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Remember to define your Web analytic strategy

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Mar 23 2009

Capturing and using web analytics is increasingly becoming a fundamental business tool for IT, Marketing, Sales and Finance.  However, without a clear web analytic strategy, you can easily get lost in the details and not realize the true value.

Below are five starter ideas to help build a plan for success.

  1. Define the goals.  Set clear and measurable business goals in order to evaluate the success of your web analytic initiative(s).  Without goals in place, there is no baseline for determining the success of the current project and improving future ventures.  This may also include determining a few KPIs and flags to help keep a finger on the pulse of your web analytics.
  2. Implement the pieces correctly.  Setting up all the pieces correctly for a web analytic platform is critical to success.  Ensure your page tagging, log files, URLs, website parameters and everything else which feeds into your web analytic platform is installed and operating correctly.  Missing these important details can result in inaccurate data and added cost.
  3. Keep analysis simple (at the start).  When first implementing a web analytics platform, start your analysis at the macro level.  For instance, measure the number of visitors, where your visitors are coming from, and what your visitors are doing.  Compare this information to the goals which were defined for the initiative.  Are your customers demonstrating the intended behavior on your site?  Keeping analysis simple at the start will assist your team in overcoming the learning curve and prepare them for more targeted and sophisticated models.
  4. Determine ownership.  Decide which department or team within your business will own the web analytic platform and steer the strategy going forward.  Ideally, there should be a leader within this group who truly understands web data, how to act on it, and to whom the relevant information shall be delivered.
  5. Deliver the right information.  Web analytic data is extremely rich and overflowing with details.  This is great for the IT or marketing teams but may not be relevant to your executives.  Target reports to the correct audience within your business who can best act on the specific information.  What your executives need to steer the business differs from what the IT team requires.  Cluttering your employees with hundreds of irrelevant reports will only lead to confusion and poor user adoption.

When implementing a new web analytic platform, it is tempting to jump directly into the flashy reports and dashboards.  However, overlooking the planning and necessary strategy decisions can lead your business down the wrong path.  A simple, clear and actionable approach will position your business well for web analytics victory.

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