After writing all the positive things about the book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day I’ve looked at the book reviews on Amazon and found more than 35 people, all singing praises apart from one! This is what Milan Savani says about the Avinash’s book “90% fluff, 10% knowledge…good if you have time to read 480 pages to get the 48 you need”. He also recommends reading Jasons Burby & Shand Atchison’s Actionable Web Analytics – Using Data to Make Smart Business Decisions.
To find out if these accusations are justified and whether the Actionable Web Analytics is actually as good as described I’ve decided to act on Mr Savani’s advice and bought my second web analtytics book.
Today, after I’ve read the book I must say that I partially agree with the reviewer…Actionable Web Analytics offers very similar information as you can find in the Avinash’s book but here is presented in much more succinct format.
The most useful chapters in Actionable Web Analytics
There are chapters in the Actionable Web Analytics book, which I find extremely useful. This book definately will help you to get your head around the overall Web Analytics concept. The three chapters, which I’m going to take actions from are the “performance marketing” approach (chapter 2), site types and KPIs (chapter 6) and monetization (chapter 7).
The “performance marketing” approach explains how to deal with site redesigns and dispells some common myths of web design. The chapter also highlights monitoring, testing and user behaviour as the three main areas of the “perfomance marketing” concept.
The 6th Chapter of the book I find the most useful. I’ve never thought about putting sites into the five main categories E-commerce, lead generation, customer service, content and branding sites.
The monetization methodology would be immediately helpful to larger organisations, where business cases have to be created before any changes are made to the website.
Actionable Web Analytics vs. Web Analytics: An Hour A Day
I personally find Actionable Web Analytics more logical and practical, however I still think the Kaushik’s book makes for quite a good read. Both books are excellent and I’m happy that I had begun my Web Analytics journey from the Web Analytics: An Hour A Day.