Chapter 18. Web Analytics

From which web sites did visitors click a link to reach yours? What pages did they access the most and least on your site? On which page did they exit your site without completing a transaction? These are simply a smattering of questions web analytics answer. Web analytics reports shed light on web site visitor patterns, enabling marketers to improve their conversions and lower customer acquisition costs.

Various Internet marketing programs, including search engine positioning, drive traffic to your site. A portion of those visitors will become buyers . What are the prospects doing? No other return on investment (ROI) tracking will lend as much insight into this question as web analytics. WebSideStory's HitBox product line and NetIQ's WebTrends line are long-standing examples of web analytics solutions (see Figures 18.1 and 18.2).

Figure 18.1. This sample HitBox Commerce report shows keywords or ad groups related to the number of orders, revenue amount, number of customers, and number of items, to name a few factors.

Figure 18.2. This sample screen capture from WebTrends Reporting Series, Enterprise Edition, shows the purchase conversion funnel success/drop-off based on phrases visitors used from paid listings. (Organic listings can be added to this report, or viewed separately.)