Web Analytics - Is it Time for Change?

Following an extensive survey of the marketplace, UK-based firm Cognesia are introducing a new approach to web analytics.

The web analytics industry is now well over a decade old and has matured significantly over the past few years. The emergence of Google Analytics has created an entry-level product freely available to businesses of all shapes and sizes, which companies have been quick to adopt. Increasingly, web analytics is being seen by business leaders and marketeers as a ‘must-have’.

Following such an intense period of change within the marketplace, leading UK web analytics firm Cognesia polled a cross-section of web analysts and online marketeers, to determine how well the industry was meeting expectations.

In particular, Cognesia focussed on the following themes:

• How do marketing managers perceive web analytics?
• What is the industry doing well and where can it improve?
• Is web analytics delivering on its promise?

Until now, these results were not made public… and they make for very interesting reading …

Firstly, marketing managers believed that the marketplace was filled with a number of ‘me too’ products that looked and worked in a similar way.

Secondly, they felt that many web analytics tools lacked a true marketing or customer focus… and were either inadequate and/or overcomplicated…

Thirdly, most respondents felt that their businesses were being forced to conform to how the analytics industry believed they ought to work with tools that lacked flexibility.

Finally, many respondents felt that their web analytics solution was only focused on ‘volume’ data, i.e. how much of something has happened, without being able to explain ‘why?’

“The results of this research show that while web analytics is seen as ‘necessary’ by businesses, it has not necessarily been successful in convincing its most important audience… the marketeer. We’ve tackled this head on… ensuring web analytics succeeds as a marketing platform.” Mark Wilding, Product Manager.

Cognesia have achieved this by taking web analytics back to the drawing board, and creating a fresh, marketing-driven approach, culminating in the latest release of Cognesia Explore, a popular
UK based web analytics solution.

“	We expect this release of Cognesia Explore to completely redefine Web Analytics.	”
	Mark Wilding Director Cognesia Ltd

Cognesia Explore has, at heart, a number of important themes:

• A wizard based approach to reporting

• Actionable/exportable visitor profiles

• Visualisation techniques… to help explain data and produce results

• Marketing focussed outputs… such as campaign and content delivery

Cognesia Explore was previewed at the Technology for Marketing & Advertising show in February and the response from marketing professionals was dramatic, emphasising the success of the new approaches. Scheduled to ship to new clients in May, Cognesia anticipate a significant shift in emphasis within web analytics as a result. “We think we have created something which is radically different. We expect this release of Cognesia Explore to completely redefine web analytics.” David Hudson, Head of Sales & Marketing. Existing clients will be given the opportunity to upgrade as part of their service agreement.

This content was modified "post-publication" to use up-to-date company and product names (April 2011).