Common Web Analytics Problems Faced by Enterprises

2021-07-04 00:00:00
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There are a lot of difficulties forming a solid enterprise marketing strategy that is aligned with business objectives. Of all the issues they face, web analytics-related issues are the most prominent as they are the foundation for all digital strategies. In order to develop a sustainable marketing strategy based on web analytics inputs, you will need to be aware of and trust your key web metrics.

Complexity is one of the hallmarks of web analytics. Keeping up with them is difficult for even the most seasoned marketing professionals. The challenges of web analytics could be multifaceted.

Here are some of the prominent challenges related to web analytics.

1.Prioritizing the metrics

Marketers often focus on all metrics available in web tracking and analytics tools due to the abundance of tools available. It is impossible to improve metrics if they are viewed in isolation in specific scenarios.

Let's say you only have two sources of traffic - organic and social. You get x visits from organic search and y visits from social media today. Starting tomorrow, you will receive 2x visits through organic and 2y visits through social media. This increased traffic, however, will not affect the organic to social traffic ratio.

Furthermore, there are several other examples where improving one metric negatively impacts another.

Thus, marketers need to align their metric priorities with what the enterprise is looking to improve.

Don't focus on repeat users only if the enterprise wants to close more deals, and you know users need 4-5 interactions before conversion. Think about the number of interactions, since it would anyways include the aspect of repeat visits.

2. Data accuracy

There are various reasons why getting correct data is challenging, which results in inaccurate performance data. These are a few of the most common reasons for not having accurate web analytics data:

  • Not having a tracking script installed on all pages
  • Analytics tools showing you sampled data results. E.g., Google Analytics would show you sampled data
  • Users deleting cookies resulting their following visit being treated as a new user visit
  • Adblocking services filtering out certain pieces of analytics data
  • Slow page speeds not giving enough time for your tracking script to load
  • Challenges in reconciling website, mobile, and web apps data

3. Data security and privacy

It is your responsibility to protect the user data once you have collected it. Enterprises worldwide are taking user data more seriously due to recent changes to data collection, storage, and usage.

Data security should be a priority for enterprises and take care of their users' data.

The same user privacy concern led Google Analytics (GA) to prevent showing all search keywords in reports. Enterprises that want access to the searched keywords should implement an analytics solution hosted on their networks. GA has good open-source and paid alternatives.

4. Inability to read analytics data

Web analytics is a specialized field. As sophisticated tools like Google Analytics are available for free, many marketers believe they do not need to invest in analytics skills. Consequently, even though they get comprehensive data from a variety of sources, they are unable to interpret it correctly.

The data may also need to be post-processed with the help of special tools. Without executive buy-in, the marketing team won't be able to invest in these tools and analyze collected data effectively.

Suppose web analytics sends you data that includes a field with a user identifier, obviously masked. Combining this data with data from your CRM is your goal. It is difficult for marketing to get it to work without a tool that matches CRM ids with unmasked user ids.

Conclusion

Our discussion of web analytics was only a scratch of the surface and focused on key challenges enterprises are facing today. If you are having similar issues, you should contact us for assistance.

Mandar Thosar
Mandar Thosar
Marketing Consultant and Data Scientist
Mandar is a Growth consultant for SMBs. He helps SMBs achieve their business goals using growth hacking, inbound strategy, and digital marketing best practices. He works closely with the marketing teams to develop strategies, initiatives, programs, and tools to drive brand awareness, business development, and revenue opportunities.

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