E-Commerce Analytics Requires Some Web Soul Searching First

Bill Bruno, principal at the Web analytics and marketing consulting firm Stratigent, offered myriad tips on how to promote and grow e-commerce operations through analytics in a presentation at last week’s Annual Conference for Catalog & Multichannel Merchants in Kissimmee, Fla.

Chief among those tips: Establish the purpose of your data first — what do you want to know? “Establish the purpose of the Web site and its pages first,” Bruno said. Then once you have that purpose, requirements for your metrics can take shape.