Web Analytics Association Report on Government and Non-Profit Web Analytics

If you manage a government or non-profit web site, you’ll want to take a look at the research Semphonic recently completed for the Web Analytics Association (WAA) Public Sector Special Interest Group.

 To view the webcast and download the presentation, go to:

http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/waawebcastseries/2009archives/

To download the 50 page report, Tapping the Potential of Web Analytics for Public Sector and Non-Profit Sites, go to: http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/en/art/669/

 If you read my last post, you’ll see that there are changes afoot with regard to web analytics “inside the Beltway” in the form of a review of the persistent cookie policy.

However, there are two findings that stand out for me as being more important than whether the persistent policy cookie changes:

1. Less than 20% consider return on investment (ROI) analysis to evaluate the importance of success events.

ROI doesn’t need to mean direct revenue.  However, in the accomplishment of organizational mission, which is viewed as the overall goal, there are significant ROI opportunities, for example:

• Reducing costs
• Increasing productivity
• Fulfilling legal and regulatory obligations

Let’s look at an example:

According to the research, 80 percent of the Federal government sites surveyed consider content downloads to be a “success event.” This is an action that you want visitors to take. If this content was assigned a dollar value based on level of development effort, or a point value based on relative importance to mission fulfillment, there could be an opportunity to evaluate the relative importance of one download vs. another. This could provide guidance on the type of content that should continue to be developed, and content that might be retired or less emphasized.

2. Over 60% spend only a few hours per week on web analytics.

How can an organization expect to get results from Web analytics if it is spending only “a few hours per week” on the task?  The study indicated that Web analytics is performed primarily by the Web site manager, Web content manager, or communications manager.  Web analytics managers and web analysts comprised only 28% of the responses. So, if organizations are serious about getting value out of analytics, there needs to be a management commitment to funding the task.

After all, if there’s no one to do the analysis, what will be the real impact of a more flexible cookie policy?

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Only 93 days to Semphonic’s X Change – September 9-11, 2009, San Francisco, CA