In this post, I want to focus on web analytics, an important and critical skill — and possible career for anyone interested in digital marketing. Contrary to popular opinion, this is not an industry dominated by IT professionals; management and marketing professionals fill 95 percent of the jobs. Despite the name the role is mainly that of an analyst and customer insights-type role. The tagging aspect is something most web analytics managers do not do themselves in large organizations; however, they should know basic concepts and how to troubleshoot issues. Even if you are not 100 percent dedicated to this specialty, it is a must-have skill for marketers. Anyone who does pay-per-click without conversion tracking is professionally negligent and not very management savvy. — yes, that harsh.
Job Analysis for Digital Marketing — Web Analytics
Average years of experience & salary average
(Statistics are based on U.S. non-visa professionals. There are more opportunities for international students with tagging skills than just analysis.)
Three years for manager-level position, and salaries at the range of $80,000 to $100,000.
What is the market size?
Searches for “web-analytics manager’ returned approximately 8,500 results on Indeed.com in August 2017; and a keyword search for the skill “web analytics” in the same time period on the same site returned 22,700 jobs.
A Typical Job Description from a Company
The Digital Site Analytics Manager plays a critical role in shaping the future of our company, providing thought leadership and strategic insights to the dotcom business from a data perspective. This person is a catalyst for continual improvements in business performance, analytics infrastructure and data insights. This person is responsible for analyzing digital data on our website across all our digital experiences (Desktop, Mobile, Tablet). This person will create dashboards, perform deep-dive analysis and identify actionable insights to improve the client experience and optimize business key performance indicators. The ideal candidate has outstanding analytic skills, strong business acumen, excellent interpersonal abilities and a passion for all things digital.
See our MS Marketing Digital Advertising and Marketing Track for details on related courses.
| Skill Mentioned by at least 10 major companies with this job title posting |
Courses See course syllabi for exact line up of skills as not all covered in each instance |
|---|---|
| Customer Behavior | MKT 6310 Consumer Behavior Science and Practice |
| Insights development, Reporting tools | MKT 6353 Customer Analytics and Insights |
| Data manipulation/analysis | OPRE 6332 Spreadsheet Modeling and Analytics |
| Web analytics (Adobe, Google analytics, Coremetrics) | MKT 6352 Marketing Web Analytics and Insights Covers Adobe/Google platforms some instructors also cover Coremetrics. If a non-MKT course, make sure you review the syllabus. |
| Social media analytics | MKT 6343 Social Media Marketing and Insights |
| Javascript, Tagging | No course at JSOM covers this in depth. Some knowledge of this very important skill can be acquired by internships or through self study. The Department of Computer Science in the UT Dallas Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science offers Java workshops. To get started on your own, see 15 Awesome and Free JavaScript Books” on the website Tutorialzine |
Source: Jindal School MS in Marketing program
Associations and Meetups
The Digital Analytics Association is less formal than other associations in that it holds events not monthly but rather once a year at different universities.
Key Platforms
While Google Analytics has the largest market share (free version), a large percentage of Fortune 1000 companies use Adobe Analytics or IBM Coremetrics. A key driver is the fact that Adobe and Coremetrics have a marketing cloud suite of products such as ecommerce (IBM), marketing automation (both) and personalization (both) that Google Analytics does not offer.
Free and free-trial platforms
Crazy Egg (free trials available) is very popular due to heat maps and in-page visuals; Hotjar Basic offers a free limited plan for students.
Major Professional Certifications
- Google Analytics (Basic and Advanced exams) – Free
- Adobe Analytics – Digital Analyst – approximately $360
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.
