peterson, Founder and Senior Partner at Web Analytics Demystified, Inc. Comments on this post can be left with this blog or . Thanks to John, Adam, Judah, and others for their review of this post.)

Following up on last week’s thread about how the web analytics industry is on the cusp of becoming our own worst enemy as the tide of public opinion increasingly turns against online and behavioral analytics I wanted to make good on my offer to help the Web Analytics Association. I fully support the efforts of the Association to create a solid community for web analytics professionals around the world and have long been a contributor to their work, be it turning the Web Analytics Forum (at Yahoo! Groups) over to WAA management, opening the doors for WAA participation in Web Analytics Wednesday, and providing other “behind the scenes” support when asked.

To continue to support the Association I wanted to follow-up on something my partner John Lovett recently proposed. In a message to the WAA’s Standards Committee John suggested something he and I talked a few weeks back: the development of a “Web Analysts Code of Ethics.” In John’s words:

[A Code of Ethics] would allow web analysts and the companies * we * work for to wear white hats and gain the trust of consumers. It would also be a starting point for an education campaign on the benefits of digital measurement tracking.

I could not agree more. So, I figured I would start the conversation by drafting a document for review and comment by the Web Analytics Association Standards Committee, the WAA Board of Directors, and all web analytics practitioners everywhere – WAA members or not.

The following is a “1.0” version of a “Web Analysts Code of Ethics.” As you read this please take the time to consider A) whether you agree with the proposed statement, B) if not, why you disagree with the proposed statement, and C) what you think is missing, and D) whether you believe as a working web analysts you would have the ability (and be willing) to adhere to this type of code. Any and all feedback is welcome and encouraged!

Web Analysts Code of Ethics (1.0, drafted September 8, 2010)

As a professional web analyst and as a member of the global web analytics community I hereby agree to the following code of behavior regarding consumer data collected on any digital property I work on, with, or for:

1. I hold consumer data privacy in the highest regard and will do everything in my power to keep that data safe, secure, and private. To this end I will never knowingly transfer, release, or otherwise distribute data gathered through digital channels without express permission from the consumer(s) who generated the data;
2. I understand that the average consumer expects their online activity to be anonymous and I will work to keep it that way. Regardless of whether I have the ability to co-mingle personally identifiable and anonymous data, I will never connect the two unless A) customers have been directly appraised of this effort in advance and B) I am confident in my company’s ability to protect that data and keep it safe;
3. I will work diligently to ensure that my management team is well aware of the types of data we collect and the risks to consumers associated with those data. Part of my job is knowing what technology we have deployed and ensuring that others in my company, especially my senior leadership, are aware of how that technology could be used in a way that can be perceived of as invasive;
4. I will make every effort to help others in my organization understand why consumer data privacy is important. Recognizing that in my role I am rarely on the front-lines, I believe that the time it takes to make my co-workers aware of our commitment to data privacy is time well spent;
5. I will do my best to use tracking- and browser-based technologies in the way they were designed and not “hack” them to gather information simply because it is possible. Despite clear documentation regarding the possibilities, I will not use Flash, the browser cache, HTML5, or any other technology to “spy”, “reset”, or otherwise circumvent consumer control over their browsing experience;
6. I will work diligently with my company’s legal team to ensure that our privacy policy is up-to-date and provides an accurate and truthful reflection of our collection, use, and policy towards digitally-collected data. Whenever a new measurement technology is deployed I will assume the responsibility for starting the conversation with our legal team about the need to update our privacy policy;
7. I will pay close attention to the list of individuals inside my company and out that have access to any digitally-collected data falling under my domain. Given the ease with which access to digital data collectors can be shared I will work diligently to ensure that access lists are up-to-date and that anyone with access to these systems understands how that data can and cannot be used;
8. If anyone asks I will be transparent, honest, and forthright regarding the data we collect and how it is used to improve the overall consumer and customer experience online. I will, however, only share this information with express permission from my management team if the information will or might leave the confines of our organization;
9. I will work to enforce a cookie and user identification policy that is appropriate and respectful of the consumer experience in the environment I work in. If persistent cookies are not required I will suggest an expiration date. If user IDs could be used to track back to a known individual I will recommend reasonable obfuscation. I will advocate for first-party cookies (as opposed to third-party cookies) whenever possible;
10. Provided it exists I will reference the work of my industry Association whenever anyone has a question about this Code of Ethics, the industry I work in, or the work I do. I recognize that we are far stronger as a community than any one individual could ever be, and I believe that consistency in voice is important to communicating effectively about the work that I do.

What would you add? What would you change? Would you be willing to sign this document? More importantly, would you be willing to work (and live) by it?

I know this is new, and many of you will see the effort as irrelevant, but I would encourage you all to think “big picture” about how your life would change if, for example, the use of tracking cookies required explicit consumer “opt-in” or if third-party cookies for tracking purposes were banned by your government.

On behalf of Web Analytics Demystified and the Web Analytics Association, we welcome your thoughts.

On Certification and What it Means to Business Hiring

If you go outside the relatively small world of the WAA and web analytics conferences, you find there are a lot of companies that have invested in web analytics and are not getting value back from those investments. It's not a good sign for our industry there is this much failure, because we know in the right hands, web analytics can drive enormous financial benefit.

Why does this failure happen? Most often, it’s a hiring problem, whether it be in-house employees or contractors who lack the proper skills. But it’s not easy to hire people with the right skills if the company has no experience with great web analysts, so these companies never learn how to interview properly for the job. You get a self-fulfilling negative cycle and too many companies are just “giving up” on web analytics.

I think to counteract this trend, those companies with an important place in the industry need to take a leadership stance, we need to provide through our actions some guidance to those people hiring analysts, who may be looking at our job descriptions and hiring practices for clues to success.

For the web analytics group at Microsoft, this means we will be including the phrase:

Certified Web Analyst™ (CWA) preferred

in the Qualifications section of all job descriptions that involve interaction with web analytics.

I encourage your company to do the same, both to attract and screen for the highest quality candidates and to spread the word about this program, inside and more importantly outside the web analytics community.

Peter Sanborn
Group Manager, Web Analytics, Microsoft Corporation
WAA President