Web Site Measurement Hacks

Best Practices for Data Integration

Many companies, as they get more experience with web measurement, seek to integrate external data in an attempt to create a unified marketing interface.

Many web analytics reports are highly actionable, but usually the hidden power in web site measurement is the data itself. When combined with other data sources, web data can be used to analyze merchandising promotion gross margin contribution, campaign ROI, and how certain demographics behave on your web site. Web measurement data, when stored in a visitor-centric form, can be used to analyze the behavior of your survey respondents, target your email marketing campaigns, and even fuel your multichannel data warehouse.

Examples of Common Data Integrations

A number of common data integration projects have emerged over the past few years and are worth reviewing to develop an understanding of the value of combining disparate data sources.

Integrate cost data to calculate gross margin contribution.

Many companies tie product cost data to their web measurement merchandising report to analyze product gross margin contribution driven by product category browsing, product real estate placement, on-site product search, and product site tool (such as “magnify”) usage. The potential of this data is obvious. Merchandisers can, at a glance, see how their initiatives are driving bottom-line profit instead of gross sales. With this simple data import, all merchandising reports can be updated to show gross margin ...