EightBlack.

Fast foward to the end. This guy I rated a 9 out of 10 in terms of his presentation.

Funny. Passionate. Plugged in. And one very, very smart bastard.

His session was titled “Click The Big Red Button. Tips and Techniques for Optimising Conversion and A/B testing”. His name - Avinash Kaushik. Photo courtesy O’Reilly Media and the Web 2.0 website.

The Google Analytics blog states that Avinash works for them - but let me tell you, Avinash works for himself. I think, as far as I could work out, that he consults to Google and I think he lets Google think that he works for them.

Anyway.

I sent Avinash a note during the presentation (towards the end) requesting a copy of the powerpoint. The content is priceless. He sent it to me during the night which impressed me, but I was staggered with the following words in his email;

I would welcome any additional feedback that you might have. What was one thing you took away? What was one thing that did not come across effectively? Was anything missing? If you have a moment.

Amazing. Here’s a world authority, and probably Google’s most respected guy on Analytics and Conversion, and he’s asking a person he’s never met if they would take a moment and provide feedback.

His blog is exceptional. Register immediately if you have any interest at all in this subject (was a loaded question). If you don’t think tracking, testing and analysis is important and you own a website, then you should move to Alabama, buy a caravan and tell everyone you hate Jesus and see what happens. Trust me - your pain will be over within minutes.

Lets move on then.

Unedited notes:

Tip 1: Segment
Tip 2: Conversion Rates needs friends ie Revenue, Order Size and Visitors
Tip 3: Fall in love with Abandonment Rates (thanks Alex and Perry for drumming this into me back in 2004)
Tip 4: Understand Primary Purpose and Task Completion Rates

One of the great comments referred to is the HIPPO syndrome when it came to designing websites (HIPPO = Highest Paid Person’s Opinion). Sadly, most of the HIPPO’s have no clue regarding site design and there’s only one philosophy you should approach when designing anyway - Test, Refine, Test again.

Let the evidence guide you. Put the emotion away. Problem is this - in the corporate world, it’s 90% emotion and 10% rational logic. And that’s a good company.

Sidebar: We have a client who has spent in excess of $400K on their website. It was built by their CFO (mother of god what were they thinking). When I say he built it, he actually project managed the process. Happily, the CFO was found another position outside of the company, hopefully working for the tax office in a small country town somewhere. Anyway, we were called in because the site was invisible to Google and no one was staying on the site or taking any action.

After 5 minutes, you can tell that this stuff is instinctive to Avinash. It might not excite you. But it sure as hell excites me. This guy could take any website, sit down with the owner(s) and within 30 seconds, be able to make a monumental difference to sales, revenue, opt-in rates, actions, events etc etc. He gets it. And his approach is pure logic. And a little bit of science.

It probably doesn’t hurt that he has degrees up the wazoo. Most likely, he went to College at a prestigious school here in the US and after 15 minutes of his first lecture, the Professor walked up to Avinash and said, “Here you teach this shit. I’m done”.

Or something like this.

Summary:

Analytics and testing are probably the most critical things you need to get your head right around if you have any sort of website. Forget everything else. That can all be outsourced. But you as a site owner need to know what’s happening real time on your site. Google knows this. That’s why they waded into the pool and purchased Urchin. And why they are giving it away free.

It’s also why they hired people like Avinash Kaushik. He gets it. I strongly recommend his book (out next month), subscribe to his blog and drop him a note. I bet he replies.

PS. And by the way, all the profits from his new book are being donated to 2 charities. Bravo!

Rating: 9 out of 10

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