WebTrends Industry Survey Finds Most Businesses Are Not ``Very Confident'' in Measuring Web Marketing and Have Not Adopted Accuracy Best Practices

Business Wire, June 7, 2005

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Latest Version of WebTrends 7 Helps Bridge the Confidence Gap in Marketing with Accurate and Actionable Web Analytics

WebTrends Inc., the global web analytics market leader, today unveiled initial results from its "Web Marketing Confidence Survey," which polled hundreds of business professionals on the growing need for better accuracy and actionability in marketing performance measurement. Initial results suggest that while many professionals are "fairly confident" in the measurements of their web marketing efforts, few are "very confident" as they have not adopted accuracy best practices and a comprehensive analytics framework.

Conflicting visitor counts and inaccurate conversion rates can make it tough for professionals to act with confidence, and with third-party cookie blocking accelerating by as much as 300% in the past 16 months, web-smart organizations need to adopt accuracy best practices for web measurement, including the use of legitimate first-party cookies, in order to help ensure accurate, predictable metrics on which to base decision-making. When it comes to measuring web marketing efforts, 43 percent of respondents said they were "fairly confident," while only five percent said they were "very confident." Further accentuating the confidence gap that exists in online marketing today, the remainder were equally split, with 26 percent being "moderately confident" and 26 percent admitting to "flying blind."

While industry research has pointed to consumers' lack of understanding about what cookies are and how they are used as reasons for increasing cookie deletion and blocking, marketers also lack knowledge about their site's cookie strategy and web analytics best practices. This contributes to the uncertainty of whether web metrics represent an accurate picture of campaign performance and visitor behavior. Other results of the survey include:

--39 percent of respondents said they have "no idea" what method their web site is currently using to identify unique visitors

--Just 19 percent of respondents utilize legitimate first-party cookies, the recommended best practice to track unique visitors

--13 percent identify visitors by IP address only -- a largely inaccurate method to track visitors and their behavior

--Only 20 percent have a comprehensive set of metrics to measure campaign performance, and a combined 52 percent are still only looking at clickthrough rates or nothing at all

--Few respondents (20 percent) know the "detours" or paths people take when falling out of conversion scenarios, which are critical action points for optimizing conversion rates

"Together, the growth in third-party cookie rejection and the confidence gap in using measurement to optimize web marketing efforts, will drive business professionals to more deeply understand their metrics, which is a great thing in the long run," said Greg Drew, WebTrends CEO and president. "By moving beyond simple reports and flashy visuals, business professionals will focus on what matters most -- the ability to easily make the right decisions in order to improve their results."

WebTrends On Demand Accuracy Advantages

By offering the broadest support for legitimate first-party cookies in the industry and cookie-less backup sessionization methods for both software and hosted, on-demand web analytics solutions, WebTrends helps assure marketers and business managers that their metrics represent the most complete set of visitor information possible. WebTrends unique first-party cookie management solution adheres to the best practices in the industry by enabling customers to retain ownership and management of their SSL certificates -- which is something that many hosted first-party cookie options require handing over management of at additional expense and with the associated risks.

For best practices information and a checklist for evaluating first-party cookie solutions, visit www.webtrends.com/upload/BB_1st_Party_Cookies_FINAL.pdf.> Methodology for Web Marketing Confidence Survey

Five optional questions were asked of business professionals who viewed the "Marketing with Confidence" webcast conducted by WebTrends and available for replay at: http://www.webtrends.com/Products/WebTrends7/AccuracyWebcast.aspx? cid=701300000001MmK. (Due to the length of this URL, it may be necessary to copy and paste this hyperlink into your Internet browser's URL address field. You may also need to remove an extra space in the URL if one exists.)

The results communicated in this press release were collected from May 23, 2005 through June 3, 2005. Full survey results are available upon request. Initial survey respondents represented a diverse sampling, including:

By geographic region:

-- 70% North America

-- 16% Europe, Middle East, Africa

-- 11% Asia, Australia, South America

-- 3% Unknown

By primary site objective:

-- 29% Lead generation

-- 18% E-commerce

-- 16% Content/Media

-- 7% Branding

-- 7% Self-service

-- 3% Intranet

-- 20% Unknown

By role:

-- 22% Marketing

-- 22% Web Developer/Producer