I like to tell folks that it’s usually best to approach Web analytics with an objective in mind. You might set out to find underperforming campaigns, keywords or landing pages. Then dig a little deeper to form a theory as to why they’re underperforming and test some changes.

But on Monday morning, when I’m still nursing that first cup of coffee, I need something to jump out and get my attention. And that’s a perfect job for Lyris' "What’s Changed Report".

Often overlooked and sometimes misunderstood, the What’s Changed Report is unique in the world of Web analytics . Rather than showing a typical “top 10 list” or even trending that list over time, What’s Changed highlights items that are rising or falling in a statistically significant way. That last part is important because it means that everything is in relative terms. Traffic from Google might rise from 5,000 to 5,500 visitors and not appear as a rising referrer. But Joe’s Blog traffic rising from 20 to 50 visitors probably would appear.

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There’s no configuration required for the What’s Changed Report. It determines this relevance through some complex algorithms that are baked into the report as a sort of “special sauce.” And like most ClickTracks reports, you can add segmentation to see what’s changing among a particular group of visitors.

The best thing about the What’s Changed Report is that anything you find in it can become a segment for deeper analysis. So if you find a new site referring traffic to you, a segment on visitors referred from that site can reveal how long those visitors stayed and what they did on your site.

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About the Author 

Dan Miller is professional services and sales engineering manager at Lyris. He helps companies adopt data driven marketing techniques to improve their ROI.

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