The analyst firm says web analytics has reached “adolescence” and is beginning to develop its own footing. But with much change still to come and maturity remaining some way off, the report predicts an annual compound growth rate of around 17% over the next five years.

Analyst John Lovett highlights investment and staffing as barriers to further expansion of web analytics, and says that the human resources required for analysing data and converting information into necessary business actions is still “severely lacking”.

Lovett predicts that web analytics will become more integrated with other marketing services.
“Marketers must build tighter relationships with their IT teams or marketing service providers to achieve data integration,” he writes.