Babies and Bathwater - Re-gaining Business Intelligence Online

Web analytics is a young industry and by its nature, those working in it have arrived from numerous different routes - some from IT roles, some software or web development, some from marketing.

Personally, I fall into the direct marketing camp. It does not seem strange to me at all that within my own company, which deals with business intelligence in its many forms, web analytics services should sit very naturally alongside market research, customer insight and other forms of data analysis.

I spent many years in direct marketing working with clients to understand the exact impact that the position of a graphic on an outer envelope had in affecting open rates; how different propositions and calls to actions affected return on investment; the affect of the same message on different groups or the same message at different times - all with the overall client objective of ensuring that every penny of marketing spend worked as hard as it possible could to make sales and achieve business goals.

So this week, roughly 7 years on from my first fumblings with web analytics, I found myself delivering a couple of workshops where much of the discussion centred around defining the key goals, pinning down measures that matter, understanding what conversion is and how to action measurement to achieve business goals.

And I found myself wondering how the baby got thrown out with the bathwater during the move of business activity online. How come this web analytics industry ever got born, when in so many ways, the obvious facilitators of this business intelligence function were the direct marketing and advertising agencies.

Instead it seems to me that so much of the rigorous process of test, measure, refine that was occurring in direct marketing got overlooked as businesses rushed online. Then when clients caught their breath and again started to ask "how do I know if this is even working" and "how do we make this more successful", those questions were asked to their new media agencies, web designers and online marketing teams who in many cases had not grown up chanting "test, measure, refine" and had to undertake a discovery process of their own.

Naturally, new technology was needed to start to effectively measure performance online - and I know there was a time when even those of us committed to measuring effectiveness, testing approaches and actioning demonstrable improvements online were very frustrated. But this drove innovation and I think the industry has developed to the point that lack of measurement technology is not the issue (except perhaps, as Steve Jackson rightly points out, amongst mobile activity and newer delivery mechanisms). The data is better than it has ever been, in any other marketing medium.

Ironically, the catch up is instead in the "test, measure, refine" mantra and the detail focused, return on investment obsessed culture that lead some businesses to be so successful at direct marketing in the first place. The companies that once appreciated that the choice of a single word, or the careful positioning of a response mechanism could make or break a campaign, are re-engaging with the principles that of course they knew already. But this time championed by the web analytics industry.

I believe it was Bob Chatham of Forrester Research who said at the Emetrics Summit last year that web analytics will disappear as it matures - becoming instead simply "business intelligence". I would agree, because re-gaining business intelligence online by embracing some of the tried and testing principles of offline ROI measurement, data analysis, customer profiling and predictive modelling and combining that with new data sources and processing power available, has the potential to be an incredibly powerful business resource of a scale not yet seen.

(Personal opinions of Vicky Brock)

WAA Scotland, Nordics and England joint activity

Vicky Brock of the Scotland group and Steve Jackson of the Nordics group have been invited by the WAA to join Nick Sharp as co-chairs of the WAA International Committee.

A joint Scotland/Nordics summit took place in a hotel in Edinburgh on a rainy afternoon yesterday, (well Steve and Vicky sat down and drank beer and talked the hind legs off web analytics for a fair few hours) and in terms of development of the web analytics industry ahead of us, I think this is an exciting time and hope that in Scotland we can really share, enjoy and learn from the enthusiasm and wisdom of members in these other regions.

Those Scotland group members planning to attend the London Emetrics Summit in May (3rd - 5th) have got another reason to get their booking in fast. The International committee will be hosting a dinner for WAA members on the Wednesday evening and we would love to see you there!

The US Summit is already sold out, and London is booking very fast - so if you're interested, find out more here: http://www.emetrics.org/html/london_2006.html