I have been thinking about it for a while, and new year's time is the perfect moment to get started with one of my resolutions: to launch a "Web Analytics & E-commerce" blog.
Why a blog on Web Analytics and E-commerce? Since my relocation to France from Canada in June 2008, I have been quite surprised to notice how the Web Analytics adoption is behind in France compared to North America and Northern European countries, while France is quite ahead regarding E-commerce usage.
I will use this blog to share my findings and thoughts about Web Analytics and E-commerce, with a specific focus on what is going on in France.
I strongly believe that 2009 is going to be a great year for Web Analytics, since the economic crisis will accelerate the current transformations in the economy:
- the systematic usage of Internet to search for information and prices before any significant purchase in order to find the best deal (online or offline),
- the decreasing efficiency of traditional advertising (TV, press and radio) compared with the new online models (search engine optimization, pay per click, affiliate network, social web, etc.),
- the development of multichannel behaviors (navigation on web site and purchase in store, product trial in store and purchase online, etc.).
In this context, the winners in 2009 will be the ones measuring and optimizing the performance of their promotion, acquisition and retention actions, with whatever media or distribution channel used. Consequently, as we can already assess in North America, Web analytics is becoming a tool to overcome the economic crisis by optimizing the marketing and technological budgets, according to the business objectives and the users' needs on the web sites.
Happy new year!
