“Silo” is a popular term used in business these days. Most often it describes tactics, strategies, or data that cannot or is not integrated within the whole of an organization. Usually, if something is in a silo, it’s not a good thing. How many times have you heard about a department or group in your organization operating in a silo, ignoring everyone else and going off on their own tangent?

The digital world is no different, and today there’s a new addition: the “analytics silo of death”. This gruesome, dark place is where all web analytics initiatives eventually end up if neglected, ignored, or left alone to gather dust.

Analytics has often been one of the holy grails of the digital world, the premise being the more a company knows about what’s happening on a website, the more they will be able to understand (and profit from) their customers.

In the past year, Omniture’s IPO, WebSide Story’s acquisition of Visual Sciences, and the tidal wave of Google Analytics have pushed web metrics in to the spotlight. For the first time, businesses of all sizes have access to data that was once beholden only to those with the largest pocketbooks.

Companies flocked to the analytics scene, racing to get their Google Javascript code or the latest version of Site Catalyst. But when the dust settled, has this data really changed the strategic initiatives for anyone?

Sure - visitors were being counted and clickstream data was being gathered, but the PR momentum responsible for this digital version of the gold rush was ultimately responsible for the siloing of analytics.

Too often organizations race to implement an analytics solution by only focusing on the what’s, but not the how’s of digital intelligence, such as “How…..:

• will this data be presented to the organization?
• will this data be integrated within the organization?
• will ROI be determined?
• will this platform be maintained?

The “how’s” aren’t digital or web-centric questions - they’re business questions, and they’re important.

So before getting too excited that Google Analytics is now offering free accounts, figure out the how’s of digital intelligence in your organization so you can keep your analytics out of the silo of death.