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.

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.

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.