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Best marketing book for 2010?

My tip for the best book to help you with your marketing in 2010 isn’t one of mine, or one on social media, although recommendations on this will follow soon since I have had a lot of questions about the best book on social media recently. Instead, my recommended book is on marketing analytics. Please recommend the books which you think will help marketers most across the whole of marketing to the comments. TIA!

The main audience for this book is arguably for web analytics specialists who will probably have already devoured the book and enjoyed the great chapter on careers advice. But I think there are gems for all involved in marketing in this book which will help you get the most out of your traditional or online marketing in 2010.

In fact, I think the book’s title is much narrower than the content which covers many aspects of customer insight and business intelligence needed for effective marketing.

In my review I recommend the main sections which should help different types of marketer. Of course, there is a big overlap, between what will interest who and many will want to browse all, but I hope you find my pointers useful.

Marketing / Ecommerce Directors

To maximise returns from online channels, you have to select the right tools, to this end chapter 2 will help with 10 “must ask” questions for vendors of different systems. I would have like to have seen more discussion of the “free” vs paid option, i.e. Google (or Yahoo!) Analytics against Coremetrics, Omniture or Webtrends et al., but Avinashes position as Analytics Evangelist at Google prevents that I think.

That said, the majority of practical examples of improving performance from the book are from Google Analytics, so if you are using Google Analytics, you should buy it for your team to help them squeeze more out of your marketing budgets.

The final chapter on creating a data-driven culture is essential reading for senior marketers and business managers. If this is an issue for you, you will find my post on Amazon’s Cult of Analytics an interesting read.

Marketing managers or campaign execs

For marketing managers, these chapters will be most useful:

  • Chapter 5 on defining the right goals – “the critical few” relevant for your type of business – Avinash discussed non Ecommerce B2B and publishing business models too. He also shows the types of goals you should setup in Google Analytics – many of these aren’t configured in businesses I talk to.
  • Chapter 6 on leveraging qualitative data – researching customers needs and wants via the web and most importantly finding the gap between what they want and what your website offers.
  • Chapter 7 will help you decide the type of experimentation – AB and multivariate testing you should be considering.

For campaign managers I recommend:

  • Chapter 8 on competitive intelligence analysis which includes website traffic source analysis with an emphasis on assessing your search performance is also important
  • Chapter 9 on social media and video will be a must read with a good selection of the best tools for measuring these.
  • Chapter 12 on multi-touch campaign attribution and multichannel analytics are a state of the art review of what I see as the two biggest challenges of managing online customer acquisition effectively.

Content owners, product managers or conversion specialists

If your job involves generating more leads or selling more product via site, you will want to go through most of the book – particularly Chapter 7 on AB/MVT. The many practical chapters describing specific measures and reports you should analyse to get the most from Google Analytics will help you look good to colleagues by finding the quick wins and not so obvious challenges. For this I recommend

  • Chapter 3 on Clickstream metrics
  • Chapter 4 on Clickstream analysis
  • Chapter 7 on AB/MVT

What could be improved?

Well very little really! I’m envious of the incredibly engaging style that Avinash uses which should really help build up enthusiasm about what some would see as a dry topic. It’s a shame my textbooks don’t lend themselves to this…

Although I have been unstinting in my praises of this book, there are weaknesses in the structure IMO – I found it hard to navigate between some chapters which would be better if task based – limited to marketing activities such as growing traffic, engaging first time visitors, improving loyalty, etc. Tips and Techniques to improve these areas are scattered across several chapters possibly because they are sourced from different original blog posts, which cause the reader to work a little harder.

For example, Chapter 4 is titled “The Awesome world of clickstream analysis: practical solutions”. Certainly an engaging title, but it’s actually got some of the best content on campaign analysis if you look carefully.

Likewise the title Chapter 12 Advanced Principles for Becoming an Analysis Ninja actually hides what I think is the best review of measuring and integrating offline communications with online web response and determining value from the mix of referrers in a campaigns.

Finally, although this is a fantastic primer there are other practical books which should also be in your toolkit, particularly if your involved with configuring Google Analytics or landing page optimisation. See my review of 3 essential conversion optimization books for the relevant books by Brian Clifton, Bryan Eisenberg and Tim Ash.

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  • http://www.duratread.com/www.tyreprotectorlasamericas.com Suzy Turnbull

    Hi Dave, thanks for the recommendation and insight as to what is best for whom. I have Google Analytics – 1 hour a day – how would you say this book compares to Web Analytics 2.0?

    • http://www.davechaffey.com Dave Chaffey

      Hi Suzy – yes – that’s a good question – if you have Analytics – 1 hour a day, is it worthwhile updating to the new one? I would say yes if you’re an analytics specialist who needs to apply the techniques, but no / less so if you’re a marketing manager refreshing on the concepts.

      I have both books and the new one seems entirely fresh and still a must read – topics are similar, but much of structure and content seems new and contains latest tools and techniques for measuring social media and applying Google Analytics.

  • http://www.appliedwebanalytics.com/blog Dan Croxen-John

    I was lucky enough to be at Emetrics in Washington around the time of the book launch. Avinash came along to talk to us (despite his bandaged arm) and to give away free copies of Web Analytics 2.0. So my thoughts about the book are not in any way coloured by being a punter, although I did pay for his first book.

