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"Analyzing data in aggregate is a crime against humanity."
That's according to Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist (hey, cool title!) at Google. He goes on to say:
Bold statement, but the reality is that a “monolith” does not come to your website. Your site does not exist for a singular reason either. The core drivers of traffic are magnificently different for each core group of visitors. So your website’s really a mix of Visitor Sources, Visitor Behavior and your Desired Outcomes. When you look at all that in aggregate you get nothing. You think Average Time on Site means something. No! You think All Visits and Overall Conversion Rate gives you insights. Nyet! You think understanding Keywords without drilling down to each search engine will be awesome. Non! If you want to find actionable insights you need to segment your web analytics data.
Bold statement, but the reality is that a “monolith” does not come to your website. Your site does not exist for a singular reason either. The core drivers of traffic are magnificently different for each core group of visitors.
So your website’s really a mix of Visitor Sources, Visitor Behavior and your Desired Outcomes.
When you look at all that in aggregate you get nothing. You think Average Time on Site means something. No! You think All Visits and Overall Conversion Rate gives you insights. Nyet! You think understanding Keywords without drilling down to each search engine will be awesome. Non!
If you want to find actionable insights you need to segment your web analytics data.
(emphasis mine)
The only thing that I'd change is that his comments are applicable to all data, not just web analytics data. If you want to find actionable insights, aggregations just won't cut it. You've got to move beyond the cube.
I love that statement! I've simply referred to 'dangers' of aggregation - like squelching important relationhips and Simpson's paradox. Avinash Kaushik gives it new dimension!
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