You know what … I read EVERYTHING that Gary Angel writes now - most of the time - he writes on Sunday's.  The current post has a gem - but it's so obvious - if you stop to think about it:

Search Engine Marketing DRIVES the need for analytics

Angel states:

"….For most of these mid-sized companies, it seemed clear that Search Engine Marketing was driving the need for analytics. Many were spending tens-of-thousands of dollars a month (or more) on PPC, and living with the basic reporting they were getting from the Search Engines or their agency. If you’re spending 50K a month on PPC, the upside to analytics is quite large. Large enough so that any of the analytics solutions are affordable. There is, after all, nothing quite as expensive as ignorance!

Since I’ve written extensively about the complexities of picking a web analytics tool, it was sometimes frustrating to deal with the inevitable question about which tool to buy – in a booth, your answers need be as crisp and decisive as 30 second political attack ad. Lots of people are looking (not unreasonably) for a simple answer – pick a vendor, any vendor. But it just isn’t that easy. Most of the solutions out there are pretty darn good. Deciding on the best takes some real understanding of your needs and culture – and a careful matching of that to the right tool.

And this is another real gem:

"Just about everyone I talked to who is doing PPC with an agency is thinking about bringing it in house. That would seem like terrible news for the PPC guys.

Except that nearly everyone I talked to who was doing PPC in-house was thinking about getting an agency! Go figure. "

Is that statement an case of the "Grass is always Greener …." syndrome?

And it's always nice to hear marketers respecting Web Analytics.  Like I said recently (and John Young of Digitas confirmed - see his comment on my post)…Web Analysts are the next Superstars of the Corporate World - Corporate just has not figured that out yet. 

"…Finally, I noticed that while some of the people I talked to seemed to have little more idea of web analytics or SEM best-practices than of ancient Greek, they were more keenly aware than in years past of their lack of knowledge. That may actually be a pretty encouraging sign that our industry is beginning to grow up."

And this statement about Socrates is timeless:

"….Socrates famously observed that he was the wisest man in Athens because he was the only one who realized that he didn’t really know anything. We all know a good deal less than we claim to – and even a good deal less than we probably think we do. And I’m betting that of the people I talked to who weren’t bona-fide experts (and there were some who really were experts), it’s the ones who were smart enough to know how much they don’t know who will thrive."

So maybe, not knowing anything and admitting it to your self is the way to go.