Adobe Omniture’s Brent Dykes recently published a great article titled “Reporting vs. Analysis: What’s the Difference?“ on the differences between reporting and analyzing web analytics data. He clearly defines these differences based on their purpose, tasks, outputs, delivery and value. As others have done before him he recommends to make a switch from the current reporting focussed web analytics usage based on information to a more analysis based usage providing insights.
Some lines from his article: “Reporting translates raw data into information. Analysis transforms data and information into insights.”, ”reporting shows you what is happening while analysis focuses on explaining why it is happening and what you can do about it.”
