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As organisations continue to invest in the development of their digital platforms it is becoming increasingly important to justify this expenditure, by understanding the impact it has on sales and business value creation. Historically most organisations have treated this procedure as something of an after-thought to their digital strategy and have not approached it with any particular strategic vision.

The single biggest challenge facing website owners in the past has been knowing what to measure and why. So many metrics can be recorded and measured, but the key is in identifying those which are most relevant to the business. The historical distrust relating to the accuracy and reliability of data still exists to some extent and results in unwillingness amongst many to invest extensively in web performance measurement.

The level of sophistication of site owner’s expectations has increased considerably over recent years. They have become aware of the creation of a range of tools that can report on a much broader range of metrics, and are no longer satisfied with basic metrics such as top line visitor numbers. Measures such as response rates, conversion rates and cost per sale are now deemed to be a more indicative measure of return on investment.

In fact many organisations have seen the value in developing evaluation models that incorporate a range of web related measurement activities including:

Understanding the impact of campaigns

Integration of online and offline data

Benchmarking

Behavioural analysis – surveys, polls, usability studies

For any organisation, due to cultural, resource, process or financial issues, pulling together data is a difficult procedure. But acting on it is even more so. Successful digital strategies today require a process or methodology which effectively utilises data to identify problems, recommend solutions and roll-out improvements. However, it must be maintained as a cyclical process, where actionable recommendations are suggested, implemented and then re-evaluated. Web performance evaluation should not be an after-thought. A suitable approach needs to be defined early in the website design process and be recognised throughout as a major component of the digital strategy.

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