Web Analytics Association founded by users, vendors, consultants

An industry consortium of web analytics users, vendors and professional services providers has launched the Web Analytics Association. A recent report from the Chief Marketing Officer Council found that of more than 1,000 companies surveyed, companies that tracked marketing metrics outperformed those that did not by as much as 37%. Yet, “many organizations still don’t realize the value of web analytics or aren’t empowered to take action,” says Jim Sterne, president of Target Marketing and the Association’s president. “The WAA sets out to promote issues like education, advocacy and standards to strengthen and stabilize the growing web analytics industry.”

For example, Sterne says members of the group’s board of directors, while the group was still in its formative stages, testified as industry experts in a hearing on proposed spyware legislation and that their input helped get the use of cookies–vital to collecting analytics data–excluded from language restricting spyware use.

Noting a Forrester Research report estimating the web analytics market–software and services–at $367 million this year, the association has identified 80 web analytics vendors in the marketplace today. 54% of large companies surveyed by Forrester say they expect to spend more on web analytics this year, exceeding projected spending in a variety of other categories ranging from web search technology to customer satisfaction surveys to kiosks.

Yet with industry growth come challenges such as a lack of consistency in nomenclature and standards, the lack of established best practices and common resources, misconceptions driving potential legislative restrictions and other issues. One more need as the industry grows is that of professional training, says Sterne, who notes that a recent check on a tech job site showed more than 250 available positions in web analytics unfilled.

“At this point, you either have experience in web analytics or you don`t, and where do you go to get it?” he says. A goal for the group is to eventually establish a curriculum for professional certification.

The board of directors consists of:
• Seth Romanow, director of customer knowledge management and analytics at Hewlett-Packard;
• Andrew Edward of consultants Technology Leads
• Bryan Eisenberg, co-founder of consultants and researchers FutureNow
• Andrea Hadley, president, NetSetGo Marketing
• Greg Drew, general manager, WebTrends
• Rand Schulman, CMO, WebSideStory.

Advisory board members include representatives of Coremetrics, Omniture, Dell and others. The group is building membership and filling committee positions, Sterne says.