The Emetrics Summit in Santa Barbara, CA, was held last week. Reviews and comments have been flooding my inbox. Although I couldn’t attend myself, John Quarto-vonTividar, co-inventor of persuasion architecture, presented on persuasion scenario planning and the call for an open standard for scenario definitions, including an XML standard.

I’ve also heard rave reports about the Web Analytics Association members meeting, which had over 150 folks in attendance. I’m really sorry I had to miss it.

In absorbing everyone’s comments over the last couple…

...continue to read "Emetrics Summit Wrap Up"

We are podcasting. 

You can subscribe to the GrokDotCom newsletter podcast. All the refreshing goodness of our newsletter poured right into your iPod or mp3 device.

-and/or-

you can catch a podcast of our weekly radio show "Wizards of Web" on Webmaster Radio. Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg dishin’ out weekly critques and Persuasion Architecture education and rants. Neato.

...continue to read "Podcastin’"

I awoke at 7:15 this morning, exhausted from yet another weekend juggling family & friends in town, squeezing out the last 15 hours of the work week that couldn’t be fit into 5 workdays, and barely sitting down long enough to catch the Sopranos.  The first thing greeting me in my inbox was the same as it is each week, Roy’s Monday Morning Memo.  Talk about salience:

"Men think about it every seven seconds or so. Women romanticize it. Teenagers yearn…

...continue to read "Sex in the city?"

Today was a busy day in the office, and one in which meetings were back to back, to back.  I started talking with my CFO, took a detour to meet with a potential partner, and ended the day spending time with some new (and potential) clients.  Very different audiences, yet one common discussion kept popping up, and it comes as no real surprise, it comes up daily around us.  The topic you ask- the difference between Conversion and Persuasion.  The…

...continue to read "Conversion or Persuasion- where in the funnel is your problem?"

In keywords searches, your customers identify the scent trail they want to follow – it’s up to you not to blow it off

Let’s say you live in Montreal, and you’re desperate to move up a rung or two on the apartment ladder. You open your search engine and type in some words that reflect what you hope to accomplish. Something like “rent montreal apartment.”That’s just what my friend Melissa Burdon, a Conversion Analyst with Future Now, Inc., did. In under…

...continue to read "Montreal What Where Huh?"

In the Visits/Visitors debate, side with Unique Visitors

Analysis doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And as we’ve said a thousand times: you can torture the numbers to confess to … uh, we mean, rationalize … just about anything.

Matt Belkin of Omniture blogged recently about the differences between Visits and Unique Visitors as they relate to measuring reach and as they factor into the Conversion Rate formula. Matt argues that Conversions per Visit is more important than…

...continue to read "The Great Debate: or “When All You Have is a Reporter, Every Analysis Looks Like a Nail”"

There was a little stir after Shane Atchison’s recent column pronouncing the linear conversion funnel dead. Shane got the idea I was an overzealous cheerleader for linear conversion funnels. He even seemed to fear I’d suffer heart failure upon reading his revelation.

Subsequently, clients, friends, and Web Analytics Association (WAA) members emailed and called (some bewildered, some amused), wondering what was going on. We all had a good laugh. This misconception about linear processes has been a pet peeve of mine for years.

After…

...continue to read "Conversion vs. Persuasion: What’s Your Challenge?"

In the next edition of our newsletter, GrokDotCom, John Quarto-vonTivadar and I co-wrote a piece discussing the comedy of errors that ensues when having your report jockey advise you on business decisions.  Here’s the article, hot off the press:

The Great Debate

or,

“When All You Have is a Reporter, Every Analysis Looks like A Nail”

Analysis doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And as we’ve said a thousand times: you can torture the numbers to confess, uh, I mean, rationalize just about anything.

Matt Belkin…

...continue to read "The tail wags the dog…"

Aroung here things are ramping up to a formidible buzz, well on their way to a fever pitch.

The book is being printed, videos are being recorded(for the DVD insert that will come with each book of course), promotion plans are being cemented up, and we are all preparing for the big release in June.

We’ve shared bit and peices and sometimes full drafts of the book with trusted friends and respected colleques, each one of them telling us to expect this book…

...continue to read "Waiting For Your Cat To Bark – The Seminar"

File under: When will they ever learn

I’m at home visiting my parents this weekend, and to meet with clients in Boston early next week.  I unpacked my bag and found my jacket to be overwhelmingly wrinkled.  Getting it pressed in time for Monday AM is probably an option… but so is simply buying a new jacket, and that has much greater value to me!  Luckily, there’s a new Jos. A. Bank that opened down the street from my mom. …

...continue to read "Re-Tales: Jos. A. Bank"