Lord Kelvin is often quoted as the reason why metrics are so important: “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” That statement is ultimately the purpose of web analytics. By enabling you to identify what works and what doesn’t work from a visitor’s point of view, web analytics is the foundation for running a successful website. Even if you initially make the wrong decisions, web analytics provide you with the feedback mechanism to identify your mistakes quickly.
Website Measurement – Why Do This?
It’s an obvious question and one that has an obvious answer – but this question still comes up at meetings within organizations where website performance is being discussed. Every business owner/executive understands the importance of measurement, but “why do we need another measurement tool in our business?”
A common fear is data overload – collecting more information just because you can inevitably leads to more confusion, instead of clarity. This can easily be the case if your website is not integrated with the rest of your business – a common problem for non transactional websites. It is important to decide early on a website strategy, what value does web measurement bring to your business. This could be to track and optimize your online ordering or booking process, or identifying problems following the launch of a new site design.
If you website is an important part of your business strategy, then website measurement is also important to that strategy. The more valuable your website is to you, the greater the significance of your web measurement tools. These tools should be used to identify growth opportunities, measure efficiency improvements, and highlight when things go wrong.
Information Web Analytics Can Provide
If you want to do business effectively on the Web, continually refining and optimizing your online marketing strategy, site navigation, and page content (along with how your offline marketing, press releases, and communications interact with your website). A low-performing website will starve your return on investment (ROI) and possibly damage your brand. Of course, you need to understand what is performing poorly – the targeting of your marketing campaigns, poor reviews of products/services on the Web, or your website’s ability to convert once a visitor arrives. Web analytics are the tools for gathering this information, while benchmarking the effects.
You’ve probably notice the word tools in its plural form. This is because the term web analytics covers many areas that require different methodologies or data-collection techniques. For example, offsite tools are used to measure the size of your potential audience (opportunity), your share of voice (visibility), and the buzz (comments/sentiment) that is happening on the Internet overall. These are relevant metrics regardless of your website’s existence. Contrarily, onsite tools measure the visitor’s onsite journey, its drivers, and your website’s performance. These are directly related to your website’s existence.
The differences in methodology between offsite and onsite web measurement tools are significant, which leads to very different results. Even the numbers for the most basic website, such as the number of visitors a website receives or the total number of pageviews, the values can differ dramatically. This is a constant problem for site owners, media buyers, and marketers alike who attempt the futile task of reconciling the metrics. Now for the truth – metrics obtained from offsite methods cannot be reconciled with those from onsite tools. It’s like comparing apples to oranges. The differences can be large, for example +/-100 percent is not uncommon.
To summarize: Offsite web analytics tools measure your potential website audience. They allow you to see the bigger picture of how your website compares to others. Onsite web analytics tools measure the actual visitor traffic arriving on your website. Tracking the engagements and interactions of your visitors. Offsite and onsite analytics should be used to complement each other – not compete against each other.
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great article Darryl!