Excuse me; I need you to put down the analytics report. 
Yes, please put it down. 
Why?
Because it is time to stop reading the reports and take action.

I see a common trend in analytics. Everyone is jumping on the analytics bandwagon (which is a great!), but some are slow to take action based on the data being collected and reported. 

The purpose of analytics isn’t to create more reports for everyone to read.  We do it so we can learn and continuously improve. Jason Burby’s comment in his Clickz column really resonated with me. He said, “If you aren't taking action on the data, you're wasting money on the analytics tools and resources -- your ROI is zero!” He is right.

So, why aren’t more people taking action? I believe people hesitate because they don’t have complete faith in the numbers. I can understand where they might be coming from. The web has been with us for many years now, but the measurement of online activities is still relatively new to most people. It is much easier to relate to metrics such as number of packages shipped, customer service calls answered, or advertisements placed. For these items we can actually witness it happening. You can watch your package being picked up by UPS. You can see the phones being answered. You can open a publication and have the satisfaction of seeing your ad in print. Web analytics are much more of an enigma and this makes many people uncomfortable. 

The only way you will truly be comfortable with your analytics program is if you use a reliable analytics tool such as Webtrends or Visual Sciences and hire the right people to interpret the data. Analytics isn’t easy so, bringing on the right people is the real key to a successful program.

Make your analytics program worth something and take action!