The State of Web Analytics in 2002
A new EU privacy directive, a post-crash push for measurable ROI and consolidation among analytics vendors defined web analytics for businesses in 2002.
Web analytics in 2002 sits at the intersection of two pressures pulling in different directions: businesses that survived the dot-com crash need to prove their marketing spend is working harder than ever, while regulators are starting to take a closer look at how visitor tracking happens. Here’s the state of things.
Recession forces harder ROI questions
With ad budgets far tighter than they were two years ago, businesses that once tolerated vague reporting are now demanding numbers that connect directly to revenue. Traffic and page-view counts, which were treated as reasonable success metrics through the late 1990s, are no longer good enough on their own to justify a marketing line item. This is pushing adoption of tools that can tie a visit to an actual conversion, not just count that the visit happened.
The EU moves on cookie privacy
The European Union adopted the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications in July 2002, addressing how cookies and similar tracking technologies can be used and setting the stage for stricter consent requirements across member states in the years ahead. For businesses operating in or selling into Europe, this is the first serious regulatory signal that cookie-based tracking, the backbone of most web analytics, will face real legal constraints going forward, not just public criticism.
Vendors consolidate as budgets shrink
The web analytics vendor market, which had several competing players through the late 1990s, saw meaningful consolidation as advertising and tech spending contracted broadly. Businesses evaluating a new analytics tool in 2002 have fewer stable options to choose from than they did two years ago, and vendor longevity has become a real factor in the buying decision, not just feature comparisons.
Tag-based tracking keeps gaining ground
The shift away from server log analysis toward JavaScript page tagging, underway for a couple of years now, has become close to the default recommendation for any business setting up analytics from scratch. Tagging handles caching and proxy servers better and requires no server access, which matters more as more businesses use third-party hosting rather than running their own servers.
Where this leaves businesses
The practical upshot for 2002 is that web analytics has become both more necessary and slightly more complicated: necessary because tighter budgets demand proof that spend is working, and more complicated because the tracking methods underlying that proof are starting to draw real regulatory attention. Businesses that build reporting around actual conversions, and pay attention to how they’re collecting visitor data, are in the strongest position as both pressures continue to build.
More Marketing Analytics coverage, or browse everything published in 2002.
