Analysis Exchange Magnificent Mentor - Jim Snyder
If you are an experienced web analyst and are looking for a way to give back to the community, the Analysis Exchange is a great place for you to help both the web analytics community and the nonprofit community at the same time! While doing a project with the Analysis Exchange, you will also have the opportunity to help train a web analyst looking to gain hands-on experience and help a nonprofit find ways to improve their website.
This week, we had the opportunity to hear from Jim Snyder, a first time mentor in the Analysis Exchange. Jim just completed a project with The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP), a nonprofit whose website provides health practitioners and the general public evidence-based information on the broad range of topics that make up reproductive health. In a brief interview, Jim has shared with us his experiences with the Analysis Exchange.
AE: How did you first hear about the Analysis Exchange?
Jim: The Exchange was recommended to me from a colleague of mine at my company - Empirical Path. I had also heard a bit more on the Exchange from Eric Peterson at a Web Analytics Wednesday event recently in Atlanta.
AE: What was your primary driver for doing an Analysis Exchange project?
Jim: I really liked the idea and simplicity of the Analysis Exchange in the ability to provide insights in just a limited amount of time. I was intrigued by the idea of showing the impact of web analytics in just under 5 hours. Mainly I wanted to donate a some effort to the web analytics community and to nonprofits to show the kinds of powerful insights that can be achieved in bringing together key decision makers and resources that enable the ability to make recommendations that can really make an impact to the organization and the community the NP is supporting that can benefit from these insights.
AE: Was there a driver for the Nonprofit that you chose?
Jim: The nonprofit I worked with - The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP) had used Google Analytics (GA) for several years to track its website but was challenged on how best to glean and interpret results from the GA reporting or how best to present these insights to others in the organization. The ARHP marketing group partly wanted to be able to report up “braggable nuggets” of information to funders as well as “what is the basic story of the ARPH site”. But they also wanted to find insights that could help them better present content to visitors and to improve the relative performance of its website. These are very typical questions from many web analytics engagements I work on!
AE: How much of a time commitment was the AE project?
Jim: The time was very manageable and was indeed limited to just the 5 hours. From my perspective the bulk of my time was really just in organizing the group and focusing attention to some tactical tasks to achieve the insights they desired. It was really helpful to have a student to work with as well.
AE: What was the biggest benefit to the nonprofit from your project?
Jim: The biggest benefit was the insights gleaned from website analytics that identified the key drivers of site activity. Not only exposing ‘what happened’ on the site and what were the successes but also more importantly identifying factors that led to successes on the site and how to make improvements. As example here were some takeaways:AE: Any final thoughts?
Jim: I would strongly encourage other potential mentors to participate in the Analysis Exchange. I think it’s a great opportunity to help out non-profits as well as to contribute and grow the web analytics community.
As part of the Analysis Exchange evaluation process at the end of each project, the mentor, the student, and the nonprofit all have a chance to let others know what caliber of people future nonprofits can expect on their projects. Here you can see how pleased the ARHP team was to have him as a part of the project:
“Jim was fantastic on our project. He was eager to help and jumped right in on our first call. He did a great job of guiding and directing the project. He is friendly and approachable and made it very easy to ask beginner questions. He clearly has an immense knowledge of Google Analytics. We are very grateful for his generous sharing of time and expertise. ”
“Jim was the leading force for the project and superior mentor. He led the introductory session, outlined the framework for the project and the final output. I had a separate session with Jim discussing our findings. And we collaborated on the final presentation.”
Great work, Jim!! Thanks for participating!!
About Empirical Path: Empirical Path is a web analytics and market research and campaign measurement consultancy . We’re a certified company partner with Google Analytics, Webtrends and Yahoo! Analytics. We also are an inaugural member of the Google for Nonprofits Marketplace
