I’ve talked to very few companies that are really, really good at analytics today. Web analytics is hard. - Eric Peterson, Nov 27, 2007 (http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/364547/interview-eric-t-peterson-on-web-analytics-2-0.html)

Eric Peterson is one of my top five ‘must reads’ on the subject of ecommerce because of his logical and accessible approach to the concept of conversion optimization. I do have to say that it is odd to state in an article about ‘Analytics 2.0′ that the vast majority of eMarketers still haven’t gotten value from ‘Analytics 1.0′. This contradiction leads to a pretty scary and obvious question:

Web analytics…

• Is running on every one of the thousands of successful eCommerce businesses
• Is a software (and consulting) industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year
• Is a number one priority and discussion point for any eMarketer
• Is fairly intuitive to use

……so why is almost everyone using it for nothing more than a dashboard, or to track their keyword ROI???

From what we hear in our ongoing dialogue with marketers, they don’t use analytics because they don’t have the time/budget/incentives to action on the things that they are learning (if they have the time and desire to learn in the first place).

Quick example: Most of the prospects/customers I speak to who use Coremetrics or Omniture never take the product out of first gear. They are running entry level deployments, no custom reports, no advanced reporting on campaigns or content. This is because most of their marketing departments are understaffed, and overworked with trying to keep up with keywords, email and a functioning website. Why aren’t they using Google analytics then? Finance wants an SLA in place against the basic revenue reports. That’s it.

Let’s say Joan Smith in Marketing ran a basic custom report and found out that:

• 6 percent of her visitors were from Canada,
• Canadians convert a whole percent lower than their average site conversion.

That’s a lot of money being left on the table. Good analysis at work right?

Joan will examine the options around actioning on this data (.ca website, custom Canadian landing pages, picture of Wayne Gretzky on the home page) and quickly realize that the planning/development/deployment opportunity costs aren’t worth drowning under her already huge workload of tactical marketing work. Report will be dismissed as ‘neat to know’.

Before we whip ourselves into a frenzy over using web analytics to understand interest/intent/desire, perhaps we should figure out the best practices around using analytics to make more money.

-Jim Cain - Sitebrand Sales

This weeks call to action: Do you use your analytics? What reports do you pull, and what do you use those reports for? Inquiring minds want to know.

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