Now that customers and prospects are increasingly online, using web analytics has become an indispensable part of a comprehensive customer intelligence and <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />CRM methodology. 

Moreover, after customers have arrived at your website - for example, as the result of an e-mail marketing campaign - their behaviors need to be mapped out.

Web analytics is firstly an exercise in defining so-called Key Performance Indicators (KPI´s) as a function of the business objectives. And, just as with CRM, you can only have a successful web analytics approach if you implement the right processes.

Web analytics is a primarily process-driven approach of continuous analysis and adjustment in accordance with the business objectives; in so doing, one goes progressively further than the marketing communication aspects and shifts the focus towards business analytics and business intelligence.

It is therefore logical that, when defining the different steps in a web analysis strategy, one takes a look at existing process and improvement models used for other business activities.

For example, one familiar way of looking at web analysis is the Six Sigma model.

Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control

Six Sigma is composed of two methods, each of which has five steps. The method which interests us is called DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) because it focuses on the continuous improvement of business processes.

• Define: Delineate the objectives you want to achieve with your website or online marketing as a function of business parameters, define the various stakeholders, and acquire as much insight as possible into your (online) business from a customer perspective. Then you organize a meeting with these diverse stakeholders as well as with the web analysis experts you called upon in order to translate these business objectives into KPI´s.
• Measure: Measure all possible parameters which are necessary for monitoring the defined KPI´s. Also gather data from other business systems and other sources that are available within the company. Integrate and combine as much as you can in order to obtain as complete a view as possible of your entire online marketing, your website and the ultimate bottom line: profit.
• Analyze: On the basis of your KPI´s and dashboards, analyze what could be done better and where things might be going wrong with regard to the effectiveness of your online efforts and your website.  Together with the various actors who you already designated in the ´define´ phase, look at what the reasons are for these phenomena, and how it can be done differently and better.
• Improve: On the basis of the analysis and the conclusions you have drawn from it, you take the measures necessary for achieving the desired improvements. Possibly adjust the web analysis process itself if you note that certain shortcomings are not becoming apparent quickly enough or are not included in the earlier-defined process.
• Control: Check whether the improvements and adjustments made have produced the desired results. This is done on the basis of figures and KPI´s, but also by talking to your customers. Explore whether there are new facts that must be included in the overall process.