Sign 3: You create these beautiful dashboards, and no one knows what they mean.

Ah, the infamous dashboards that have been defined to include only the most important key metrics, yet you manage to cram in every possible minute detail, making it impossible to read. Pause a campaign, write more blogs, or increase an SEM budget? You still feel like you are flying blind.

The answer: Throw it away and start over.

Refine and redefine your business objectives, and assign a KPI to each. Understand what influences your KPIs, and how fluctuations affect the success of your business objectives. Once this is established, dashboards start to look different and useable.

Sign 4: Your boss is always asking about the number of "hits" your company's website is getting.

This has not been a valuable success metric since the '90s, and it is like nails on a chalkboard to any analytics professional. Potential consumers are not "hits" -- they are people who expect valuable content and a quality user experience when they visit a website. This goes back to point No. 2. Education is needed if we are to evolve beyond basic metrics and start unearthing valuable user insights.

The next time your boss asks how many "hits" the website is getting, simply respond with a smile and say, "I don't know, but since we began optimizing the checkout process, our conversion rate has increased X percent, resulting in an increase in $X dollars last month. Do you want me to look into those 'hits' for you?"

That will likely be the last time you are asked about a hit count.