Firms must have internal analytics strengths

Web analytics are nothing without internal resources to understand them, warns WebTrends

Conrad Bennett of WebTrends has warned firms that the money they spend on e-marketing activities will largely be wasted unless they employ someone who can make sense of the resulting reports.

Bennett, who was speaking to IT Week before the Technology for Marketing show in London, said, “One of the single biggest faults we see in e-marketing campaigns is when firms do not spend enough on their internal resources. You have to keep on top of the metrics. You have to have people internally who can look at reports, understand, and make decisions based on them.”

Bennett said that analytics firms had a role to play in this also, explaining that traditionally web analytics reports were just that, a series of numbers that, although interesting, were rarely used.

He said that e-marketing had seen many advancements over the past few years, and added that the tools that firms use to communicate with customers, and potential customers, were rapidly changing. “The challenge is in giving value without overloading the users. Data has to be usable and statistics actionable.”

Bennett will be presenting a seminar at the TFM show in which he will explain some best practices for e-marketing and web analytics.