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How many key performance indicators do you track on your Web site? Blogger Gary Angel cites one measurement guy whose colleagues had given him 300 KPIs to track. But what’s the point? Web KPIs gone wild is like taking a multi-vitamin: it includes every conceivable vitamin and mineral, even if you don’t need it.

Granted, today’s Web analytics applications are a veritable smorgasbord of tasty tools that let you slice and dice and run reports in so many ways. But unless you have some guiding principles about what you measure, why to measure them and how to measure them, you’ll end up with some very bland KPI stew. 

Gary argues that to control KPI madness, one should apply “functional analysis” to the practice of Web analytics.

Functionalism, as defined in a SEMphonic white paper authored by Gary and others, “breaks up a web site into its constituent pieces and then assigns one or more specific functions and page type to each piece – navigation, motivation or information.”

As Gary writes, once a page type is assigned a function classification (such as engagers, routers, convincers, informers, billboards, closers), the success of a page is measured by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) specific to the functions it was designed for.

As detailed in his white paper, “By categorizing and grouping pages by function, calculating and assigning KPIs makes the failure or success of a page more straightforward and transparent.”

The bottom line? Functional measurement is all about building pages with a purpose in mind; the resulting KPIs should be focused on that purpose.

And that just might give you one tasty recipe to help you avoid bland KPI stew.