Measurement - Track behavior, consistently

I'm a fan of measurement. It's part of my practical, "why am I doing this?" nature. So, I tend to write and talk about it quite a bit. What's bugging me recently is the number of folks who either say, "You can't measure [fill in the blank], because the stats are unreliable or something seemingly reasonable. I don't buy it though, at least when talking about internal measures.

If you're trying to measure efforts or outcomes of your operation, all that really matters is consistency. Pick the thing you're going to measure -- anything, really -- and get a benchmark, then repeat to see if you're improving, declining, staying flat. The other key, I'm coming to realize, is that you measure behavior (which, for some reason, I've started spelling behaviour), not activity. There's just to much unknown, particularly on the web, with measuring action/activities. What does a click, or path, really mean? What's the behavior you are trying to cause -- apply, visit, give, register, etc. By taking your measurement to this level, you keep the strategies and tactics in the right place and don't focus too much on the small things.