Beyond Behavior

One of the most exciting things about being onboard here at iPerceptions is our strongly-held collective belief that attitudinal analytics is on the cusp of reaching what Malcolm Gladwell has called the "tipping point"--that is, we're near the point where we can confidently state that attitudinal analytics is no longer just a niche industry, populated with energetic but cash-strapped boutique firms, but that it is about to become very much part of the mainstream. There is a great irony in all this, however, because one of the prime movers behind the growth of attitudinal analytics and its expansion into the mainstream of market research is in fact its semi-estranged web analytics cousin: behavioral metrics.

Let me explain. When behavioral metrics burst onto the scene in the mid 1990s, it was a veritable gift from heaven for marketing managers and web analysts. All of a sudden, every click could be traced; every user's path through a site could be mapped and dissected; and every visit event could be linked with outcomes, most notably the ever-crucial ROI measurements. Further, site builders could see which pages were causing leakage and at what point visitors were abandoning the site; and who can forget the beautiful, trendy-looking heat maps of web activity? The business intelligence windfall for the industry was immense. The idea that a dollar value could be appended to every click was indeed a revolution in and of itself.

But, in recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that marketers have harvested all the learnings they can from behavioral research, and that the behavioral model itself is straining against the limits of what it can provide. After all, behavioral research had its genesis in the desire to answer this one question: what are visitors doing on my website and what are its financial implications for my business? Behavioral analytics was never conceived to provide answers to that other equally important question: why are my visitors doing what they are doing on my site?

Moving beyond merely analyzing the superficial aspects of the visit--getting under the skin of the web experience, into the soul of the user--is the reason why attitudinal analytics emerged. Our research is the latest iteration in the natural evolution of the process of understanding the online experience. Many are speaking of the integration of attitudinal metrics into behavioral data as the next big event in the progression of web analytics. Indeed, iPerceptions has had discussions with most of the companies that offer behavioral research, and each agrees that attitudinal insights can fill the gaping causal hole at the centre of clickstream analysis. Knowing this, we are confident that the future of web analytics lies in harmony and synergy.