My phone rings every other day at the moment with recruitment agencies wanting to offer me the Web analytics "job of a lifetime".
Anyone with
Webtrends,
Coremetrics,
Omniture or
Websidestory on their CV will know what i mean.
There is a serious shortage of web analytics professionals at the moment. Worldwide.
This is a result of several factors
- Worldwide growth of web "eyeballs"
- Increased tendency to spend online
- Increased tendency to "do" online what you would otherwise have done offline in the past
- Increased pressure on Web marketers to justify online spend
- Pressure from competitors
- Clever advertising from the vendors themselves
and finally not to mention
the ubiquitous Google analytics, which has raised awareness of Web analytics globally.
So why
hasn't the increased demand resulted in an increase of available professionals?
There are several reasons including but not limited to
- Good marketing people
don't always make good technical people. The reverse is also true. You need to be both commercially aware and technically astute to be a Good Web analytics professional. Hens teeth.
- Web analytics professionals are usually
multi-skilled. Often those other skills areas are professional more appealing (or pay better!)
- Web analytics
doesnt always pay the best (but things are improving)
- Web analytics roles are somewhat "professionally
ceilinged". Presently these are new roles with somewhat uncertain career paths.
- Web analytics
doesnt always find the right "place" within a company structure - meaning that being
successful with Web analytics within the business can be like pulling teeth at the best of time.
But I personally believe the main reason for shortages is that the Good web analysts
don't stay in the role for very long and this explains the shortage...Why?
Being able to read and understand a business's web numbers is that important/critical that the Good web analysts are (or were already) being propelled into more Senior and/or important roles within the business.
I know 3 good Web analytics professionals who have all moved into more senior roles at companies like Microsoft or senior consultant roles within the vendors themselves.
Now that explains the problem...
anyone think of the solution!