Web Analytics Tools and Web Metrics Tools An Overv PDF
Web Analytics Tools and Web Metrics Tools An Overv PDF
Key words: web analytics tools, web metrics, user satisfaction, business models, survey
of the IT and marketing sectors in Croatia
Received: October 5, 2014; accepted: October 5, 2015; available online: October 31, 2015
DOI: 10.17535/crorr.2015.0029
1. Introduction
The world is becoming increasingly aware that the Internet is evolving rapidly
and constantly growing as more and more users get online. A presence in the
web sphere is necessary for all organizations and businesses. The Internet
provides numerous multimedia features enabling and changing the way
organizations communicate with their customers, suppliers, competitors and
employees [8]. The web sphere has a direct impact on a user's perception of
∗
Corresponding author.
business success [4] and the strategic importance of web context for modern
business. It also shifts numerous business activities towards the web creating in
the same time new context of business models so called web business models.
According to [10], a business model is described as a business method used by a
particular company to generate revenue and add new value to its
product/services. The same author has also distinguished nine basic categories
of web business models such as: (1) brokerage model, (2) advertising model, (3)
model of information agent, (4) commercial model, (5) manufacturing model, (6)
affiliate/collaborative model, (7) virtual community model, (8) subscription
model and (9) utility/ancillary services model.
Within these business models five common goals [10] can be identified:
• Selling products or services online and the measuring the outcomes by
the number of products sold or services
• Creation of potential client databases and measures of the outcomes
based on the number of collected visitor contacts via web sites
• Content publication directed towards attracting as many visitors as
possible and thereby increase revenue from advertising
• Providing information to the website visitors
• Company branding
Without proper web metrics applied to a business model on a website, it is
almost impossible to measure the effects on visitors, hence proper the proper
choice of a web analytics tool is important. On the other hand, gaining insight is
also important, as to what tool is apt for unique user needs. Based on what has
been said so far, the research task is to investigate the following: Web analytics
tools track and improve a user’s satisfaction with web-based business models.
pages, images or PDF files [3]. On the client side, site tagging is carried out
using JavaScript code inserted into every web page and is run and recorded
each time a user opens a tagged webpage. Visitor behavior is then recorded in a
separate file [12].
Furthermore, the purpose of analyzing data (c) is to transform data into
information useful for a decision-making process [12]. In that sense, special
attention should be given to selecting appropriate web analytics tools while
taking into account a company’s specific characteristics and goals, as well as
employing the staff who are competent in “discovering” useful information for
supporting decisions that are based on large amounts of acquired data.
Finally, reports are generated (d) based on selected metrics outputs which
in turn are useful for company management.
Data originating from the Internet offers relevant information on website
traffic, website transactions, server performance and information submitted by
users themselves [9]. Understanding of the web and website optimization
provides a more adapted approach to a target audience with the goal of
increasing conversion rates [12], as well as customer loyalty [4]. Analyzing
website traffic provides insight into the number of visitors, their geolocation,
visitor locations, time spent on websites and other parameters. Web analytics
also provides other advantages such as increasing efficiency and cost reduction
[3]. Marketers can also find web analytics data useful for improving
products/services and evaluating the success of a marketing campaign. In
addition, web designers and web developers use such data for improving website
usability and consequently, website user satisfaction. Web analytics provides
company management with the insight into how to generate revenue from a
website, how to create appropriate user experience and improve its competitive
advantage [6], as well as to support continuous improvement and
competitiveness [12].
The said author proposes a definition of web analytics as follows: the
analysis of qualitative and quantitative data on the website in order to
continuously improve the online experience of visitors, which leads to more
efficient and effective realization of the company’s planned goals. Quantitative
data provide insight into visitor behavior such as the previous web page prior to
reaching the actual website. In addition, the acquisition of qualitative data
provides answers as to why visitors behave in a certain way. Continuous
improvement of online user based on information obtained in web analytics is a
key aspect of the web analytics concept.
Improved business results based on decisions supported by information
gained from web analytics certainly justify further expenditure in web analytics.
Web analytics is not a technology for just reporting, but a cyclical process of
website optimization which, among other things, measures costs, identifies the
376 Ivan Bekavac and Daniela Garbin Praničević
Figure 1: Activities in the web analytics process, Waisberg and Kaushik [12]
Web analytics tools and web metrics tools: An overview and comparative analysis 377
A variety of web analytics tools have been developed and are available on the
market that aim to obtain quantitative and qualitative data as a basis for the
decision-making process, The author [11] has classified web analytics tools into
five categories:
1. Traditional web analytics tools that mostly relied on clickstream data
obtained by the visitors themselves, competitors and data from the
company’s internal sources.
