A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

Operational

‘web analytics’

Tactical

Strategic

Site or

clickstream

data

Performance

management

systems

‘Management

scorecards

and dashboards’

Customer

response and

profile data

Sales

transactions

(legacy)

Audience data

(reach, characteristics,

opinions)

Lifetime

value models

M12_CHAF6542_06_SE_C12.indd   632

7/22/14   1:41 AM

---

633

Chapter 12  Digital business service implementation and optimisation

So an important requirement of a web analytics tool is that it should seek to integrate all 

these different data sources. The other main requirements of a web analytics tool to consider 

include:

● 

Reporting of marketing performance (many are technical tools which do not clearly 

report on results from a marketing perspective).

● 

Accuracy of technique.

● 

Analysis tools.

● 

Integration with other marketing information systems (export).

● 

Ease of use and configuration.

● 

Cost, which often varies according to  site-  visitor volumes and number of system users.

● 

Suitability for reporting on digital marketing campaigns.

Many online tracking tools were originally developed to report on the performance of the site 

and the pages accessed rather than specifically to report on digital marketing campaigns. It is 

therefore important that companies have an excellent campaign reporting capability, such as:

  1 

Can the tool track through from point of entry to site through to outcome such as site 

registration or sale? Integration with data to reflect actual leads or sales in a legacy sys-

tem should also be reported.

  2 

Can the tool track and compare a range of online media types? For example, interactive 

(banner) ads, affiliates, email marketing, natural and paid search, explained in Chapter 8.