Interview: Get the measure of site performance

WebTrends’ Conrad Bennett says analytics tools can help firms build better web sites

IT Week: As technical services director for web analytics firm WebTrends, how have you seen the market change over the years?

Conrad Bennett: In the early days only the web site manager would be interested in [web analytics]. The metrics were simple and basic and they were generated in a rather flat way. As web sites became more complex and the internet developed, people started to ask whether they were getting value out of their sites, and we can answer those questions. Ultimately money drove the market – if a web site has cost £500,000 to set up, you want to know what’s going on.

Is web analytics still maturing?

Yes. A lot of marketing organisations have never had quality metrics – the best they’ve got is Nielsen and circulation figures, which [produce] either just samples or generic statistics and the value of these is limited. Our data is not 100 percent accurate but it is a lot [better] than traditional media channels. The market has changed a lot in 10 years but 90 percent of firms are still underusing their web analytics tools because of a lack of time or resources. We are heavily involved in educating the market – we understand the data, know how it works, and can advise firms about what they should be looking at. Some companies are leading-edge but a lot are still not doing as much as they could with their data.

What is the biggest challenge for firms using web analytics?

The lack of time and resources to analyse [the data] and making changes dependent on what is found. This is a very valuable task but a difficult one, and it’s hard for firms to find the guys [to do] detailed web analytics – it’s not a black art but if you have time constraints it can be tough, just because there’s so much data. Retailers and e-commerce web sites are usually good because they have invested heavily [in this area] and know how important it is, but in a lot of companies it’s not seen as mission-critical and can be ignored.

What are the biggest benefits of web analytics for firms?

There is a tendency to focus only on the things that make you money, like the e-commerce sites, but these only make up a small percentage of the total number of web sites out there. Web analytics can focus on the objectives of a site and what it’s for and [then] you can score content to see the value in [different areas] of the site. But you must also think about justifying the expenditure [of designing and maintaining] a site and so we try to tell firms where they’re getting real value from their site.

How important is the role that IT staff play in implementing and running web analytics tools?

About three years ago vendors [of analytical tools] began to sell purely hosted offerings, which moved [analytics] away from the IT department. In some cases IT needs to be involved because in some organisations it owns the technology around the web and that’s where their skill sets lie, churning out reports to the marketing department. About 65 percent of our customers choose the hosted option because it is easier and quicker, with no capital costs up front.