by Jeff Lawrence

People are often confused when it comes to web analytics. They often ask why web analytics is important, and why they need to implement some kind of program. Some web hosting companies, and IT departments are able to offer basic statistics to marketing and sales if they ask for them, but the results are primative at best. Most clients who we speak with have no analytics in place at all, including many large corporations. When we ask them how they are tracking PPC or other online advertising they respond that they don't know how successful they are, and what the return on investment (ROI) is. Being able to track your advertising expense vs. what you're getting back with sales or goals. Google Analytics has a built in feature that allows you to tag banner ads for example, and then track them via the web interface, culling the numbers to see what your ROI is. Features like these are just one of over eighty features that google analytics offers; features that your web hosting company or IT department can't tell you.

Being able to track why your sales, or leads, are increasing is critical to the success of any company doing business on the web. We once had a client who was pleased to see that their sales were increasing by 10-20% each month after they started an advertising campaign. We found out through google analytics that the source of the traffic wasn't the advertising campaign that they had started, but organic searchs as the result of an intense SEO campaign that was initiated months ago. The client was thus able to stop his spending on that particular advertising campaign and redirect those funds towards another campaign more targeted towards their business. If you have any further questions that we haven't clearly addressed, or just need some advise feel free to email us at info@sonicko.com or visit us at http://www.sonicko.com
About the Author

Jeff Lawrence is the owner of Sonicko Consultanting. This article may be reused provided that the full content is published. Sonicko focuses on web analytics and Google Analytics in particular. They provide Google Analytics installation and implementation, training, and support among other services. Based out of Los Angeles, CA you can reach them at their website: http://www.sonicko.com