Survey: Companies Need Web Analytics Education

  • by June 11, 2007
Companies using Web analytics are placing too much faith in technology and people, and not putting enough effort into education and training, according to former JupiterResearch analyst Eric T. Peterson, whose new consulting firm Web Analytics Demystified has just released the results of its initial research.

The "March 2007 Global Survey", sponsored by the Web Analytics Association, surveyed 1,000 analytics practitioners, consultants and end-users, and came up with some results that would seem to leave ample room for improvement:

  • 82% of respondents said Web analytics is poorly understood in user organizations, and that the majority of people interacting with Web data do not understand what it means.

  • 56% of respondents said Web analytics is difficult, despite the majority having at least two years of analytics experience and 23% having more than five years of experience.

  • 50% of end-user respondents said they had considered looking for a new Web analytics job in the past six months.

    Peterson said that while "some in the industry have a tendency to play up how great everything is and how powerful the technologies are," the results by and large were "what we were expecting."

    One of the more surprising results, he said, was the number of potential job-changers. This could be partially a result of the frustration caused by a lack of understanding of analytics at their own companies, Peterson acknowledged--adding that he was also "a little surprised that so many companies still have no dedicated analysts to manage those technologies."

    "As many as 63% work in companies that are understaffed," he stated, "and half of those have zero staffs. No one's responsible."

    Another surprising result, Peterson said, was a discrepancy between how end-users and industry consultants see the situation at user companies, with the end-users actually more "upbeat" than the consultants.

    For example, when asked how companies integrated Web analytics into the decision-making process--strategically, tactically, or not at all--15% of end-users said analytics was fully integrated, but only 6% of the consultants. And 36% of end-users said their companies were using Web analytics for tactical and strategic decisions, but only 16% of consultants felt that way about their client companies.

    "There's clearly a need for companies to reinvest in the process of doing Web analytics," said Peterson.

    Web Analytics Demystified plans to repeat the survey next year, and to release results of a separate survey on features and functions in the fall.

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