A solid foundation is the key to any major success. Start building that foundation with Web Analytics 101, a series of concepts and techniques. Explore the top advantages and disadvantages to four common web measurement tactics in Web Analytics 101 – Measuring Web Traffic.

1. Web Analytics 101
MEASURING WEB TRAFFIC
Four common techniques you
need to understand.

2. History
Since the dawn of the World Wide Web, site owners have been trying to quantify
Web Traffic.

3. Stage 1: 1995-2002
Server-side measurement – count the number of server requests generated.

4. Stage 2: 2002-Present
Client (browser)-side “tagging” is adopted.

5. Stage 3: 2008-Present
Client and server hybrid measurement and Tag Management develop.

6. 1
SERVER-SIDE MEASUREMENT
Browser makes requests of web server to render page, web
server ‘logs’ number of requests.

8. Advantages
• Easy/cheap to implement
• Best option available at the time

9. Disadvantages
• “Hits” not equivalent to “pages”
• No concept of the User, Visit, etc. at the log
level, must be processed to be useful
• Also captures non-human traffic
• Content Caching can skew web log numbers

10. 2
CLIENT-SIDE MEASUREMENT
Browser makes requests of web server to render page, upon rendering the
page activates a ‘tag’. Tag sends data to measurement server.

12. Advantages
• Tags tend to be more reflective of actual “human” behavior
• Caching not an issue
• Back-end processing is typically more sophisticated &
scalable
• Can have multiple tags per page
• Rich JS information can be collected

13. Disadvantages
• Each page must be tagged
• Some tags increase Page Load Time
• Cost of tagging and processing (getting
better)

14. 3
CLIENT-SERVER HYBRID
MEASUREMENT
Web logs and page tracking are enabled, data is combined after
collection in a central storage and processing environment.

16. Advantages
• Useful when the content you’re serving is
different for each customer (only the server
knows the differences)
• Enables “whole page unification” across Ads &
Content
• Very powerful when combined with
Experimentation & Targeting

17. Disadvantages
• More expensive
• Requires excellent data “mastering”
• Lots of storage needed!
• Lots of data skill needed!

18. 4
TAG MANAGEMENT
Tag management puts a ‘container’ on the page, manage tags
from a central server.

20. Before
Without centralized tag management systems.

21. Disadvantages
• Putting a Page Tag on every URL is a tedious
job. Many sites have thousands (or more) URLs.
• Adding, changing, or removing tags typically
requires modifying the HTML of each page…
this is time consuming.
• If you’re manually editing tags, mistakes can
tend to pile up over time, requiring regular
“audits”

22. Now
With centralized tag management systems.

23. Advantages
• Companies such as Adobe, Ensighten, Tealium offer
Centralized Tag Management Solutions.
• Instead of putting code on the page, the TMS puts a
“container” on the page, which calls the tags you
wish to invoke. You manage the tags from a central
server.
• If you have lots of URLs and lots of Tags, leveraging a
TMS can drive tremendous efficiency and fewer
mistakes.

24. Every great analyst needs a solid
foundation of the basic web traffic
measurement systems that exist.

25. Presented by
SOCIETY CONSULTING

26. Connect With Us
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@SOCIETY_CONSULT
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