When eCommerce took off in the 1990s, the metric of web traffic was first viewed as the most important means of determining a website’s popularity, as other metrics did not yet exist to gauge online success. 

In a world where more and more companies are basing their business decision on data, strategies based on intuitions are not enough anymore. 

The right analytics tool can help you assess whether a website is actually meeting its objectives or it can be improved and, most importantly, can help refine your strategy. The amount of data can be overwhelming at first and that’s why is important to identify your key metrics, based on your business objectives. 

Discover below 5 tools for monitoring and understanding your website traffic.

What is Web Analytics and Why is It Important?

Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of web data to understand and optimize web usage (WAA Standards Committee. “Web analytics definitions.” Washington DC: Web Analytics Association (2008)). It is not just a process for measuring web traffic but businesses can also use it as a tool for market research and assessing and improving website effectiveness. 

Also, it enables you to understand your audience–their interests and patterns- and creates effective communication strategies based on these findings.

Behind every successful business lies the ability to understand and utilize the data provided by its customers, competitors, and partners.

Web Analytics will help you:

1. Measure online traffic

• How many users do you have on your website at any given time?
• What is the source of your traffic?
• What are your users doing on the website?
• How much time are they spending there?
• Are your users interacting with your website or not?

These are the questions that every business is asking itself. A web analytics tool will help you answer these questions by showing you all the data in an easily understandable way.

2. Track and optimize your marketing campaigns

One of the most important advantages of a web analytics tool is the possibility of tracking and measuring your marketing efforts. Using unique links that can be tracked, you will be able to see detailed reports about how your marketing campaigns have been received by users, what is working and what is not. 

3. Learn about your audience

Nothing is more important than finding the right audience for your products or services. An accurate target group will improve the profitability of marketing campaigns and will increase sales, conversions, and make a website better. Web analytics will provide you with details about your audience, their behavior, and their interests. 

4. Improve and optimize your website

Nowadays, it is more and more obvious that terms like UX and UI design can’t be ignored anymore. Users must be able to find the right content at the right time when they are on your website and with a web analytics tool, a company can find potential problems with its platform and its services. 

5. Save time and resources

Web analytics tools are programmed to analyze a wide variety of data. To be able to see everything you need in a user-friendly way, with graphs, charts, and diagrams so you can quickly interpret the collected information, saves a lot of time but also costs. Detailed analysis provides marketers with useful information for planning more effective advertising campaigns while reducing advertising costs.

How to choose the right tools 

Choosing a web analytics tool is an important step for every business considering that business decisions will be made based on its extracted data. That’s why it is essential to clearly define your needs before reviewing them and choosing the right one.