So, some of the buzz coming out of WordCamp – Dallas was for a new web analytics product called “Woopra” – a Java-based analytics app.

According to my email, I signed up on March 30, 2008 – 14 days ago. At the time, I was unable to configure a site because although I could register for the service, setting up a site required an invitation – which I didn’t have and there were no instructions for getting one. The next day, the invitation was made ‘optional’ so I was able to add this site. However, adding the site just sent me into a queue and I received the message that I would hear back regarding site approval within 7 days – this was 13 days ago.

Two or three days ago (don’t remember which since it was a form on woopra.com and I didn’t receive even an automated recognition of the submission) I sent a support request via the woopra website asking for a status on the site approval. Nope, haven’t heard a word.

I was just cruising the forums over at woopra and there’s a whole topic dedicated to the approval timeline. According to CEO John Pozadzides, Woopra is too busy with other things like a site redesign, bug fixes and infrastructure scaling to take care of approvals – or customer service apparently.

I’m a web analyst and I like to evaluate web analytics packages when I can, I’ve had as many as six running on this site concurrently (don’t try that at home – it’s like going down the rabbit hole not to mention the impact to load times) seeing how things work and blogging about them from time to time.

Of course, with Woopra so far behind the customer service curve I’m just peeved enough to write a review with the information I have at hand.

Woopra had set my expectation for one week, in one week after sign up I was to know the status of my approval. Seven days came and went and there has been no communication. No resetting of my expectations no “Woops! We’re sorry” – not a peep.

So, it would seem that the folks at Woopra weren’t prepared for their launch and are managing poorly. Instead of focusing – at least a little – on managing mine, and others’ expectations as well as other aspects of customer service they are busy launching a redesign a couple of weeks after their launch.

How would I rate Woopra so far?

• Technology: UNK
• Core Reporting: UNK
• Segmentation: UNK
• Campaign Analysis: UNK
• Intra-Page Event Analysis: UNK
• ECommerce Analysis: UNK
• Multimedia Analysis: UNK
• Data Visualization & Exploration: UNK
• Customer Service: Non Existent

I also checked their official blog and there’s no discussion of the approval process or problems nor is it discussed in the FAQ so it would seem that the only place to talk about it is in the forum since support requests seem to be in an endless queue.

I found one of the co-founders on Twitter and there’s no discussion there about how the flood of sign-ups has derailed their customer service. I wonder what @jowyang would say about their apparent lack of social media strategy and management?

I guess my point is this: Even if you (or Woopra) think of yourselves as a technology company, at the end of the day people use the technology and you need to spend at least the same amount of time on us, your customers (or potential customers), as you do on your technology and service and I’m not feeling that at the moment.

Anyone in on the private beta beforehand that would like to tell us about the service?

In his keynote at the inaugural SEMPhonic XChange Conference, Eric T. Peterson said he was going to be controversial, that he wanted to stimulate the discussion. That he was tired of the ‘me too’ and ‘that’s exactly what I think’ commentary. Fast-forward a bit and Eric goes ahead and lobs a controversial bomb my way…

"Reporting Is Evil"

You might as well say Seeing is evil.

Seeing, after all, is just your eyes reporting received electromagnetic stimuli to your brain.

I can understand the sentiment behind it – I really can. It comes from a frustration with organizations and people who think web analytics is nothing more than regurgitation of data. A frustration with people and organizations that don’t "get it" and can’t "grok it". The frustration comes from web analysts within those organizations (I’ve felt it, believe me), from consultants trying to help companies get to the next level and vendors trying to sell their wares.

The problem is that reporting is NOT evil. It is vital to the web analytics process.

Analysis, web analysis, is a process – or at least it should be.

Analyses, like any process, have outcomes. The outcomes might be changes to the website, changes to advertising creative, changes in SEM strategies, changes to the web analytics implementation itself and many more that I’m not thinking of at the moment. One of the over-arching deliverables of a process is communicating its results. If the results of the web analytics process are not communicated, then no outcomes are possible. How can recommended changes to the website be made if they aren’t communicated and substantiated with an analysis of the data?

Yep, that’s my way of saying that reporting is an expected outcome of the analytic process. A process that doesn’t communicate its results is a failed process. Thus, if we excise reporting from web analytics because it is evil, we are left with a process that can give us no insight because there is no way to extract information from it. What is the point of going through the process at that point? We might as well use ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ in all its blindfolded glory to make a decisions.

