So here is the thing, every now and then research comes out from an awesome company that helps your business tremendously. In this case, we stumbled onto Adobe’s 2010 Analytics Overview report.

Even though the report is from 2010 I feel like someone from Adobe has been reading my blog posts and compiling empirical data that supports what I have griped about for the past several months: measuring analytics takes too long.

The respondents to the survey reported primary focuses that included online lead generation (42%), selling products via e-commerce (41%), and generating ad revenue (9%).

The importance of web analytics is rising due to the complexity of digital marketing, with 30% of those who use a free analytics tool also utilizing a paid solution to gain better insights from the growing volume of data. The ability to identify trends and patterns that lead to goal achievement will help marketers take advantage of them to create competitive advantage.

Common challenges with analytics

Marketers use a variety of channels within their marketing mix and can access metrics that relate to eachindividually, but not across systems or with the depth they need to find actionable insights. Without depth, the data is too broad and general to be of use for segmentation, personalization, and nuanced refinements that can impact pipeline momentum.

One of the biggest constraints for marketers in their use of analytics is simply the time it takes to filter the data to find meaningful information they can use to make better decisions. Getting to the promised land of a 360-degree view of the customer is also challenging for nearly half of the survey respondents. Without a comprehensive web analytics solution, achieving this view will become even more difficult with the addition of new marketing channels into the mix.

An inability to gain insights from web analytics can result in:

• Lack of segmentation that renders your messaging less effective

• Poor customer definition that makes it harder to add the value necessary for customer retention, up-sell, and cross-sell

• Limited opportunities to refine overall marketing impact across all channels

Don’t overlook the impact these challenges have on digital marketing competence. The inability to perform advanced segmentation may result in your messages landing in the wrong inboxes. Difficulty in the assessment of customer attributes and value can impact your ability to define your best customers as well as to glean the insights you need to attract more of them.

Analyzing new channels

Social media, mobile, and video are playing a more influential role with your target markets and customers as the technology evolves and ease of use accelerates. The interesting aspect of some of the newer channels is that companies may be present within them, even while they think otherwise. Here are a couple of easily overlooked scenarios:

• If your company uses email, it’s likely that your prospects and customers are viewing it on their smartphones. Only 37% of marketers say that they support mobile email.

• Your marketing team may not be using Twitter, but that doesn’t mean your company and brand aren’t being discussed in 140-character bursts. Are you listening?

Marketers must not only embrace these channels to meet prospects and customers where their attention lies, but they must also acquire the capability to measure impact on conversions and identify the paybacks for using newer channels.

Social: Facebook is the leader in social media platform use, with blogs ranking second. Figure 3 shows that number of referrals is the most common measure, but with only 61% saying they have it, there is a big opportunity for improvement. It’s also concerning that brand monitoring is only available to 34% of marketers, when those insights provide foundational footing for social media responsiveness. This accounting of social media measurement capabilities could be why only 21% of the 71% of marketers who use social media are satisfied with their analytics.

To embrace social media programs effectively, digital marketers need the ability to merge social activity with business objectives and optimize marketing efforts in social media channels as they unfold, not after the opportunity has passed them by. Capabilities such as measuring all key areas of Facebook and identifying brand advocates and detractors on Twitter will also help to improve participation and responsiveness.

Web analytics for driving momentum

The 2010 Online Analytics Benchmark Survey shows that marketers are making progress in improving the ways they use data to drive decisions and increase conversion rates. But there’s still room for improvement in the effective use of analytics solutions as more channels are incorporated into the mix.

The survey found that marketers’ top three priorities for budget investment include:

• Acquisition channels (30%)

• Email service providers (17%)

• Web analytics (13%)

Improving the capability for end-to-end measurement across channels will enable digital marketers to gain more from their investments in acquisition channels and email marketing. The best decisions are made with a depth of insight that improves segmentation, relevance, and responsiveness by enabling the refinement of your marketing programs to ensure that they play to the strengths of each marketing channel for optimal results.