Clickstream data generally corresponds to the question “what happens
on websites” or “visitor behavior while browsing the website” and “how
many conversions have been achieved on the website”.
2. Web analytics tools that track performance on social networks
3. Web analytics tools for gathering visitor feedback aim to answer the
question "reasons for the visitor behaving or not behaving in a certain
way".
4. Web analytics tools for mobile websites with a growing importance in
line with an increase in website turnover caused by the use of mobile
devices. These tools provide insight into visitor behavior on websites
accessed via mobile devices similar to traditional web analytics tools,
and are necessary for achieving compatibility with mobile devices [5].
5. Web analytics tools for experimenting, testing and find optimal
technical or design solutions that should improve visitor satisfaction.
In terms of the process of selecting a web analytics tool, the working team is
responsible for the following [7]:
• Distinguishing whether the company needs to implement either
reporting or an analyzing process in its business model. Accordingly,
certain ineffective tools are eliminated.
• Assessing a company’s temporary IT capabilities.
• Taking into consideration web tool features in line with a company’s
requirements.
Here, the focus is reduced solely to traditional web analytics tools based on
clickstream data within can be used to identify two categories based on the form
the tool is available: first, the software is installed on an organization’s
computers and, secondly, as a service (SaaS - Software as a Service) provided by
ASP - Application Service Provider [4]. The traditional web metrics tools are
available on the market as open source or a commercial package. Each of these
has its advantages and disadvantages (Table 1).
378 Ivan Bekavac and Daniela Garbin Praničević
†
The online source for each presented web analytics tool is found at the end of this paper.
Web analytics tools and web metrics tools: An overview and comparative analysis 379
The wide range of web analytics tools makes the selection process more
complex and time consuming. Accordingly, selecting the appropriate tool should
take into consideration a company’s unique characteristics. In the process of
selecting the web tool, the team using the web tool should consider usability,
functionalities, technical details and the total cost of the tool. In other words,
the market should be studied while focusing on the tool’s features such as the
possibility of installing and deploying software locally, customer support, costs,
data segmentation possibilities, download options, ownership of collected data
and the possibilities of integrating data from other sources in the actual web
analytics tool.
The common features of web metrics including collecting specific visitor actions
and the exclusion of search engine robots that search content on the website
while indexing it. Effective web metrics has to be based on generally accepted
terms, definitions and practices [13]. Web analytics incorporate web metrics,
thus providing benefits for online businesses [14] such as the ability to analyze
and increase sales, ability to track revenue generated by the site, ability to
identify exit pages, and consequently improving website content, the monitoring
of visitor traffic and detection of website errors. The most common types of web
metrics are available as option in web analytics tools as presented in Table 1
[13]:
The empirical section of the paper presents the results of a one-month research
(March 2015) conducted among the employees from 200 Croatian IT and
marketing firms. Employees were asked to assess their satisfaction with web
analytics tools used by their company and for the associated business model.
Therefore, the questionnaire was created using the Google Form option on
Google Drive and was sent out via e-mail. The return rate was almost 54%
i.e.107 questionnaire were completed.
The methodology analyzed the use of web analytics tools and user
satisfaction, and included descriptive statistics, Friedman test, bivariate
correlation and multiple regressions. The software package SPSS Statistics 17.0
software package was used for statistical processing and calculations.
Descriptive analyses revealed that the major part of survey respondents
were male (58.9 %), in the age group of 21 to 30 years of age (73%), university
educated (85%), introduced as users of web metrics for business purposes (67%).
Web analytics tools are used for different purposes by the respondents:
marketing (75.7%), management (36.4%), web development (13.1%) and others
fields (4.7%). The most frequently used web analytic tool was Google Analytics
(93, 5%) with the other tools (6, 5%) being Webtrends Analytics, FireStats,
Webalizer, Tableau, Flurry and ARIS Connect.
When comparing the frequency of using web analytics tool for activities
such as measuring, collecting, analyzing and reporting data, it was observed
that web tools are mostly used for collecting (mean= 3.43) and analyzing data
(mean = 3.75). Each activity also involves analyzing the user’s satisfaction with
using a web tool in regard to proper support for particular activities. The
respective mean values are presented in Table 3.
