From ‘Website’ analytics to ‘Lead’ analytics

Filed under: Analytics — Shreesha Ramdas @ 11:08 AM

Web analytics as a concept maybe well known to marketers, but in depth understanding on the subject is still lacking. The pace of adoption of the Internet by corporations and their marketing and sales teams has been phenomenal, providing them with immense opportunities and newer avenues of reaching out to their end customer. This speedy adoption of Internet as a marketing channel has transformed web analytics and the kind of data people look for.

Web analytics initally started as a statistical exercise keeping track of the visitors, clicks on the website and other such variables. The data such derived was only indicative of the Company website being alive, reaffirming the need for its existence. What the data failed to do was to provide any quantifiable or tangible benefits, especially insights – which could be used to build useful strategy or way forward for companies.

The traditional definition of web analytics is undergoing a sea change. Multiple studies show an accelerating shift of B2B marketing budgets to online media with around 80 – 85 % of B2B online marketers being accountable for the results of online marketing programs they manage. The accountability has pushed the envelope for the web analytics world to accumulate, assimilate and convert the statistical information into justifiable tangible returns.

In this high accountability environment, B2B marketers can no longer SPRAY their message all over the internet and PRAY for response from the visitors. ‘SPRAY & PRAY’ techniques of online marketing, are not really a feasible option, especially when you have limited marketing budgets and you are accountable for qualitative results.

The websites themselves have undergone a major change, going beyond the static online brochure of the organization they used to be, they have emerged as a experiential hub for their visitors – with dynamic content and design that focus on the interests of the visitor giving every visitor a very customized experience.

In this changed scenario the old click statistics don’t help the marketer in understanding the visitor or the purpose of his visit. What marketers now need is a VISITOR SNAPSHOT.

Visitor Snapshot can be defined as the insight into the behavior of a visitor on the website which helps organizations and their marketing teams understand the quality of the traffic their website is attracting.

Content Surfed on the website: The websites have grown in volume as the amount of data some of the organization websites carry is huge. It contains content for all types of visitors like

Existing Customers
Prospective Customers
Consumers of their end products
Investors
Other business partners etc…

Since different content attracts different type of visitors looking at the content surfed by the visitors helps one segregate the traffic.

Activity done on the website: The more the interest level of the visitor the greater will be his interaction with the tools on the website. The level of interaction and the activity done by the visitor on the website gives a deeper know-how into the needs of the visitor.

Visit Frequency : A repeat visitor to the website helps understand, the factors that work for the company, features on the website that pique interest and traffic and also what elements on the website manage to engage the visitors for a longer time. Such insights help an organization to add and incorporate features which are user friendly and will drive more traffic to their site.

Visitor Intent : Given the increasing customer expectations and the sheer volume of data available on company websites, it has become imperative for companies to use better tools to define, track and measure the customer experience. Being able to find the intent of a visitor is the next level of analytics, which will define the way we read web data and gain from it.

There is a strong need to improve relevance and user experience for website visitors in addition to integrating such web activity with other forms of marketing communication. This will enable marketers to use actual user behavior data to plan and optimize their visitor engagement both on websites and through other marketing channels.

Such engagement techniques will be based on a deeper understanding of that individual and their needs and wants.

It is time web analytics evolved and went beyond a mere tracking of click statistics to providing  deeper segmentation of visitors and more actionable insights, enabling organizations to continuously improve customer experience, manage customer expectations and gain competitive intelligence.