Web Analytics and E-Commerce
Web analytics tools have been around for quite some time. As I usually do nowadays, let me start off by turning to Google for a definition:
Web analytics is the study of online experience, in order to improve it. A few examples of web analytics follow.
I’d also like to point out the main providers that exist in the industry today:
There are many others, but these are the ones that I’ve become familiar with over the last few months. Omniture and Google Analytics more so than the others.
I wanted to use the space in this post to say how amazing this software is. Back in the day (like, mid-late 90’s), an online presence would use analytics to track the ever popular "hits" and "bandwidth" usage. Holy crap, have they come quite a long way from that. As they increase in importance to a Website’s success, and even an e-commerce site’s revenue and marketing programs, I think there will be more and more expansion into actually relying on them to replace an enterprise-level reporting package like Crystal Reports or Cognos.
Omniture, for example, allows customers to import data into them such as the cost of a SKU. Now, what’s easier? Tracking online order revenue in one system, offline order revenue in another, or having it all integrated together? The consolidation is key, which is what these shops are focusing their products on moving forward.
The, there is the online advertising play. This is also a component to building an online presence that has come a long way. Tracking how successful, from click to buy, your online programs are is becoming more important every single day for an online retailer. Omniture has an actual product (that integrated with its Web Analytics software) to do this, which is killer. You can track how much your Google AdWords campaign makes, in comparison to people finding you through natural search.
Establishing and acting on KPI’s is key — it’s a part of the "traditional" business world that has yet to really take hold in the "online" business world. I believe this is going to become more and more important as time moves on — especially when the lines between reporting offline and online revenue continue to blur.
This is so exciting! I love watching all of this unfold and taking part in it. Start hiring your Web Analytics Analysts now — they are going to few and far between in the years to come.
