The use of Web analytics for digital marketing performance measurement☆

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Case study Digital marketing Industrial business Performance measurement Web analytics This study proposes that the benefits gained from marketing performance measurement are determined by how an organization exploits the metrics system under specific circumstances. For this purpose, the authors review performance measurement literature and apply it to the use of Web analytics, which offers companies a metrics system to measure digital marketing performance. By performing an in-depth investigation of the use of Web an-alytics in industrial companies, the study shows that an organization's efforts to use marketing metrics systems and the resulting outcomes cannot be understood without considering the reasoning behind the chosen metrics, the processing of metrics data, and the organizational context surrounding the use of the system. Given the continuously growing importance of digital marketing in the industrial sector, this study illustrates how industrial companies characterized by complex selling processes can harness Web analytics to demonstrate how digital marketing activities benefit their businesses. The role of digital marketing 2 (DM) in a firm's marketing strategy has been expanding in the industrial sector, as evidenced by industrial firms' increasing investments in DM activities, which currently account for approximately one-quarter (26%) of industrial firms' total marketing budgets (Gartner, 2013). In addition to cost effectiveness and changes in customer behavior, investments in DM are motivated by its results being more easily measured compared with those of traditional marketing (Hennig-Thurau et al. As customers are increasingly interacting with companies through digital channels, marketers have realized the need to track these interactions and to measure their performance (Chaffey & Patron, 2012). For this purpose, firms must adopt Web analytics (WA), defined as " the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage " (Web Analytics Association, 2008, p. 3). In this study, WA refers to a tool that collects clickstream data regarding the source of website traffic (e.g., e-mail, search engines, display ads, social links), navigation paths, and the behavior of visitors during their website visits and that presents the data in a meaningful format. The WA data are used to understand online customer behavior, to measure online customers' responses to DM stimuli, and to optimize DM elements and actions that foster customer behavior that benefits the business (Nakatani & Chuang, 2011). Although it is limited to the digital environment, the use …