When people pay you to tell them they are wrong

Being a consultant can be tricky, particularly when you work in areas like analytics, rather than in a strict technical capacity.

Customers want you to come in and tell them how to improve their business, how to make those incremental uplifts in their business to make them look good to the boss.

What they don't like is when you point out a glaring issue that has been overlooked or perhaps misunderstood.

I'm talking about those people who believe high correlations between key KPIs mean they should break out the champers. (people should look at how things are correlated and what the connection means)

I'm talking about online marketers doing a great job spending loads of money on online marketing only to find 98% of purchases are from customers dropping directly on the site or who perhaps are existing customers that would have come to the site regardless of the "lookup" in the google phonebook.

I'm talking about the person who hasn't noticed the big errors firing all over the site when a customer tries to make a purchase.

I'm talking about the designer who seems to actively want you to start the purchase process every single time the customer enters something wrong in the application form.

I'm talking about the people who for the past 10 years have read the wrong number on a chart.

I get paid to explain where they might be going wrong.

I'm not always asked back.

My current questions

Why put content on your website for free if you can make customers pay for it via apps?

Is online marketing popular because its "trackable", not because its actually any good?

Are most online marketing plans really reflective of a good "strategy" or a series of ill connected activities that ensure this years budget gets spent?

How do you measure whether a campaign has been executed well?

If a campaign is connected a purchase it wasn't supposed to, is that a bad thing?

Do some countries have more billboards because the advertising works in those countries or because of lax planning laws combined with the annoying attitude that everything should be regarded as an opportunity?

How do you measure the difference between a link that was clicked because it reflected user intention vs. clicking just because it was there?

If you've got dull/nasty terms and conditions/prerequisites to a purchase, when is best to present this to a customer in their purchase "funnel"?

When should a product define its market or a market define a product?

Is google going to make a lot more money through its new Instant search by showing PPC ads whilst a user formulates their search terms?

Comscore to buy Nedstat

So the consolidation is happening.

Nedstat offers a EU presence to the US company Comscore = EU market & Key customers, less about the specific technology.

Recent success would suggest a resurgent Nedstat. Regardless of the price of their offering, in my mind they will have to invest heavily into the product and services department to make it truly appealing to a wide number of customers (a couple of big deals will leave their current services swamped and unable to provide adequate service).

Webtrends still to go - wh'os it going to be?

What next? I don't think its just the analytics vendors, what about the providers of other services? email? video? etc. I wonder what will be next...