Website design tips for tracking ROI

Marketers frequently overlook opportunities to measure and boost their digital ROI using website data. Here's how you can close the gap between strategy and design.

Sometimes I sit back in awe of all the progress internet marketers have made. Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of thousands of really smart and productive people and businesses, we now have website design tools like personas, measurement systems like Omniture and Google Analytics, savvy agencies eager to redesign the next website, and analysts like Forrester Research to help us along the way. Free tools abound, and website traffic data are cheap and easy to collect. But sometimes we fall prey to our own success. Website data and analytics are a great example of where commoditization can lead us astray.