Choosing the right web analytics platform
Most marketers are content with the functionality offered by basic web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, when they first start experimenting with the online medium. As their use of online advertising and marketing channels ramps up, they begin to thirst for more and more data, as well as for the tools they need to analyse it, writes Richard Mullins, director at Acceleration.
To improve their online campaigns, they need answers to questions that entry-level tools can't provide. It's not enough to simply know how many people a banner ad was served to and how many of them clicked through to the website. They also want to know which creative and which placements are bringing visitors to their websites that convert.
They want to understand in detail where website visitors are coming from – search engines, search advertising, banner ads, email or via social media? What paths are these customers taking to their websites? How often does a visitor come to a website before becoming a customer, and do they use multiple sources?
These are the sort of questions that an enterprise-class web analytics tool can answer, but choosing the right platform can be daunting.
Here are few guidelines to making the right choice:
Ratings from independent analysts
Analysts such as Forrester provide ratings for most of the major web analytics tools in the market. It is worth reading their reports to understand the benefits and drawbacks of a suite users are considering, from an independent expert's perspective. It might also be worth chatting to other users of the product to see what their experiences have been like.
Integration with other platforms
A good web analytics platform needs to integrate easily with other online marketing systems, such as ad servers, email servers, customer relationship management, online reputation management and so on, to give users real intelligence about the success of their online strategies and marketing initiatives.
Ability to import data from multiple sources
The suite should provide users with one place to measure, analyse, and optimise integrated data from all online initiatives across multiple marketing channels. The real power of web analytics is unleashed when it is combined with data from sources such as call centres, above the line marketing and sales.
This can provide invaluable insight into how offline marketing is affecting online sales, or how online ads are affecting a business's call centre, for example.
The product roadmap
In a field that moves as fast as online marketing, users want to know that any product they invest in has a clear roadmap into the future. Is the web analytics suite ready today to track mobile, video and Flash engagements in a meaningful manner? How sophisticated are its mobile capabilities, and what plans does the vendor have to improve metrics for the mobile Internet going into the future?
Those questions might not matter right now, but they certainly will in time.
Data analysis capabilities
Users need a tool that has sophisticated analysis capabilities if they are to make the most of web analytics data. Can it track multiple variables and allow them to test how they impact on each other? Can a user easily segment their data according to the metrics that matter most to them? And what sort of drill-down and reporting features does it offer?
Closing words
A few other general principles when choosing a web analytics suite include looking for one that offers easy deployment, flexibility and scalability to cater for growth and change in a user's business, as well as ease of use for the end-user community. However, don't forget about change management and training. The best web analytics platform is only as good as the person who is using it.
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