Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
201
Figure 8.9
Last visitor details report
it also shows a number of system-related metrics, which are of less value in this
particular setting. it is not the metrics themselves that are the most important informa-
tion. these are merely a few handpicked metric indicators that you can use to choose
which visitors to drill into.
You would be looking into either random visitors or handpicked visitors, because
of abnormalities in their immediate behaviors. looking into random visitors is not nec-
essarily as useless as it sounds. look at it this way: imagine that you are the store man-
ager of a Wal-mart. You can sit in the backroom and perform endless analyses on the
numbers and never get a feel for what your customers are doing. or you can choose to
walk the floor and get a sense of how things are working around the store. i think this
latter approach is immensely valuable. What you will find on a visitor-by-visitor level
is not statistically significant, but it will give you a much better idea of what people are
doing on your web property.
alternatively, you might choose to handpick visitors based on indicators such as
the following:
l
•
ots of page views, but no action
V
•
ery large sale amounts (remember it does not have to be about negative sce-
narios all the time)
