Irreverent Thinking

I frequently see organisations, large and small, using Google’s Analytics (GA) as their method to measure RoI or whatever else they think they need to establish and I wonder what drove them to that decision. I know it’s free and I know that Google is all cuddly but there are a couple of issues that I am torn on:

1. Google’s role as an advertiser and a reporting agent are in direct conflict. I am sure that one does not directly affect the other but they will gather market data and the temptation to mine this for commercial gain must be huge. Avoiding using GA would remove this all together. Have a read of “Google minding your own business” from Donna Bogatin to see an expansion of this topic

2. Session-based analytics are pretty useless in the grand scheme of things. Knowing that 1000 people visited your site today and 10% of them converted from the search term “blue widgets” might, on the face of it, tell you a lot but misses out so much important information such as “which people are the 10%” and “how much did these 10% go onto spend over x months”. These are real e-business questions that Google Analytics fails to answer.

3. GA works by running a script on the page, this script has a size over 5k - doesn’t sound a lot but the Google search page is just 12k. A good target size for your landing pages are 25k so this is a 20% increase in size = 20% longer to load the page.

4. There are some legitimate privacy concerns as Google is acquiring information about private individuals such as their IP address and their buying and browsing history. Now you could argue that this is not personal information but I think if you look at it from a moral standpoint it is, in many ways, far more personal than, say, my date of birth or maybe even my name. Tracking me via my IP address is far more reliable and finds every place I go - tracking me by name only works where I use my name so I can choose whether I can be found. You don’t have the option to switch off your IP address.

5. If GA is so good then why does Google not use it themselves?

Our CEO, Martin Dower, recently posted a story describing how our philosophy came into being.

We decided to publish this as a page because is it so intrinsic to our beliefs as a company. As a post it would have fallen off the radar after a while and it is too important to allow this to happen.

Enjoy!

I am due in London tomorrow, at a meeting in the West End, so I am daytripping, rather than slog down in the car just for the day. I would normally use the rather excellent train service out of Leeds. Recent changes have made traveling by train a real joy and not the drag it used to be. I book my seat online and therefore have a guaranteed slot to rest my head, do some work and catch up on some reading (I currently have a 223 page report on web analytics that I am ploughing through).

My fiance? lives along the M62 corridor and rather conveniently next to Brough (a mainline train station to Kings Cross) so I have the convenient option of deciding where I can travel from. I can take the train to Leeds (?8) tomorrow morning and get a fast connection to Kings Cross or I can take a direct train from Stella’s doorstep and arrive a little quicker than travelling from Halifax.

Now this is the shocker….a day return from Brough to Hull (via the excellent Hull Trains) this late in the day and getting into Kings Cross at 10:53 costs a very reasonable £44 and this gives me a reserved seat, modern trains and a good service with no car parking costs.

Conversely, the best that GNER can manage is an eye wateringly different £108! I make that a huge 250% more expensive than Hull Trains. The standard open fare from Halifax to Kings Cross (via Leeds) is pretty shocking at £170 versus £103 from Brough (65% more expensive) but it just goes to show the vast differences in the price of rail tickets at the moment. Both prices were taken on similar journey times and were designed to suit my meeting tomorrow. I also understand that they are broadly similar in terms of journey distance as well, making the price differentials even harder to stomach.

I am sure that GNER would argue that they have better trains, a sit-down breakfast option (which is very good, but you can only get access to the dining car after Stevenage as a second-class ticket holder). They also have more train services running but as long as Hull Trains fit the bill why is there any need to pay way over the odds. Looking closer I could have got the return for £30 if I had planned a little further ahead and maybe altered my traveling times.

I don’t suppose you would be surprised that tonight after work I am driving along the M62 corridor and will enjoy a nice quiet bottle of wine with my future wife, we will natter and chatter all evening. I will get a good night sleep and jump on the train at 8:24am tomorrow morning rather than being on a 7 o’clock train out of Halifax. Even adding the 1 hour the journey across the M62 it is still quicker and with the rather nice advantage of seeing Stella as well. What would you do?