Emetrics Summit - web analytics comes of age

Jim Sterne’s fifth annual Emetrics Summit concluded last week and although I did not have the opportunity to attend, all indications are that the show was the best ever – in fact Jim has been so successful evangelizing the need for better, smarter and more user friendly analytics solution that his Emetrics Summit has grown from one event in Santa Barbara to multi city programs in London and coming this October Washington D.C.

Why all the interest in web analytics you might ask? The better question is why has it taken this long for the marketing community to jump on board the analytics bandwagon. And even more important – do those in the know really understand how to use the myriad of solutions presently being peddled by everyone from Google and Yahoo to countless other providers in between.

As someone intimately involved in the business, I’m constantly amazed when we meet marketers who consider themselves sophisticated users of web analytics yet when asked if they regularly undertake attitudinal web research – an important component of web analytics, the response is something like – “we consider attitudinal research as an accessory to our primary web analytics program”.

How does one respond to something like that. Would love to hear your thoughts.