Computing technologies have become a fundamental part of modern business strategies. This is, in part, due to the tremendous popularity of online communication platforms. The Internet and the Fourth Industrial Revolution have made it very simple for companies to grow their brand, connect with customers as well as promote their products or services. These businesses have the ability to do this while standing out from the competition – which is more difficult than ever before. Luckily, data and web analytics have given organisations a viable method for turning digital audiences into customers, subscribers in addition to advocates for positive change.
There is a fundamental distinction between two types of data: qualitative and quantitative. We term data ‘quantitative’ if it is in a numerical format and it is ‘qualitative’ if it is not.
Quantitative Data
The term ‘quantitative data’ refers to measures of values or counts. This data is expressed as numbers. Quantitative data is information about numerical variables, for example:
- How many
- How much
- How often.
Quantitative data is collected by web analytics software. If the software has been set up correctly, data can be extracted from a number of sources such as:
- Websites and blogs
- Social platforms
- Mobile applications
- Email marketing emails
‘Quantitative analytics’ refers to the action of looking at actual numbers. Savvy digital marketers use this process to get hard data on how people actually behave
Qualitative Data
It is not possible for qualitative data to be expressed in terms of a number. Data that represents nominal scales – such as gender, socio-economic status and religious preference – is usually considered to be qualitative in nature.
The term ‘qualitative analytics’ refers to the methods which are generally used for qualitative research. It includes the analysis of:
- Context
- Human behaviour
- Emotions
- Other factors that are hard to digitise without losing any meaning.
All prominent web analytics software have superb quantitative analytics capabilities. They can easily, yet precisely, give information such as:
- The number of users who paid a visit to the site for the period
- Geographic locations from which the site was accessed,
- Time period for which user stayed on the website
The primary methods for collecting qualitative data are:
- Individual interviews
- Focus groups
- Observations
- Action Research
- Online monitoring tools
- Online surveys
What Is Clickstream Data?
On a website, clickstream analysis (also called clickstream analytics) is the process of collecting, analysing and reporting aggregate data about which pages a website visitor visits and in what order. The path the visitor takes through a website is called the clickstream.
A clickstream is the digital record that follows the paths users take on the Internet. Common activities represented in a clickstream can be web pages viewed, the order in which those pages were viewed, time spent on each page and which parts of the screen visitors clicked within each page, to name a few.
Clickstreams are generally tracked to help understand users, from capturing and analysing consumer habits to monitoring productivity at work.
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