Be a great Web Data Analyst

Following 11 characteristics make a Great Data Analyst.

1. Segment Web Data to produce insights. The more you segment the data, the more insights you can produce. Refer to my previous article on how to slice and dice web data.
2. Trending is the key: Trending data in various ways helps to produce insights. Trend current performance with past performance, brand vs. competitor data, brand vs. industry benchmarks, trend over time, trend over segments etc.
3. Get close to business: Great analysts remain close to business. Before doing any analysis, we should visit the website and look at web pages. Compare data analysis to actual business, and relate insights.
4. Make sure Website is tagged properly: All pages on website should be tagged properly for proper data collection and further analysis.
5. Know the difference between data collection methodology from various sources: Expect variance in same data collected from two data sources because they may use different data collection methodologies. 10% variance is an acceptable industry standard.
6. Connect the business goals with all KPI (metrics): In order to make insights more powerful, we should know why a subject website exists and what is the goal for its marketing campaign. We should have predefined benchmarks (which reflect website goals) to compare current performance to measure success.
7. Choose only appropriate metric: Do a custom report with important metric on the report, and not just any metric or repeated metric. It is a good idea to make different tabs, if report goes to different decision makers.
8. Be an Avid Explorer: Spend some time learning and contributing to latest developments in industry through blogs and conferences.
9. Recommend in the order of priority: to help business decision makers prioritize – Urgent, Important, or Nice to have.
10. Be an Effective Communicator: If you have produced an excellent report but failed to deliver it properly then I call it a complete debacle. Excellent delivery with great communication is essential.
11. Deliver on time: Nice report delivered on time is better than perfect report delivered late.

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