Scott Radcliffe

Maybe the only thing as hot as social media right now is mobile. And with good reason — smartphones are taking our ability to get information to entirely new levels and ushering in an era of “anywhere computing” that is clearly without precedent. Business is responding by actively exploring how they can participate in the mobile opportunity, either by optimizing their site for small screens or going so far as to build cool, new iPhone applications to support long-standing on-line initiatives.

Many business owners have learned from their previous adoption of business analytics, and are showing interest in measuring the effect of their investment into mobile. But measuring mobile isn’t easy — the sheer diversity of technologies involved and the rapid evolution of the industry has created a monstrous landscape of devices, communication protocols, and requirements.

The one thing most agree on is that tools designed for PC web analytics don’t port to the mobile world very well. Google Analytics uses JavaScript embedded in a website to measure visits. Unfortunately the majority of mobile handsets don’t support JavaScript; in fact less than 5% are supported. Other systems use cookies to track visits – on mobile this is unreliable. Mobile phone browsers either don’t permit cookies, or don’t save them. PC browsers use referral information about where the user came from but on mobile network gateways this is not typically supported. Only recently have mobile operators have started to support this, and so far proves to be unreliable. Some web analysis techniques use tiny images embedded in a web page to track visits. To reduce amount of data sent over the mobile network, images are cached in the mobile browser so are often not downloaded on subsequent visits. The final approach is mapping an IP address to a user but in the mobile world IP addresses map onto an operator’s gateway, not an individual phone.

Not surprisingly, dozens of companies have sprung up, all making claim to a unique ability to measure mobile activity, and profile mobile consumers. Unfortunately some of these companies have decided that relying on hype, hyperbole, and sometimes purposeful misinformation are a viable sales strategy. Furthermore, mobile web analytics vendors are filling the blogosphere with battling claims and counter-claims. Is there something wrong with clear explication of capabilities and limitations associated with the various approaches to this problem/opportunity? As penned by one of the Fab Four back in 1971- “All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth.”