Asking Why - Part of the MAP
Asking Why is a book about how to use analytics to ask business questions of your data and get answers. It's a part of the MAP system - a treasure map if you like.
Who is Steve Jackson (Cap'n Blackbeak)
Over the past 2 decades working with data;
- I've founded and sold 2 analytics agencies
- Helped the acquiring companies successfully grow their business in magnitudes worth multiple millions per year.
- Made my clients 60 million in verified earnings or savings personally.
- Led teams of Analysts who made or saved our clients half a billion in verified earnings.
- Hired over the course of that time over 100 people many of whom have gone onto leadership positions in large companies or on the agency side.
- Written 3 books on the subject of digital marketing and analytics.
So now I want to scale what I know, so you can do it yourself.
So what is in the book?
It all started in 1998 when I made a mistake at work. I was supposed to add 7 web forms to 7 websites. By mistake I only added 6 and forgot one smaller site.
About a month later I got a call from a colleague who asked my opinion on automating subscriptions as he was getting too many from abroad.
Abroad was not good
I knew I’d made a mistake because the form should not be able to be completed by anyone outside of the UK.
But then I got curious. I remembered a previous conversation a week earlier from one of the editors about taking the form off the site altogether.
There were too few queries from that newspaper but here was another one where I was getting too many.
I didn't know it then but this was the first time in my web analytics career that I would ask why.
Asking Why
Asking Why is much harder than simply accepting the data you see and reporting it. This is what most analysts do. It's lazy and it offers little value. I want you to take the route less travelled and teach you how to do the work to become "a great" in this business.
I've seen analysts who got paid to produce reports and it's not pretty. One guy once just connected data from an analytics tool to populate a spreadsheet that formed pretty graphs. He sat for an hour eating a banana while the spreadsheet populated and then hit send. Job done.
He was the actual definition of a reporting monkey.
No offence meant to Monkeys. It isn't the only thing though. There is a lot that is hard about this if you don't have a system to put the data into context. This book is a system designed to show how to get started using data.
The MAP
The system is designed to help you find (m)easurable (a)nalytics (p)atterns. The MAP starts with planning where you need to go.
- First you learn about how to set goals and relate that to you business. If you don't know where you are going then how do you know when you get there?
- Once you have the goals set we break those down in a systematic way. Your goal could be more sales, but there are a lot of steps in the user journey to purchasing a product. The MAP shows you a way to do that in a systematic way by breaking down how you reach the customer, how you engage, how you get them to take action and how you nurture them so they come back for more.
- Then we look at methods you can use in Google Analytics to find signals in your data. Points on the MAP that lead to findings.
- The book then explains through the use of 4 actual cases how signals in the data were found using segments and flags.
- Then we tie it altogether in a process you can use to find your own useful information. You learn to ask why.
- Next, you learn how to do it for yourself on active data. We show methods which you can use to get the attention of your peers, colleagues and bosses to become a valued member of any team rather than the data guy in the corner.
- Finally show you ways you can communicate that take you career to the next level if you do it well.
Money back guarantee
If you return this book within 2 weeks of purchasing with a reasonable explanation as to why it didn't work I'll refund the money. Simple.
What they say
For some reason, in my school we covered analytics very briefly even though it’s a vital part of web design and content creation.
I had some basic information about how to harness data to your advantage but this book really deepened my understanding.
With actual examples and checklists I now have a guide where to concretely start my work with data and analytics. (The REAN framework was chefs kiss) The tasks at the end were golden!
I like how simply everything is explained but with facts to back up the reading giving the reader chances to look deeper into each area. The REAN model makes sense and is explained in a way which is easy to digest and adds more ideas at a manageable pace. The case studies were clear and concise and the examples were good.
Overall, this is great and did like the insight into Web Analytics it gave me. If this had existed when I was a student I may not have ended up as a postman!!!
Asking Why is written in an intimate way that is easy to understand for a beginner. It's not too hard to understand for someone who uses English as a second language and I think this book is ideally suited for self-learning people.
The REAN model is very clearly described making it easy to understand how it works. It even lets readers find which Google Analytics metrics might appear in each stage.
The wow! moment of this book is the hands-on ready-to-use checklist that will be very useful. I would encourage readers to read this book first, then move to the Cult of Analytics to go deeper if needed.
I recently ‘tripped into’ the book “Asking Why? A System to Help Start a Career in Web Analytics” from Steve Jackson. It provides 63 pages of interlaced storytelling, observations and high value recommendations for anyone thrown into the job of analysing what happens on the web. It even helps if and where the ‘stuff’ happens elsewhere.
The book takes you by the hand and leads you from a standing start to being able to ask appropriate questions and provide informed answers. It does that by providing a systematic method for identifying the correct business questions to ask and how to use the data at hand to come up with replies and improvements to your situation.
The book is a relatively quick read, written in easy to understand language, and with appropriate illustrations throughout. You will probably want to take time to internalize the ideas, as you go. It is well worth its price.
I really liked how the book included so many real-life examples. They were concise, but had the "how analyst thinks" point of view that this book clearly tries to explain.
It simply goes to show that while tools and technology evolve, the curious analytical thinking will always be a valuable asset.
Part 4 - The Framework nicely ties the book together. It gets to the point where it almost forces you to think like an analyst on a project. A very hands-on approach.