The Schism in Analytics, A response to Carrabis, Part I

I applaud Joseph Carrabis for writing “The Unfulfilled Promise of Online Analytics, Part 1“.

You need to read it if you want in on the debate.

There’s been a fundamental schism in analytics since the 1930’s – between ‘advertising’ and ‘marketing’, really, as far as I can tell, since Hopkins died and was forgotten.

So when Joseph holds up a mirror to the web analytics industry of course it’s going to be ugly.

Of course you’re going to see a massive, gaping, puss-filled wound running diagonally across the face.

I’m not going to shoot the person holding the mirror. Neither should you.

And I’m not going to personalize the debate, either. I think we might be tempted to boil this down to a difference between two wildly successive authors.

It’s more than two authors. They’re just latest incarnations of that schism.

How do we stitch the face back together?