Web Analytics Year in Review 2010
Web analytics this year became less about focusing on meaningless data reports and more on revenue growth, cost-savings, and improved customer satisfaction associated with data driven decision-making.
Web analytics this year became less about focusing on meaningless data reports and more on revenue growth, cost-savings, and improved customer satisfaction associated with data driven decision-making.
On several accounts the darkest days of the recession are well behind us, and we’re starting to make significant strides in streamlining online business improvements, due in no small part to advances in web analytics.
It’s obvious that today’s C-suite understands the need to shift the emphasis from talking about huge (irrelevant) numbers to quoting net business impact by identifying risks, and seizing opportunity.
The year that was 2010 can really be defined as one of the first years businesses stopped, assumed responsibility for meaningless reports and asked “so what?” from their web analysts.
It makes sense, if you think about it. What does a million page views get you at the end of the day?
It’s much easier to tell a story about revenue growth, cost-savings, or improved customer satisfaction associated with data driven decision-making.
The C-suite now talks our language. They’re able to distinguish the difference between an A/B and multivariate test; keen to ask whether competitive intelligence data is ready for last month; and how online data insights might support offline channels.
The goal is answering business questions, not “data puking.”
This shift of analytics maturity is evident when you look at some of the biggest stories this year:
In other news, acquisitions in the web analytics industry were plentiful this year, especially in the niche social media analytics space. Who were the major movers and shakers of 2010?
One of the strongest contestants has to be IBM, which — one might argue — now stands for “I Buy Measurement” after big blue completed two major acquisitions this year:
Although they weren’t ever going to beat Adobe’s $1.8 billion acquisition of Omniture last year, with over $600 million invested this year IBM sits atop our unofficial leaderboard for biggest web analytics “mover and shaker” of 2010.
As mentioned before, the niche social media monitoring space was also a seller’s market this year, as more startups started asking businesses the question: “interested in trending topics”?
With so many of the biggest brands in the world engaging and investing in social media, it’s no surprise that there is a substantial need to track social media success. After all, anything worth spending money on is also worth measuring.
This is evident after reviewing the sheer volume of acquisitions made in the social media monitoring space in 2010:
Looking back at the Web Analytics Maturity Model, it’s obvious that analytics and service vendors are keen to help you go from being “analytically impaired” to being “analytically integrated” so that soon after, you can take the next step and be an “analytical competitor.”