There are a slew of surveys indicating that despite the development of great new tools to measure web activity, online behavior and marketing resource management nobody is using them.
Survey after survey documents the disparity between the hype for new measurement tools and the uptake or use of these tools by marketers and agencies. Its clear that if you build it --they won't come. Its also clear that you don't have to measure everything that is measurable and that many of thew new tools measure things that don't matter.
The latest survey to come across my desk queried 700 executives around the world. Titled Online Measurement and Strategy Report 2008, it was produced by e-Consultancy a leading UK web publisher and Lynchpin, an Edinburgh -based data and analytics firm.
The headlines from this study are
- Many companies are under-invested in web analytics -- systems and people
- Hardly anyone (18%) has a data strategy that maps to business objectives
- The free tool -- Google Analytics -- is the most used one.
- Almost half of those surveyed have no dedicated web analysts
- Only 1 in 4 think their web analytics yields actionable insights.
- 58% say half or less of the analytics are useful for driving business decisions
It looks like there are a bunch of companies cranking out tools without much input from or regard for the folks who might actually use them. And while many of the tools seem logical, they fundamentally ignore these realities:
1. Inertia Rules. Changing analytics or behaviors is tough. Most firms over invest in product and under-invest in marketing and/or change management programs.
2. Many Don't Want to be Measured. There are legitimate questions about many of the metrics and measurement tools. And their are plenty of executives that don't want anybody or anything counting or tracking their performance. These guys use a full array of tricks to stave off measurement.
3. Sellers Sell Features. All the hype is about what these tools do not how these tools impact the business. It dices, slices and juliennes but nobody cares and nobody can use or make sense of the data that's collected and processed.
4. Tools Cost Money. Is it any surprise that the most used tool is free? Metrics aren't in any body's budget and the business value, not to mention the ROI, of these investments are mostly theoretical. Rarely do the bean counters rally to this expense, primarily because it often conflicts with their own wish lists or priorities.
5. Ownership is an Issue. Many of these tools cross department boundaries so that different leaders, budgets and priorities come into conflict. When marketing owns it, IT owns the hardware, finance owns the data and sales owns the customers so there is rarely a consensus on direction, policy, process or outputs.
What's a marketer to do; you ask? Outsource. Have somebody do it for you!
The best answer is to use these tools on an as-needed basis by hiring marketing services partners, like Quaero, who have installed and mastered them. You rent the tools and the expertise in the same way you'd hire someone to bring theiur toiols and their skills to remnodel your home. A select number of firms sell access to these tools and put client's data through them in cost-effective ways that sidestep capital or labor investments and shape the outputs for maximum usability.
This is the fgastest, easiest way to get the nbenefit of new metric tools no matter what the state of your politics, policvies or infrastructure are.
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