Mean
Activity
Frequency Satisfaction
Measuring 3.07 3.64
Collecting 3.43 3.75
Analyzing 3.35 3.73
Reporting 2.96 3.52
Table 3: Mean values of frequency and satisfaction with web analytics tools according
to activities (N=107)
382 Ivan Bekavac and Daniela Garbin Praničević
In order to explore which activities that are supported with certain web
analytics tool contribute more to the level of satisfaction with the business
model integration ability, the multiple regression is applied. It was found that
activities such as collecting and reporting activities, significantly contribute the
level of satisfaction with a business model. Table 6 indicates that the users are
significantly satisfied with the integration of web analytics tools in business
models during data collection activities (p=0.035) and the reporting of data
(p=0.065).
Coefficients a
Unstandardized Standardized
Model Coefficients Coefficients t p
B Std. Error Beta
(Constant) 1.821 0.282 6.447 0.000
Satisfaction_measuring -0.009 0.079 -0.013 -0.109 0.913
Satisfaction_collecting 0.188 0.088 0.258 2.133 0.035
Satisfaction _analyzing 0.076 0.083 0.107 0.913 0.363
Satisfaction_ reporting 0.143 0.077 0.220 1.864 0.065
**. Dependent Variable: Satisfaction of web analytical tools integration/models
a.
Table 6: Multiple regression, the business model using web analytics tools (N=107)
The empirical results based on the analysis of data collected from 107 survey
respondents indicate that web analytics tools are well accepted and applied in
IT and marketing companies. A descriptive statistic output revealed that
acceptance of web analytics tools conforms to any other acceptance of
technological innovation. In this survey, younger users dominate the age group
of users, possibly implying that the use of web analytic tools is more popular
among the younger generation [2]. The use of web analytics tools in business
fields, as expected, is most frequent in the marketing industry.
Specifically, a comparison of results points out that web analytics tools are
mostly used for data collection and analysis (Table 3), indicating the highest
observed correlation corresponds to satisfaction with measuring and analyzing
activities (Table 4), and evidently there is some room for improvement in
functionalities regarding user satisfaction in collecting data. The
recommendation is that software companies developing tools should place
additional focus on this particular set of functionalities. The survey has shown
that data collection is the most frequent tool activity and any improvement or
enhancement in this activity could have a significant impact on user
satisfaction.
Moreover, according to the obtained results, web analytics tools are most
frequently used in advertising and commercial models where users also expressed
satisfaction. Additional results indicated that the highest correlation between
the usage frequency of web analytics tools and the satisfaction with such tools is
observed in the brokerage model and in the advertising model. The expectation
was that more frequent usage of web analytics tools in the advertising model
implies a higher user satisfaction. This research has shown that use in the
brokerage model is low, and the correlation between usage frequency and usage
satisfaction of web analytics tools is the highest. It implies that web analytics
tools in the brokerage model are not recognized enough and promotion
campaigns for additional use in the model is required. The results providing a
correlation between frequency and satisfaction for the mentioned activities
(Table 4) and a correlation between frequency and satisfaction in the business
models (Table 5) are as expected.
Finally, emphasis should be placed on the fact that user satisfaction with
web analytics tools used for the collection of data and reporting of activities
improves significantly when such tools are integrated in the business models.
The conclusion that the authors stress, based on the outcome of theoretical
research, is that web analytics tools and the associated web metrics as statistical
indicators of website activity can potentially improve user satisfaction if a
Web analytics tools and web metrics tools: An overview and comparative analysis 385
business model’s website. Regardless of the fact that some of analyzed web
analytics tools and the associated web metrics are freely available, whereas
others are not, it is undisputable that each of the tools can be integrated into
the respective business models. Successful implementation of web analytics tools
requires proper selection given that each website is unique and determined by
the nature of related business model and its supporting technologies. Thus
focusing on the proper either tools either metric, form the basis to strengthen
management support and, that may imply better business results.
The empirical research results based on the perception of web analytics
tools indicate that web analytics tools support user satisfaction on the web of
business models although further modifications are evident, at the technical and
organizational level.
Future studies in this field should include an assessment of web analytics
tools based on clickstream data for web analytics tools featured to track
performance on social networks or mobile devices, as well as tools for collecting
feedback from visitors, and for conducting different testing and experiments.
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