Are we measuring too much?

An interesting post from Stéphane Guérin (in French), entrepreneur, creator of Percute, a very interesting web analytics solution that is worth a look, and a good friend. He asked if, perhaps, we are too focused on measuring ads or not enough.

Followed a good number of comments, one of them being from Laval University professor Stéphane Gauvin (yeah, I know, lots of Stéphane around here!). Please allow me to quote him (translated from French - italics mine):

To the question "are we measuring to much or not enough?" the answer depends on the cost of measuring, and not on the cost of the marketing campaign (or it's ROI) and the impact it has on the decision to invest in online marketing or not (in the future). Put another way, if the decision to invest in a marketing campaign is irrevocable, there's no need to measure.

Because the cost of measuring is usually very small (compared to traditional means/mediums), we should measure more often then traditional media.

If we measure more, we take (usually) better decisions. The consequences are that for the same level of efficiency, marketing dollars will go toward the Internet, where decisions will be better justified.

Can't agree more! And with the expected economic downturns, we can expect online marketing dollars to be spent more wisely, thus, web analytics will become even more important.