BOOK LAUNCH – Yahoo! Web Analytics: Tracking, Reporting, and Analyzing for Data-Driven Insights
Well, today’s the day! The book is out: Yahoo! Web Analytics: Tracking, Reporting, and Analyzing for Data-Driven Insights. I am super excited about this – and even better, this coincides beyond perfect with the recent launch of YWA 9.5.
I did an interview over at Web Analytics World, which includes some decent commentary about the book and who it is intended for.
A few metrics for people as nerdy as I am. I announced the agreement with Wiley on Sunday July 6 2008, started writing the book in the fall of 2008 and spent about 5 months and 370 hours writing it, before turning it over to Wiley recently.
Another fun trivia is; that my good friend Avinash (from GOOGLE) wrote the foreword. (Thanks Mate!)
You can go preview the book on Amazon, and also on Google Book Search. AND should you fall in love, this is where you can go buy the book:
A bit of information on the three parts of the book:
(..and yes, I look a tad too serious on that picture)
My philosophy is that you should focus on three different but equally important tasks; A) Collecting Data, B) Reporting on Data and C) Deriving insight from Data. Dependant ones vantage point, one or more of the chapters will be in focus. I have divided the book into three parts to reflect these broad tasks.
Part 1, “Advanced Web Analytics Installation,” consists of Chapters 1 through 5. The focus is on data collection. True competitive advantage in web marketing comes from collecting the right data, but also, and no less important, from configuring your web analytics tool in such a way that you can derive insight from the data. Part 1 features detailed code examples that webmasters or developers can apply directly. Marketing people and executives will learn the opportunities they can demand from this tool. I also show you how to add reporting dimensions to the predefined report structures for fantastic filtering and segmentation opportunities.
Part 2, “Utilizing an Enterprise Web Analytics Platform,” encompasses Chapters 6 through 10, where we focus on reports. Creating reports is an easy feat, but remember that reports are never better than the data you collect. You need an exceedingly good understanding of how to work with your data. Part 2 is less technical than the first part. In it I’ll teach you to use your reporting toolbox to provide targeted answers to specific questions, such as “How much revenue did we make from first-time organic search visitors from Canada last week?” For this and many other questions you’ll encounter there is no standard report, but you will know how to get this answer and hundreds of others when you’re through with this section.
Part 3, “Actionable Insights,” encompasses Chapters 11 through 13 and focuses on how to take action on your data to optimize your web property. Having gone through the effort of implementing the data collection and reporting strategies in Parts 1 and 2, you will have gained enough insight to start an optimization process. Part 3 introduces you to optimization using a set of actionable insights. This is merely an appetizer, and the handful of optimizations I present are not, by any means, the only ones you can pursue. But the ideas and attitude behind them can most definitely be copied and carry you down other optimization avenues. Think of this section as an idea catalog. One of the most important questions I tackle in this section is paid search optimization. Always keep your eyes on the money, eh?
I am truly grateful for the really nice endorsements I received from my industry peers, here is Eric and Bryan:
“In Yahoo Web Analytics Dennis Mortensen manages to do the impossible by adding real value to our knowledge of web analytics in an already crowded market. His clear language and excellent examples make this book required reading for any web analytics practitioner interested in extending their use of freely-available tools. Dennis is one of the best and brightest in the web analytics industry and Yahoo Web Analytics reinforces that with every page.”
Eric Peterson,
Eric T. Peterson, author, Web Analytics Demystified
“As the individual who drove the initial development of Yahoo!’s Web Analytics tool, Dennis managed to conquer mind-numbingly complex issues by presenting them in a simple and useful way. It’s no wonder that he did it again with his Yahoo! Web Analytics book.”
Bryan Eisenberg,
NY Times Bestselling author of Call to Action & Always Be Testing and cofounder of FutureNow Inc.
See you in San Jose for Emetrics and especially Web Analytics Wednesday tonight.
Cheers :-)
@dennismortensen
May 6th, 2009 at 15:43
Well, it’s been available in Canada since last week! Amazon.ca shipped it to me right away (I had pre-ordered it).
So the lucky me has had to chance to have a look already, and I immediately put it among the top 5 books to read on my depressingly tall pile of unread books!
Congrats!!
