Musicians Make the Best Web Analysts

Music is Math, Web Analytics is Music to my Ears

Gottfried Leibniz once wrote: “Music is an exercise in arithmetic secret, and who gives it ignores that handles numbers “

Are you a musician? Do you read music? As a musician you have a unique opportunity for understanding mathematical ideas such as symmetry, spatial relationships, distance, proportion, movement, and opposing side events, cause and effect, symbolic thought and more.

Music shows the repetition and variance, and enhances the concepts of division, addition, inclusion, resolution, gravity and motion. References about the interaction between mathematics and music can be found here, there, and everywhere.

The interaction between mathematics and Music from the time of the Pythagoreans to the 20th century are alive in the new field of web analytics.  Todays web analysts speak in bounce rates, exit pages, quality score, time on page, unique users, SERP’s and so on.

The relationship between music and math is clear. What amazes me most, the relationship between web analytics reports and musical scores.

Depending on the volume of information we want to process, the level of segmentation we need to study, the intersection of data with which we work, the availability of this information relative to time concerned, and obviously the metrics we need for decisions.

Well, that basically equals a firehouse of data to the face. The trick is not to let a dram of this goodly good information go to waste.

I import and export data,  reading my charts and formulas for ratios and signs the sands have shifted in some demonstrable way.

Reading the orchestral score and listening to 30 musicians all at once, pointing to the one violin out of tune or out of time, is like floating in the myriads of numbers and charts, living in the matrix and divining instant understanding of what keyword, landing page, bid amount or social media channel needs a tweak.

When processing volumes of information from websites with thousands of unique users, and companies that sell many products, to analyze the impact of your website in real time, is much harder, and to detect problems within the day after thousands of unique users that might involve thousands of dollars in losses, makes seeing the trends in the data all that more critical.

Every business has its vision and objectives, and analytics are the portal to the goals.

We are slowly creating a culture of analysis. Web analytic professionals believe they are advancing the needs of business and this is the way forward. Just like the poet, you need him and you know it. [thanks Bruce Cockburn, Stealing Fire]

Too many major corporations are not digging into the data and potential learnings that will propel their sales into the next stratosphere. Market immaturity is part of the reason more CMO’s are not communicating the need to invest in Web Analytics.

Displaying the next generation of web analytic tools and preparing companies to understand that web analytics is not vital, but essential in the life cycle of an online business. Measure, optimize and measure again to increase ROI though Web Analytics. Companies need professionals who know how to analyze and understand user behavior to optimize conversion rates and grow.

I suggest hiring a musician to help you with your web analytics

Tags: analytics, waa, web analytics, website analytics

This entry was posted on December 26, 2009 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Commentary & Analysis, SEO Analysis, Search Marketing PPC, Social Media Metrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.