Google Analytics has revolutionized how traffic data for websites can be analyzed for purchasing and marketing decisions. It goes far beyond counting clicks and should be leveraged by any business that depends on an online presence.
Overview: What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a website traffic analysis tool that monitors all aspects of your website visitors. A small piece of code is placed on every page of your website by your website designer. You'll then be able to access reports on your traffic at http://analytics.google.com. These will include overall traffic numbers, where this traffic found you, top content on your website, time spent on each page, and, with some additional set up, purchasing or "conversion" statistics.
While overall traffic numbers are interesting, "top content" will be the first easy report for a product manager to look at when making new purchasing or marketing decisions. You'll be able to see which pages or items are looked at in higher than expected numbers and make a comparison this with actual sales numbers. You may find that you have hidden gems that need further development or featuring to reach true sales potential.
The "Traffic sources" report will show how your visitors found your website. You'll find the keywords used, and the links they clicked to find you. The keywords can be used in purchasing decisions, while traffic origins are valuable for marketing analysis, for example, determining results from marketing campaigns. I almost always find that an unexpected low ranking traffic source or keyword produces much higher sales, so this analysis is quite valuable.
Goals and Funnels
Building "goals" and "funnels" take this a step further. A goal will typically be a conversion, i.e. an actual purchase, or, in a non commercial site, probably a visit to the "Contact Us" page. A funnel is a definition of steps used to reach this goal. An example of this in action would be to analyze traffic that came to your website through an online advertisement you placed on "xyz.com" and proceeded to make a purchase. After enabling your shopping cart to pass conversion values, you'll be able to directly compare the dollar amount of customer purchases with the cost of the advertisement to obtain direct return on investment information. The funnel, by definition, assumes that many will enter, but only a few will actually complete a purchase. You'll be able to analyze where on your website these visitors were lost, and consider possible adjustments.
This is only introduction to the power of Google Analytics in an E-Commerce environment. For further reading, consider this case study at Google where a national tire company increased sales by 14% by leveraging analytics data.
I can also available to answer any questions you may have, and can assist with all aspects of Analytics deployment in your company.