Expected value of user sessions: limitations to the non-semantic approach

Abstract

The amazing evolution of e-commerce and the fierce competitive environment it has produced have encouraged commercial firms to apply intelligent methods to take advantage of competitors by gathering and analyzing information collected from consumer Web sessions. Knowledge about user objectives and session goals can be discovered from the information collected regarding user activities, as tracked by Web clicks. Most current approaches to customer behaviour analysis study the user session by examining only Web page accesses. To find out about navigators behaviour is crucial to Web sites sponsors attempting to evaluate the performance of their sites. Nevertheless, knowing the current navigation patterns is not always enough. Very often it is also necessary to measure sessions value according to business goals perspectives. We present two different measures to include business goals inside click stream analysis. Each of the alternatives is discussed and evaluated in terms of how company's objectives and expectations are taken into account as well as how this approach could be achieved.