I don't know if I can say this more strongly….buy Eric Peterson's' Web Analytics books….buy Eric Peterson's Web Metrics books….buy…

OK seriously, Eric Peterson and Gary Angel are going back and forth about Engagement Metrics and I got in the the middle of it!  I already sent Eric my endorsement - I hope he posted my personal testimonial prominently.  More from Eric:

"..The gradual building of context …

Man, it seems like I just cannot get away from Gary Angel lately. He and I are engaged in some kind of crazy mutual-admiration society thing, which would normally worry me, but I know few people as into all this as Gary. He recently posted about "that darn engagement metric" where he expanded on some of my ideas and his response to my ideas and my response to his response to my ideas, etc. One thing Gary said really stuck out in my mind. Regarding my use of the visitor engagement metric to tell a story about the traffic that Marshall Sponder sends to my web site, Gary commented:

"This gradual building of a context around a measure is exactly how I think reporting actually works - and how analysis drives to actionable understanding."

Exactly! The gradual building of context is what this is all about. The reason I've defined a visitor engagement metric is to provide another firm basis for the establishment of said context, another indicator on which we can draw to better understand a dimension or set of dimensions of data we collect."

OK, if I could, I'd put Icons of Eric's books on my blog and then the traffic would go straight to his shopping cart….! Honestly, it looks like the blogs that are most likely to send visitors that buy Eric's books are at the top of his blogroll.  My theory…if Eric puts my blog at the beginning of the blogroll instead of Gary Angel's the conversions should start going up.

Eric's Current blogroll:

Gary Angel  Anil Batra Eric Butler Xavier Casanova Justin Cutroni Craig Danuloff Bryan Eisenberg [NEW!] A. Clinton Ivy Steven Jackson Matt Jacobs Manoj Jasra Ian Houston Avinash Kaushik Mike Keyes Dylan Lewis Pat McCarthy Jim Novo [NEW!] Aurelie Pols ROI Revolution Marshall Sponder Robbin Steif Paul Strupp Ian Thomas

Here's more:

Still, I should probably check to see first that these folks aren't referring me traffic that later returns to the site and makes a purchase, right? I need to roll in a visitor-based conversion metric:

But there's more:

"…Damn.

But hey, maybe it's still not my fault. Maybe even though the bloggers are sending me traffic that hits the buy path, maybe those folks aren't really all that engaged with my site and content. Maybe the visitor's they refer me are just looking at one page in the buy path and leaving, never to return.

Okay, or maybe not. Anil, Matt Jacobs, Marshall, and Clint are all sending me visitors that I consider to be "well engaged" with my site (my site-wide visitor engagement average is 30 percent.) Now I can see two clear action items:

1. I need to reach out to Anil and see if he and I can work out a deal to help further encourage his readers to completing the book purcha
   se on my site. Anil, if you're reading this, call me, we need to talk.
2. I need to reach out folks like Matt, Marshall, and Clint and see if there is some way I can get them to more passionately advocate for my books in their weblogs. Given that their visitors are more highly engaged than the "average visitor", I have to believe their is an opportunity to sell more books.

I am passionate….buy Eric T. Peterson's books …..

Let's see if my theory holds true….if Eric puts my blog on the top of his blogroll, and leaves it there for a month…..I suspect the conversions will go up.  In fact, I think that those bloggers at the beginning of the blogroll….Eric has tacitly implied have more "authority".  So maybe, my engaged visitor with his "authority of placing my blog first- will up the conversions".

Then again, maybe I'm wrong - but let's see what happens.