Web Analytics vs. Web Analysis

The area I want to address centers around the fundamental difference of web analytics and web analysis.

Web analytics is a product that typically collects information through log files or cookie tracking and then formulates the data into reports that we can analyze. Some products include Google Analytics, Urchin Software, ClickTracks, Omniture, Webalizer, etc. What these products don't do is analyze the data, review historical patterns, determine outcomes and make decisions.

This is what leads us to the human side of the industry - web analysis. This is the sister of web analytics; it is what makes web analytic products valuable. To date most of the industry has been focused on the product and reviewing stats like visits, hits, page views, etc. Great information but sometimes meaningless when it comes to truly gauging website and marketing performance. Analysis will dive in deeper and look at things like conversions, organic vs. paid search activity, funnel processes and visitor segmentation. A web analytics product will generate much of the data needed but now we need marketing and business analysts to interpret the results and make decisions or recommendations on areas of marketing, web design and business strategy.

We will see a movement in this industry towards more business intelligence driven by our currently underserved Key Performance Inidcator (KPI) market. Maybe what we'll see is KPI's drive the need for more web analysis because the web analytic reports will be much more customizable towards each business.

So where is your company at?
Are you paying for a web analytics product and not doing the analysis?