May 6th, 2009 at 15:48
Hey Jacques,
I’ll be damned. But great news! :-)
AND – by the way – thank you for getting it.
cheers
d.
May 6th, 2009 at 16:51
Here’s to the success of the book, the recent launch of Yahoo! Web Analytics to advertisers, and the 9.5 upgrade!
Cheers!
Matt
May 6th, 2009 at 19:11
Congratulations on the book’s launch. I’ll pick up a copy as soon as it hits my local Borders.
May 7th, 2009 at 2:33
Congratulations Dennis! We’re all excitedly waiting to see your book here in Budapest.
Emer
May 7th, 2009 at 2:38
Hi Dennis,
congratiulation!
Will it be translated in german?
Jens
May 7th, 2009 at 9:03
Congrats Dennis!
May 7th, 2009 at 15:56
Hey Matt,
thanks! I am sure you and I will talk ALOT more about this in the months to come! :-)
Hey Wayne
Send me a picture please. Because I am so much looking forward to that Borders Experience.
Hey C. Man.
Thanks. :-)
Cheers
dennis
May 8th, 2009 at 10:53
[...] 28. april annoncerede Yahoo! Web Analytics de nye features i udgave 9.5, og d. 6. maj udkom den danske direktørs bog om Yahoo! Web Analytics om samme. Forordet er skrevet af Kaushik [...]
May 8th, 2009 at 10:55
Hey Dennis!
This is awesome! hopefully i’ll get hold off a copy soon and probably be first to get it in India (lol)
iam exctied and looking forward for your book!
Congratulations again!
Cheers
Anil
May 8th, 2009 at 12:40
Hey Anil,
yey.. If you are in San Jose Airport today, you can come pick one up! :-)
thanks mate.
Dennis.
May 11th, 2009 at 8:46
Still no sign of Amazon.co.uk pre-orders.
Amazon.com is out of stock as well, so must be selling pretty good!
Congratulations – Looking forward to the boat arriving with copies for the UK.
May 11th, 2009 at 9:17
Hey Phil,
thanks.
It looks like it is in stock on Amazon again.
AND I am most sure the boat is arriving any time soon now. :-)
cheers
d.
May 11th, 2009 at 9:50
Congratulations Dennis!
Great job. Another coincidence is, that my book also was finally published last week (only in German though). Now the battle starts who sells more ;-)
See you soon.
Cheers,
Timo
May 19th, 2009 at 2:19
[...] http://visualrevenue.com/blog/2009/05/book-launch-yahoo-web-analytics.html [...]
June 17th, 2009 at 8:54
[...] Avinash tweeted, quite understandably, about it in the following terms: “The only report U need on online measurement & #wa http://tr.im/nW8B D/L sample report. Why good? Pragmatic, 100% sourced fm customers, no BS”. Google Analytics is on the rise, assuring its position in the Web Analytics space, as the report confirms. But like any leader, contestation is on the rise as well as recently following a French post, discussion has amplified about how GA attributes conversation. Additionally, the report does not mention Yahoo! Web Analytics (former IndexTools), the other great free tool out there on the market, but does point to “one limitation is the inability to tie up analytics with data at an individual customer level. Google faces a problem on this front because it already has to contend with criticism that it has too much data, and this is a problem that worries businesses as well as consumers.” The double sides of a coin: we want more individual level data to really drill-down and try to make our data sources less conflicting vs. worry about Google having all this personal data. Let’s see how Y!WA stacks up to that assumption. In the mean time, you can also check out some good writing by Dennis Mortensen [...]
July 25th, 2009 at 1:58
I’m looking forward to read the book soon.Congratulations for the rich content and as i read the preview here,it’s totally informative.From the title,i know it will make a great contribution with this market.
August 1st, 2009 at 20:06
Well done Dennis., I look forward to this book coming in the mail and being able to open it and start a next level of demands and understanding of my data.
August 2nd, 2009 at 10:58
…AND thank you Tristan.
Cheers
d. :-)
January 17th, 2010 at 20:54
[...] For Christmas this year, I was lucky enough to receive a few analytic related books. Thanks in part that I put little else on my Amazon wish list! One of the books was Yahoo! Web Analytics – Tracking, Reporting, and Analyzing for Data-Driven Insights by Dennis Mortensen. [...]