Macro for collecting, analyzing and reporting on clickstream data

Today, everyone from chief marketing officers to the senior vice president of sales to bloggers want to know more about the behavior of the readers and consumers who are clicking on Web pages, Internet articles and blogs. Clickstream data is a valuable source of information about the products, services and information that resonates with the customer, but how can you analyze this mix of structured and unstructured data that comes from such a variety of places?

Sumit Sukhwani, Satish Garla and Goutam Chakraborty from Oklahoma State University have written a macro to help you do just that!I saw Sukhwani present the group's paper during a 10-minute Coder's Corner at SAS Global Forum in Orlando. Sukhwani says that the goal of his presentation is to show that SAS - which you already have - can give your organization the same deep insights as Google Analytics.

"Web logs are complicated, but they can provide a lot of information, including which is the most visited Web page, where are the visitors spending the most time, average time spent by a vistitor on your website and who are your regular visitors," said Sukhwani. "With this insight, you can change your site."

He says the benefits of using the SAS macro versus Google Analytics or sending your data to a vendor to analyze are reduced cost, control of your own data and flexibility. For example, in response to an audience question, Sukhwani and his colleague Satish Garla said that the code can be altered to include a session ID so that your customers could be tracked through to a sale or download.

To get their code and view the plentiful charts and examples, download Analysis of Clickstream Data Using SAS®.

These code examples are provided as is, without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Recipients acknowledge and agree that SAS Institute shall not be liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of their use of this material. In addition, SAS Institute will provide no support for the materials contained herein.

Macro for collecting, analyzing and reporting on clickstream data was published on SAS Users.