Winning Money Online with Web Analytics

Instead of looking at web analytics as a tool to make improvements to your web presence, you must look at web analytics as what it would cost your company if you ignored its significance. Would I have your attention, if with the use of web analytics it is possible that your next e-mail campaign would result in 50 percent more revenue than your last e-mail. Think of how much revenue your business is losing because you don’t take advantage of web analytics.

 Many companies don’t realize the potential for positive impact that web analytics can have on their business. Often, our ignorance prevents us from acknowledging the potential of web analytics. Companies with defined analytics programs are realizing double-digit growth in new Web site visitors, returning visitor traffic and conversion rates. With growing pressure to make your marketing efforts, more profitable web analytics is becoming more-and-more critical. Let’s say you suspect that your website has to improve its usability. With web analytics, you can measure the effectiveness of your site usability. Then, based on the intelligence you gather, you can make the necessary changes. Due to the improvements you have made you may be able to improve your conversion substantially. As a result, you can measure the value of web analytics in terms of revenue.

The barriers to entry for adopting analytics technologies that can dramatically improve online businesses have never been lower. There are many inexpensive and even free options to start web analytics integrating into your business processes. Web analytics is not about technology. It is much more about people. Before you invest money in web analytics, you must invest in people. People within your organization must realize the importance of measuring your web presence.

Every business with a web presence must build a strategy around web analytics. Our goal is to get the highest possible value from KPIs. According to Forrester B2B, tech companies have realized 500-800% return on a 100K/yr in house analyst. Retail businesses realized 1000-3000% return on the same 100K/yr web analyst. In the early days of online business, websites were built with ill-defined goals and very little consideration for ROI. If you want to succeed online today, you should not spend a dime without commercial benefit. Unless your decisions are based KPIs measure through your web analytics efforts, you are most likely to fail. You cannot compete without knowing exactly how effective your initiatives are. In every business, the focus is on the bottom line, and the same is true for web analytics. Imagine how much more revenue you could be generating by analyzing the proper KPIs. Even better, imagine how much money your business is losing by not taking advantage of web analytics. Today, we have to necessary tools to make decisions based on data instead of intuition. We have to have a strategy to measure success and failure to maximize ROI. Always look at how much something costs. A bad business decision may cost loss of revenue. A business without web analytics will result in continuous bad decisions that is very likely will result in a failing business.

Proactive vs. Reactive Web Analytics

Proactive web analytics is necessary for successful web presence. Everything that is meant to help your business succeed online must be tied into your web analytics strategy. Every web site, e-mail campaign, Pay Per Click ad, landing page, and blog must be measured. There is no improvement possible without rigorous measurement of what is happening to your web presence.

The reactive approach to web analytics equates to running your business in crisis mode. It’s not pretty. You should not make a change, spend another dollar, and start a new marketing campaign without measurable goals. Web analytics is your tool to measure your level of success and failure.

A web presence that does not include a proactive web analytics strategy creates an environment where decisions are based on assumptions instead of information based on data. Such a system is a recipe for disaster. Before your start a new e-mail campaign, you must list specific goals to measure its effectiveness. Once you have set your goals, you must determine your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Then, you have to determine what tool you are going to use to capture the data.

With proactive web analytics, you can quantify the elements of your web presence. The insight you get through proactive web analytics is going to help you understand how all that affects your profit.

Reactive web analytics means that you are waiting for something bad to happen before you examine the data. There is benefit in using web analytics reactively, but the greatest value is in proactive web analytics.  

For example, if you have been measuring the effectiveness of a landing page for your previous e-mail campaigns, you can get a good understanding of what worked and what was less effective. With the proactive approach, you are armed with useful information that can be readily applied to new projects.

Proactive web analytics empowers you to prevent failure, or at least minimize the likelihood of failure. The fix it later, or reactive approach, is most likely to fail because it is always a step behind. The reactive approach to web analytics is the same as putting out fires. Unfortunately, putting out fires results in damage, while preventing fires, the proactive approach to web analytics, avoids damage.