The Need for Web Traffic Analysis Tools

No matter how you measure it, the growth of the Web is phenomenal. The number of Web users is now measured in the tens of millions while the number of Web sites is now measured in the millions. In fact, the Web is growing so quickly that it is useless to quote growth statistics, as no one can consistently quantify or agree on the actual figures!

Regardless of the actual numbers, it is clear that a lot of time, attention, and money has been spent on the Web by companies wanting to get involved in cyberspace. Very few of them have much of a feel for their payback on this investment. Much of that has been due to the incredible hype and fast growth surrounding this technology, combined with the low cost of experimentation. All one really has to do is develop a Web site and revenues will shoot through the roof, right? Well, not exactly…

The Web is fundamentally different that most other marketing venues. In traditional marketing, it's relatively easy to construct a profile of your target audience in terms of demographics and psychographics. With the Web, however, you don't know much at all about the visitors to your web site - as most visitors are anonymous. They come and go from your site without much of a trace. The more sophisticated marketers try to collect demographic information anyway, so that it can be used to target future content and messages. This is typically done by offering visitors something of value in exchange for filling out a form.

This need to better understand visitors and what they do on a Web site is behind the increased demand for Web traffic analysis software. This software provides behavioural data about visitors, including the types of companies that visit your site, where they came from, and what they do when they get there. As the number of internet users and sites increase, as the number of page requests increases exponentially. Web traffic analysis software can help to draw conclusions from this mind-boggling volume of behavioural data.

The ultimate goal is to combine this behavioural information with traditional demographic and psychographic information. This allows measurement of what people say, how they feel, and most importantly, how they actually respond (which are not always consistent, or even logical). This information is the foundation of personalized one-to-one marketing techniques, allowing a business to target specific audiences with customized products and services that directly solve their problems. We call this Web-mining (i.e. using Web behavioural information as an integral part of your one-to-one marketing).