It’s been very popular among marketing types to talk about “the customer” but seek metrics for affirmation other than those based on or derived from the customer. Â Web analysts have followed their lead, and provided Marketers plenty of awareness, engagement, and campaign metrics. Â As I’ve said in the past, this is a huge disconnect. Â Does it make sense (analytically) to have discussions about customer centricity, Â customer experience, customer service, the social customer, etc. Â and measure these effects at the impression or visit level?
Is someone who visits or purchases or comments one time really a customer, for the purposes of analyzing “centricity” ideas and concepts?  I think not.  Visit metrics simply don’t work for understanding these customer concepts, because by definition they unfold over time, not as single events.   Add in the fact most web activity is 1x in nature – even buyers – and you begin to realize that analyzing “traffic” yields very little in the way of “customer” insight.
From a Marketing perspective, hey, happy to have the 1x revenue, but these are interactions I’m not really excited about increasing spend on, knowing they will be a one-night stands. Â This is especially true when you also know re-allocating some of the funds spent on the 90% 1x-ers to the other 10% could double company profits!
If you have followed my writings over the past 12 years, none of the above perspective is new. Â What might be changing is this: more people in the online world are beginning to think the same way.