I’m pretty principled. I block as much tracking as I can in my personal use of the web because what I do isn’t anyone’s business but my own. So, the idea that I have to put trackers on my site is pretty noxious to me, and I have thus far refused.
This isn’t an ad and I don’t want my personal account associated with my business, so no URLs, but I would like to know what you all think: is this something worthwhile that people will appreciate, or am I letting my principles guide me off a cliff because nobody cares that much?
This is right in my wheelhouse. No, it’s not stupid.
The vast majority of web analytics are actually objectively useless. Yes, you will generate a lot of data. No, obsessing over this data is unlikely to lead to making your website better in any way whatsoever.
Thing the first: My personal “business” website (I use this term very loosely) isn’t even dynamic. Yes, Flightless Forge is static HTML. I don’t even use any Javavscript. The horror!
Thing the second: That’s because for my job I manage an online storefront that’s completely bespoke (written by: guess who) and part of the above is because I decided I really don’t want to bring work home with me. We used to use every stupid analytics platform under the sun and over time, one by one, I wound up turning them all off. This is because they’re not only privacy nightmares for our users but also incredibly bloated, and provide all-singing, all dancing dashboards that are veritable avalanches of useless information that management never successfully used to do anything. So I gave up.
The problems with these things is that they make big promises couched in marketing-speak, but there is no actual way to realistically deliver on those results. It’s the Night Watchman problem for the digital age.
There is very little actual useful information you can glean from your userbase other than what pages they went to and when. Especially now, mouse cursor heatmaps tell a distorted story because 90% of your users will be on mobile and will have no mouse cursor. Behavior flow indicators will only tell you what you already know, which is that your users insist on using incorrect search terms and don’t read. Vanishingly little you can do aside from ensuring that no part of your interface is outright broken will actually increase your conversion rate. You cannot actually determine what your users are thinking unless they tell you, and even then they will lie to you.
So my strategy has instead become to make our website work the way I want it to work on a daily basis, by avoiding the annoyances that annoy me. It must be working, because we have one of the highest rated sites in our industry and our clients go out of their way to compliment us on how much easier to use it is than our competitors.
The number one thing that will drive users away from your site and hurt your conversion rate is anything they perceive as friction in your process, because as soon as they encounter the slightest frustration or adversity or even a simple behavior of your interface that doesn’t behave the way they expect it to, they’ll click off and go somewhere else. Nirvana is achieved when you realize that a nontrivial fraction of the “friction” your users experienced was in fact them shooting themselves in the foot by being stupid and you can’t do anything about this. I log what people put in the search box, for instance, and you would not believe the asinine shit they put in there. Your best practices are therefore not to give the user enough rope to hang himself, and compensate for his stupidity at every opportunity.
(And no, I am not telling you where I work.)
I really want to know some of the asinine search’s though.
This, amongst other accuracies in your comment, convince me you know what you’re talking about (my career is in IT so it rings particularly true 😂). Thank you, it’s reassuring to hear that I’m not totally off-base!
Just going to semi-counter argument so this doesn’t feel like a circle jerk.
Analytics are there to help you refine you user flow paths and even refine verbiage to make the whole experience frictionless. With a GDPR style consent banner and a limited and deliberate analytics package you can better fine tune things. Even changing a single word in A/B testing can show results for you and your users. The goal is to make the entire experience as frictionless as possible. Not evil. Just serving the win-win.
Now to step back for a little perspective to counter my counter. Web properties are very mature these days and we all follow the selected patterns. It’s not like the early days when we were trying this all out and “clunky” was the best description. Unless your site is doing something unconventional on purpose with fundamentals like navigation, its probably not a big deal.
Edit: most companies drop in extensive premium analytics. Then once they know the newly deployed site is good, everyone forgets except for make work reporting to execs.
So often I write “elements that follow W3 patterns do not require additional explanation” to try and get people away from their bizarre unexplainable widget.
Do you know anybody that does A/B testing using analytics?
I’ve worked on backend stuff for companies large and small and I’ve never seen the analytics used outside of post-hoc rationalizations of changes that were already implemented
Yes. All the major analytics packages have functions specifically for A/B. Not everyone knows how, even few bother.
Do you know anybody that uses A/B testing to update their website design or content?
I know the tools can provide analytics to support this, but I’ve never seen anyone actually use the feature, except for
Like I’ve seen a/b used to justify a major website refresh that was going to be done anyway, but I’ve never seen it affect the design or wording.
Yes. The smartest clients I ever worked for would A/B individual words. They matter, a lot.
Always appreciate the counterpoint - it is, after all, why I asked! I know I’m very particular about the things I’m particular about, and I know that’s not necessarily true of anyone else. You’re absolutely right about the utility, one thing my prior host’s stats showed was that of thousands of people who visited the front page, only a few dozen went anywhere else, and only 1 got to the checkout page.
The thing is though, I did kinda already know that people were bouncing off the front page; the numbers just showed it in concrete terms. I knew the site needed an overhaul and badly; not only was it not converting, I just wasn’t happy with it. On top of that, I’ve got only one product, with everything needed to purchase on a single page, so there’s not even really that much to track. And, as you say: I’m not doing anything unconventional. Another point against needing advanced tracking.
Thank you again for your comment, I really do appreciate you taking the time 🙏