January 12 , 2010

Web analytics predictions for 2010
Webtrends makes five predictions for the new year

Webtrends has announced their predictions for the web analytics industry in 2010.

“As we’ve seen the web progress to multi-threaded interactions across multiple domains, the year of 2010 will be one in which web analytics is re-invented,” said Alex Yoder, Webtrends Chief Executive Officer. “In 2010, we’ll see an increase in adoption of digital marketing, optimization, and real-time analytics, laying the foundation for the consumption and utilization of data that will give organizations incomparable insight into their business operations.”

Over the past 15 years Webtrends has seen many evolutions in the web analytics industry. With web analytics remaining top of mind for the foreseeable future, Webtrends sees much of the focus in analytics over the next year being devoted to integration, segmentation, along with key insights in the social and mobile industries. In 2010, Webtrends predicts the following trends will be realized:

• Multivariate testing and site optimization will cross the chasm and become an imperative for online businesses and marketing departments of any reasonable size. Next generation solutions will leverage proven approaches, ease of use, and expert services to enable this transition.
• 2010 will be the year that integration of online with other enterprise data will take off. Consumers are demanding that companies they engage with take into account their cross-channel behavior during interaction and as we go into 2010, if consumers are not receiving this tailored, informed interaction, they will find a new company to buy from.
• Interactive marketing will continue to gain adoption in 2010, as we’ll see email marketing, web analytics, and traditional campaign management vendors race to become the owners of the “hub” for interactive marketing, along with optimization and analytics.
• 2010 will define the principals for social marketing and lay the foundation for the next decade of marketing. As people recognize that media is still media, and that social is about behavior, the social behavior theory will emerge. Social search will heat up among top search players, thus the nature of SEO will give way to SSO and enterprise social platforms will hit a tipping point.
• Mobile applications continued to grow throughout 2009 and will explode in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, Apple will continue to grow as their exclusivity with AT&T expires next year and Android will accelerate exponentially as more droid phones will be brought into the market and developers will surge at the openness of the platform. This will give way to application analytics that will be generate significant buzz within the web analytics industry