Businesses bolstering web analytics with staff and strategy investment

After years of focusing too much of their web analytics budgets on technology, organisations are finally waking up to the need for more effective strategy development and investment in building up staff expertise.

These are the findings of a survey undertaken among 600 companies and agencies by digital marketing advisors Econsultancy and online analytics consultancy, Lynchpin. The study revealed that technology now accounts for only about 30% of most respondents’ web analytics expenditure, down from 38% last year.

Instead, investment on internal staff resources now accounts for about 53% of the total, up from 42% in 2009, while the balance is made up by spend on consulting and services.

Andrew Hood, Lynchpin’s managing director, said: "A recurring theme of previous survey results has been that getting value from analytics is just as much about people as technology. It’s good to see that now starting to play out in terms of increasing investment in analysts from a skills and headcount perspective, but budgets and resourcing are still holding this back."

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