Some 62pc of companies quoted on the Irish Stock Exchange and 77pc of firms on the IEX (Irish Enterprise Exchange) don’t track visitors to their websites, a new report by StatCounter has revealed.
StatCounter also found that almost half (45pc) of FTSE 100 companies have no online tracker.
A tracker allows firms to measure the number and frequency of hits to their website, the geographical location of visitors, pages viewed, as well as keywords used to find the site and other features.
“The results surprised us,” said Jenni Cullen (pictured), finance director, StatCounter. “The website is now a core vehicle for communications with shareholders and potential investors. As with any marketing campaign, one would expect that quoted companies would want to know the impact of their investor relations communications as measured by website traffic and interest.”
While those companies which do not use a website tracker can conduct basic analysis through drilling down into their server data, Cullen said this was complex, time-consuming and limited in what it revealed about visitors.
StatCounter was founded in 1999 by Irishman Aodhan Cullen and is one of the largest website traffic analysis companies in the world. It supplies data to over three million web sites globally, mainly in the US where 40pc of its clients are located.
By Niall Byrne
