Companies Spend $500 Million Annually on Web Analytics
Spending on Web analytics will reach more than $500 million by 2006, according to JupiterResearch. That includes many smart law, accounting and management consulting firms.
The statistic comes from an article in CMO, a magazine for corporate and product marketers. The magazine says that most large companies shell out significant amounts of cash annually on Web analytics tools.
Refined Web analytics help marketers create a better client experience on professional firm Web sites, and can tell marketers:
- The results of markeing campaigns that involve the Web site.
- How many visitors went to a site shopping cart, but abandoned it before ordering.
- Return on investment, such as the percentage of visitors who signed up for a firm newsletter or admission to a firm seminar.
The article mentions WebTrends, a Web traffic analysis program that I tried and do not recommend. Instead, take a look at what strategic consultant Tyrone Mowatt recommends in his article "Web Analytics: How well are you doing if you can't gauge your progress?" on the LawMarketing Portal.
The point is that Web analytics will tell you how to tune up your Web site so it generates more leads and operates as a real marketing vehicle. In 2002, Royal Appliances relaunched the Web site for its Dirt Devil line. After reading scenario analysis reports from a Web analytics program, DirtDevil.com's conversion rate jumped from 12-15% to 20-23%. Similarly, the president of the custom gift site Personal Creations, spent 30 minutes to an hour every day to view the latest analysis of activity on their Web site. They fine-tuned the site--for example, reversing the order of the billing and shipping pages--and pushed the conversion rates up by 25%.
Tyrone Mowatt will analyze the Web logs of the LawMarketing Portal for the past three years. The site already gets 50,000 unique visitors per month, which I am delighted with, but I'm always looking for ways to improve. Web analytics work.