There are many definitions of reporting, but in this context I think that there are two that are most important:

1. Reporting is a required outcome of the analytics process
2. Reporting is a communication tool

The frustration that leads people, Eric included, into thinking and saying that reporting is evil derives from organizations treating reporting as the whole analytics process.

So, if you are spending time, money and resources on web analytics and all you are doing is reporting the data, then you probably feel like you’re not getting nearly enough value out of your investment.

Heck, without reporting there is no feedback loop in analytics and then your just running one blind test after another – throwing spaghetti at the wall as it were – until something sticks.

Reporting without analysis is just a regurgitation of facts. Analysis without reporting is impossible because then there is no mechanism for creating the feedback loop within the process.

well, maybe not everyone but certainly you can sympathize with the sentiment. We all dream of getting that rare GTO (ok, that’s just me) but the point is, we all dream about owning a great car but not buying them. Why is that? Well, the dealership is a high-pressure sales environment. Every move, statement and eye wiggle is scripted to get us to buy a car.

 "I’ll have to check with my manager"

"What will it take to get you to take this baby home with you today?"

<endless waiting designed to make you willing to do anything to leave>

<forms, upon forms, upon forms>

Any of this sounding familiar yet? Why am I bringing this up and making you sweat, cringe and shiver all at the same time?

-glad you asked-

Over on the Lunametrics Blog, Robbin Steif has published part four of her interview with Avinash Kaushik about his book "Web Analytics: An Hour A Day" and at one point she asks

Why do you care so much about the customer experience and discount conversion rate so much? (We can say, p. 340, but you address this elsewhere too) The way that I look at it, there are either other conversions (like applying for a job, or getting help on the website), and the analyst is just forgetting to include those conversions. Or, it’s important that the customer have a good experience so that when he is ready to buy, he will (and it is a long term problem, but it is still about conversion rate.) Or, he will tell other people or write about what a good experience he had, and *they* will come and convert, eventually. So it is still a conversion rate problem. Ultimately, it is always about conversion rate. (Go ahead. Tell me that I’m wrong.)

Avinash goes into a long and informative response detailing why focusing on just conversion rate is a bad idea. For me, it boils down to ‘visitors at your site have all kinds of tasks in mind – other than buying – so optimizing for just one task neglects (or worse) the other visitors.’

However, it got me thinking … well that’s unfair … I had a little flash of an idea and here it is:

"I’ll bet Car Dealerships are massively over optimized for ‘Conversion’"

So, even if you are there to buy, it can be (and often is) a massively uncomfortable experience. If, instead of optimizing for conversion, you optimize the user/consumer experience in effect what you are doing is creating a comfortable and reassuring environment where your visitors can feel confident in doing whatever it is they came there to do.

You don’t want to be the car dealership of the online world do you?

Does anyone have a story about how optimizing for the user (versus a metric like conversion rate) had unanticipated positive results? Please share your story in the comments here.

Hey, I’m equal opportunity – if you have a UX horror story share it here too…

Web Analytics Guru and all-around nice guy, Eric T. Peterson, is doing a webcast – exclusively for Web Analytics Association Members. The webcast is entitled "Web Analytics Is Easy!", can’t wait to find out what that means but more importantly, there will be an extended question and answer session at the end of the webcast! Ever wish that you could have a sit-down with a luminary like Eric to find out what’s what? Well, the cost of membership to the WAA is probably cheaper than getting Eric on a consulting gig or traveling to an Emetrics summit so it might be easier to get your management to defray the cost on your membership than getting the OK for Emetrics. Hey, you do what you can right?

The webcast is next Wednesday, August 29th (yip just nine days away) so hop to it!

Disclaimer: I am a Director on the WAA Board

If you don’t understand the context of your web data then all you can do is report the data – you can’t interpret it correctly.

If we think of web analytics as this overly-simplified equation: people(motivations) + website =  actions(data), as analysts, we are trying to solve for people(motivations).

So if you’re the analyst, you’ve got the data and I am sure you are crazy-familiar with it, but that’s only half of it. Knowing your website(s) – how it operates, what changes are made and when, how changes are made – is the other half. If you don’t understand your website and how it works, how can you properly interpret the data to understand how your audience is reacting to your site? How can you proactively recommend changes or tests on the site if you don’t understand how it works?

photo credit: threed – some rights reserved.

You Can’t

So, if you can, do a tour in web production  – this will give the best chance of understanding the website context.

If you don’t understand the website context, your analysis (if you’re trying to do it) is just a W.A.G.