Metrics are the marketer’s microscope. They show him what his customers are actually doing, as opposed to what they say they are doing or intend to do. With proper metrics he can make decisions faster and more accurately.

You can decide to measure anything, but what metrics matter and what ones are just for show? Here are some rules I hope will guide you toward creating meaningful metrics that help, rather than hinder, the decision-making process.

Be Actionable

Be Understandable and Trustworthy

Measure Results

Understand the Downside

Understand the Upside

Don’t Be Ambiguous

Segment by Purpose

Appropriate Granularity

See the article at 8 Tips for Crafting Metrics That Matter

The title is Web Analytics 2.0: the Art of Accountability and the Science of Customer Centricity.

I read his blog regularly, and I look forward to the book.

He was recently interviewed on Mitch Joel’s excellent podcast Six Pixels of Separation. I recommend that readers visit the Six Pixels of Separation blog to listen to the entire interview (and other podcasts).

There are a couple short passages that I want to call out from the beginning of the interview. He says about his upcoming book:

“You’ll see me frequently use the words analyst and marketers….to me, really there isn’t an analyst that isn’t a marketer behind the scenes, and there isn’t a marketer that isn’t an analytst behind the scenes.

We live is such a data-driven world where the web experience and the customer experience is changing with every passing day. Every marketer needs to know that data, analytics, qualitative quality is going to give him or her the edge. And every analyst needs to know that unless he deeply understands marketing, he or she can never do analysis that creates great customer experiences.”

This is precisely the concept that led to the term “creatalytics.” It is the confluence of creative and analytics, of marketing and data. These can no longer be separate disciplines.

Links:

Six Pixels of Separation podcast interview of Avinash Kaushik
Avinash Kaushik’s blog Occam’s Razor