InsightIQ Blog

Web Analytics for Financial Services

Dec 3 2009

In a previous blog, I had discussed how financial services companies should use web analytics tools. In the past few weeks, I've had discussions with a couple of our financial services clients and found that while many are trying to use Web analytics to address business challenges, they are struggling with some challenging technical implementation issues. This blog will focus more on the technical side of web analytics implementation and offer up some key best practices.

To ease the burden of a Web analytics implementation, you need to:

Set up a unique page name definition for easy site pathing analysis
Finalize highest priority pages and categorize the pages to make it more manageable
Tag all the high priority pages first and focus initially on these pages for implementation
Capture source and page attributes using URLs and parameters
Use tracking codes where applicable for attribution
Use first party cookies as far as possible
Account for rich media applications with tagging
Validate data collection
Validate and audit tag set up periodically

Most financial services firms struggle with the volume of tagging required and the effort required to maintain the tags. Not all pages have to be tagged immediately. Instead, focus on the high priority pages and categorize the pages to get incremental business benefit. Another key aspect is to consistently audit the tag set up and data collection process to ensure data quality.

Have any questions? Contact me at ram_krishnamurthy@csgsystems.com.

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