Old Mutual has implemented the latest Web analytical tools to help get a better understanding of the 60 000-plus monthly visitors to its South African Web sites and to hone the effectiveness of its Web presences.
The financial services giant has four Web portals. Each one services the needs of different stakeholders, namely investors, individual and corporate customers, employees and intermediaries, with special interests, such as unit trusts or employee benefits, catered for on approximately 90 different sub-sites.
"We wanted to move from site-based to user-based reporting," says Belinda Gaus, Old Mutual's portal manager and sponsor of the Web analytics project that resulted in the implementation of a NetTracker solution.
"It means we can get to understand our customers better and ensure that they're able to easily find the information they're looking for when they come onto our Web site."
NetTracker, developed by award-winning Sane Solutions, and marketed and supported in sub-Saharan Africa and Mauritius by business intelligence (BI) specialist, Synergy Computing, can monitor all activity on the Web sites.
The solution delivers high-level, visual 'dashboard' reports on site activity directly to managers' desktop PCs or enables Web site managers and analytical staff to drill down into specific data such as visitor buying patterns, product interests, content quality so that the site's effectiveness can be evaluated and areas that need addressing identified. "Web analytics is proving to be the difference between success and failure of doing business on the Web, but until NetTracker, analytical solutions have been very expensive and difficult to implement," says Christo Bredenkamp, NetTracker Product Manager, Synergy Computing.
Web site traffic reporting capabilities include customisable clickstream analysis and analysis of e-commerce server data. It enables easy, yet detailed analysis of online activities such as how easily visitors navigate a Web site to get to the information they are looking for. It can also evaluate the effectiveness of banner ads, links, e-mail promotions and search engines. Web data can also be combined with offline customer data that resides in CRM or ERP systems.
"We'll be looking at all the system's different functionalities as we go on," says Juliet van Zyl, Old Mutual's research analyst, "but initially we're focusing on trend analysis to see what the user is doing on the different sites and then using this to refine the site. We're also looking at how long they stay on specific pages and what they look at.
"So far, it's proved to be very easy to use the system - very intuitive - with little formal training required. Business managers are already making extensive use of its high level reporting facilities, whereas few of them ever managed to use our old system."
Old Mutual's previous analytical tool was a static system that was limited to providing fixed monthly reports with no drill down functionality to a detailed level.
"We needed a solution that would give us more flexibility, and could meet our user focus goals. We also wanted something that could be implemented quickly and be easy to use. Out of the four solutions we evaluated, NetTracker was the one that best met our requirements. We're thrilled with what we now have," says Gaus.
"We're dealing with totally different data now and need to understand what that difference means to our Web sites and our business. Certainly the business managers are happy, because now they can see at a glance how their sites are performing. This is expected to result in more requests for in-depth analysis, so that new initiatives can be formulated to further enhance the effectiveness of the different Web sites."
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