Only fifteen percent of marketers actively use Web site click stream behavior as an audience segmentation attribute said a new JupiterResearch study, “The Connected Click-Through.”
The study also found that 21 percent of marketers are planning to implement this kind of behavioral targeting in the next twelve months, with adoption highest for those that work with e-mail service providers.
Some obstacles in implementing behavioral study into e-mail marketing have been lack of staff expertise and resources, as well as data overload and integration, Jupiter said.
The study found that many e-mail service providers have the ability to append links with identifiers through partnerships with Web analytics vendors. However, many of these partnerships do not offer integration for easy use and movement of data between applications.
According to Jupiter, the majority of marketers that use Web analytics data for e-mail marketing purposes do little more than source site traffic. This only lets marketers embrace the data for directional reporting only, without performing real analytical power.
To avoid overload, Jupiter recommends instituting a data prioritization mechanism. One financial server mentioned in the report discovered that its customers had only four or five behaviors that had a significant impact on its marketing efforts.
In order to best use data, marketers should track immediately actionable behavior with business benefits, like identifying cart and application abandoners, viewers of underperforming products and prospects whose behavior qualifies them as highly engaged, the study said.
The overall finding is that a large return on investment exists for e-mail marketing mailings that leverage Web site behavioral data.