    Let me say this up front. I love the way Avinash writes. In to what some people might say is a pretty dry subject, he has injected spirit, passion and humour in a very readable and conversational tone. There I’ve said it. He’s a fantastic advocate for web analytics, and I’m not sure that Web analytics would be where it is today without him. This says to me that WA needed a figure like Avinash to inject some life, it is because Web analytics is probably not very well understood by most people.

    Is Web Analytics a good title ?

    Firstly to the book’s title, which Dave’s post highlights, which doesn’t do justice to the breadth of content. At the time of writing this, the Web Analytics Association is having some public debate as to whether it has the right name. Current survey results seem to be showing a preference for no change, but this discussion goes to the heart of what web analytics is about.

    In my view, analytics is a process not an end point. The output of analytics is not attractive looking executive dashboards nor videos of usability tests, but changes to a website/blog/email newsletter. It is *only* the impact of the change to the copy, the imagery, the layout or functionality that allows analytics to promote itself as a vital part of the organisation’s online strategy. It is these website changes that result, if your hypothesis has been correct, in more enquiries, orders, white paper downloads, repeat business, etc.

    Perhaps I have rather tunnel vision of what analytics should be about, but I am no different from most direct marketers – this is about ROI. An analytics project is likely every other. It has to be funded by the proceeds of the extra sales it generates.

    So to add my 2p to the WAA name change debate, I think the word ‘optimisation’ should feature. There I’ve said it.

    Read his first book already?

    What Avinash’s books cover is the process of online optimisation, and in this version, he extends the scope to include measurement and analysis of social media, video and mobile. For me, this was a disappointment. I had expected a different approach to the second book. Many of the topics reappear in this version, albeit the ‘A Day a Month’ structure of the previous book has been ditched. That said, Avinash has managed to increase the depth of many of the topics he covers.

    What does appear to be new and interesting content is the more advanced stuff, such as campaign attribution, how to value a paid-for web analytics tool over the free offerings and how to break down organizational barriers to acceptance of web analytics.

    Also what I have always liked about Avinash’s books (and this is probably because my recall is better from books over reading material online) is the great list of tools he comes up with – not in a long list, but in context to a particular section. I particularly like the tool fivesecondtest.com when he is writing about rapid usability tools.

    What’s missing or could be better?

    Firstly, this is the most complete and useful book to buy on web analytics. Full stop. Whether it will the best marketing book of this year I’ll come to later, but my criticisms of the book are not significant when weighed against its value and scope.

    Firstly, in both the first and this book, I was never satisfied that the section on competitor analysis was useful for anybody other than the big, corporate brands. Maybe it’s the ‘big name’ examples he quotes, but most of us work for or with smaller businesses where although competitor analysis is no less important, it would appear these many of the tools mentioned are unlikely to show much meaningful data for those who are SME/SMB. I could be wrong, but that’s my belief.

    Secondly, I am someone who needs to be convinced as well as taught. Avinash’s approach is a fantastic tool for teaching new concepts and explaining the detail, however what I wanted to read about is what results companies have got from using web analytics and what challenges they faced. I think introducing these kind of ‘war stories’ would, in part, help to bring the text more to life.

    Finally, I would like to have seen more space dedicated to how web analytics might evolve in the future. Given that Google predicts statisticians will be elevated to a new class of superbeings during this decade, it would have been pertinent for Avinash to postulate on how analytics, as an approach, could influence other parts of the organization in becoming more data-driven. I acknowledge the inherent danger of forecasting the future and becoming a hostage to fortune, but given Avinash’s position I think it’s a fair request.

    So will it be the best marketing book of 2010?

    No, not in my view. I think that to claim that title Web Analytics 2.0 would have to be an inspirational book, and it is not. It is too rooted in a bottom-up approach to online marketing and web data. It is not any less of a book for that reason, but it doesn’t sell a vision.

    For me, and I know these books are actually now three years old, books that first inspire and then educate include Ian Ayers’ Supercrunchers – How Anything Can Be Predicted and Davenport and Harris’s Competing on Analytics. These books set out to show how analytics per se, not web analytics in particular, are the starting point for shift in how organizations should be run and decision taken. Web Analytics 2.0 however is a worthy contender, but it ain’t going to influence organizations in the same way that these two books will.

    • http://www.davechaffey.com Dave Chaffey

      Thanks very much for your thoughts Dan, these are inspirational too – it’s nice to read your passion. The passion and style of Avinash’s books coupled with practical advice are definitely their strength. As an author myself, I’m in awe of the inspirational tone combined with clarity and practical value. Other inspirational business books don’t tend to be so practical and practical descriptive books (like mine) don’t tend to be inspiring.

      I agree with you that Marketing Optimization or Digital Marketing Optimization is more appropriate for the WAA. As for the book, it is too narrow in scope in comparison with the application to marketing. I remember suggesting to Jim Sterne at one of the early E-metrics conferences that this would be more appealing to marketers and it did change later (not due to my comment I’m sure).

      As to the suggestions, yes to all of those – I will alert Avinash to them, he is keen on feedback of course.

      Thanks again for the in-depth review.

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