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Web Analytics Failing to Drive Business Decision-Making

Companies are typically failing to adopt a coherent strategy that ties in web analytics data with business objectives - just 18% of surveyed firms do so - according to the Online Measurement and Strategy Report from E-consultancy and Lynchpin.

More than half (56%) of responding organizations - 434 client-side and 229 supplier-side companies - said they are still “working on this,” and 22% say they don’t have such a strategy.

Just a quarter of company respondents (25%) say their web analytics “definitely” provide actionable insights; 56% say web analytics only sometimes provides such insight:

Spending on technology accounts for 45% of company spending on web analytics, compared with 18% for consulting and services and 36% on internal staff.

“Our research shows that many organizations are under-investing in internal analytics staff and failing to implement a coherent measurement strategy which can help them turn their data into something of real value to their business,” said Linus Gregoriadis, head of research at E-consultancy.

Other key findings:

The majority of company respondents (58%) say half or less of their web analytics data is useful for driving decision-making; more than a third (38%) say 30% or less of their data is useful:

The most widespread use of web analytics tools is for reporting traffic figures: 88% of all organizations said this is an “important use” of web analytics:

The next most important function is to help understand customer behavior - deemed an important use by 70% of company respondents.

The vast majority of both company and agency respondents say a common currency is needed for web metrics: 75% of company respondents and 69% of agency respondents say so.

From the perspective of client-side respondents, lack of budget and resources is seen as the most widespread barrier to an effective online measurement strategy, with 41% of organizations saying so.

Some 43% of organizations do not have any dedicated web analysts.

About one-third o responding organizations are spending less than £5,000 a year on web analytics. A fifth (21%) of companies are spending at least £50,000 a year.

Two-thirds of those organizations surveyed (66%) are using the free Google Analytics tool, which makes it far and away the most widely used web analytics tool.

About the study: Some 700 companies took part in the survey including 434 “client-side” respondents and 229 supplier-side companies (including agencies, consultancies and analytics vendors). Some 77% of company respondents and 74% of agency respondents are based in the UK. The rest are split between Europe (non-UK), North America (US or Canada) and other countries, including Australia, South Korea, India and Israel.