Did I get your attention?

I've spent the last twelve months promoting minamilist web analytics reports focused on a handful of KPIs that were supposed to lead me to the low-hanging fruit.  You know what?  It's not there!  Well, it might be there, but it's not one large insight.  It's made up of a bunch of seeds of insight which represent a bunch of small changes.  I'm not saying that minimalist dashboards don't have their place.  I wouldn't advise taking them away from your executives.  You just need to know your audience and what you're there for.

[sidenote:  I came to the realization today that many of our web analytics thought leaders (and I love them all dearly, because I attribute so much of my knowledge to them) forget the trench practitioners (like myself) because they spend the bulk of their time advising the mucky-mucks and their web analysts.  Who can blame them?  That's where the money is.  After all, it's not the trench practitioners who make up the majority of their financial support.  As a result, much of their discussions relate more to higher-level web analytics practices.  I think they should start their discussions by mentioning the intended audience.  Of course, when taking free advice, it is the advice taker's responsibility to assess its usefulness and appropriateness to their situation, especially if the intended is not stated.  Now there's something they don't teach you in college!]

Here are some of the pitfalls of searching for low-hanging fruit: 

Pitfall #1 - If it's low-hanging, shouldn't it be so obvious that you don't need a dashboard to find it?  In fact, it probably doesn't even need a web analyst to be found.

Pitfall #2 - If you believe that low-hanging fruit is where it's at, then what will you do when you've found it all?

Pitfall #3 - Would you rather have four large achievements scattered throughout the year or would you rather have numerous small achievements every month to keep you going?

I have yet to run across that one magical factor within someone's conversion funnel that makes them oil-rich overnight.  You know what it is?  It's a bunch of small factors, that, when combined make a noticeable difference in the success of the website.

Why is it so great focusing on the small things?

Bonus #1 - It's easy to get commitment from others.  Seriously, who's going to have commitment issues over a ten minute site update?

Bonus #2 - You won't need for approval from upper management.  If they have time to fuss about the meta tags on your downloads page, they have too much free time.

Bonus #3 - Small changes require very little time investement.  And if doesn't work as expected, you haven't lost much time.

Bonus #4 - You'll have tons of fodder for your employee review.

Bonus #5 - Since commitment is easy to acquire, more people will become involved.  They will all feel more closely attached to the success of the website.  You will also have a TON of advocates.  You will become a star.  You will be young forever.  Ok, I made that last one up.

So given today's enlightenment, how do I feel about my recently updated web analytics process?  I still like it very much.  I had a lot of fun developing and implementing it.  I think I will probably do a lot more intensive analysis and be careful about who I recommend the rest of the process to.  I also think that when using the full process, I will make sure that I don't just report the KPIs, but make sure that I am always digging deep beneath them.  I won't provide advice in such broad terms, such as, "We need to do more SEO to improve our search engine traffic," or, "We need to increase our referrals to training."  I will followup up with a more detailed analysis that suggests some small changes and get commitment.  I'm already discovering that commitment follows without requests or hesitation.  I must have heard the phrase, "I'll take care of that," a handful of time this week.  I don't remember anyone saying, "I'll work on improving our SEO."

Ok, so I've ranted late into the night and as I read back through this I'm wondering if I really explained myself well.  I think what I'm really getting at is that high-level dashboards are not a substitute for deep analysis and insights.  They are a means to and end, and without the end you are just making laser pointer dots on a screen.  Do I feel that I've been misinstructed by web analytics experts?  NO, experience and trying it out have made me realize that it was me that made certain points bigger than they were (or were they really presented in a fashion that made them seem bigger?)

Comments???  Am I a loon for dissing low-hanging fruit?