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.
