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You can’t say this about too many markets these days, but Web analytics is booming. Forrester predicts that U.S. businesses will spend $431 million on Web analytics software this year, with the market reaching nearly $1 billion in 2014.
Publishers are no doubt responsible for a good chunk of this spending, investing in a variety of analytics “solutions” to capture ever-more-granular traffic and audience data. But is the money well spent?
Allow me a brief metaphor: Web analytics is a lot like landscaping. Give it the proper care and feeding and you’ll end up with a beautiful lawn and bountiful flora. Ignore it and you’ll end up with a messy weed patch, a lot of overgrown shrubbery, and a few dead spots.
For publishers, digital dead spots and virtual weed patches aren’t just unsightly; they’re bad for business. A poorly defined and executed Web analytics strategy can deliver as much damage as insights. Assuming there’s any strategy at all.
“A lot of companies started with tactics, not strategy,” says Eric Peterson, CEO and principal consultant of Web Analytics Demystified, a consultancy. “Maybe they made major investments in analytics six or seven years ago, got frustrated, switched vendors. Now they’re still frustrated. But if you’re not getting as much as you expected out of Web analytics, it’s probably not the technology – it’s probably you.”
Measuring what you can, instead of what you should...
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