Web Analytics, Article Review Example

The present article consisting of two parts discusses the basic practices of web analytics as a science and functions of website managers in acquiring visitors for their websites and studying their behavior. The authors state that web analytics is the art of increasing convenience for customers and revenues for businesses. They define the analytics process as defining goals and metrics (they should be complex, relevant, timely and instantly useful for the analyst) first of all (Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity’ 1). Then they tell about collecting data from web logs, java script tagging, web beacons and packet sniffing (Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity’ 2-4).

Data analysis is the next step for web analytics: the authors recommend to start from its basic elements, to understand traffic resources and to conduct the bounce rate analysis and keywords report for more efficiency. They insist on data visualization and advise to look for clusters of heavy clicks first, underlining lack of attention to outcomes of the analysis and stating that understanding customers is the key to success (Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity’ 4-6). Finally, the authors offer some recommendations to make web analytics appealing for usage: they offer to surprise people, to measure impact instead of visits, to promote other employees’ engagement in making data-driven decisions, use the great number of free information on customers and competitors and involve a large number of participants to make it popular (Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity’ 6).

The second part of the article discusses all other aspects of web analytics: the measure of analytics is the multiple outcome analysis – the macro (outcomes measurement) and micro (secondary objectives measurement) conversion analogy. The authors explain benefits of this approach and prove them practically on two examples: photo publishing and sharing website and social media metrics/blog process (‘Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity – Part II’ 1-2). Further on, they give justification for the web analytics framework; it includes experimentation and testing (with the emphasis made on learning experience) and wish of customers to participate in marketing (‘Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity – Part II’ 3). Competitive intelligence is one more aspect of web analytics – competitor analysis and forecasts are essential for a business to stay afloat. The result of the whole process is ‘insights’ – the internal, comprehensive understanding of clear ways to improvement (‘Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity – Part II’ 4).

Works Cited

Waisberg, Daniel, and Avinash Kaushik. ‘Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity’. SEMJ. Vol. 2, Iss.1. 2009. 20 June 2010. <http://www.semj.org/documen ts/webanalytics2.0_SEMJvol2.pdf>

Waisberg, Daniel, and Avinash Kaushik. ‘Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity – Part II’. SEMJ. Vol. 2, Iss.2. 2009. 20 June 2010. <http://www.sem j.org/documents/Web_Analytics_20_SEMJ.pdf>