Web Site Measurement Hacks

Hacks 68–80: Introduction

There was a time when most web data analysis was done simply to understand the technographics of web site visitors: which browsers and operating systems they used, how much bandwidth they were consuming, which loadbalanced servers pages were being served from—really pretty boring stuff. Fortunately the fields of web measurement and web data analysis have progressed sufficiently that we’re now able to ask truly interesting questions of the data in an effort to continuously refine the user experience online. Still, one should not forget one’s roots, and so, inevitably, there are still a handful of good reasons to turn to technographic data from time to time.

Demographic data, on the other hand, is cutting edge—the idea that you can know not only what your visitors are looking at but who they are, where they live, etc. Many of the recent advances in web measurement have revolved around attempts to tie web and CRM (customer relationship management) data together to create a more “holistic” view of Internet visitors. In fact, there is an often abused notion that the combination of web and CRM data will help companies create a “360-degree view” of their customers, detailing everything about how they interact with your organization, enabling you to better serve and sell to them.

This notion has yet to be convincingly proven. Some companies are able to integrate data [Hack #32] and create a “180-degree view” of the customer and others simply say they do—but when ...