Building a custom web analytics tool using Amazon Cloud

This article describes the architecture of a web analytics engine built on the Amazon Cloud. Web analytics tools have matured rapidly beyond providing just aggregate level reporting into page views and bounce rates. Building a consolidated view of all digital interactions was previously limited by access to a limited set of highly expensive enterprise tools.

In this article, we discuss how software developers can build custom web analytics solutions using certain big data stack components from the Amazon Cloud. The expenditure in terms of software development efforts is mitigated by long-term savings in costs and also the highly customized nature of implementations. The custom-built option is an attractive choice for generating advanced, cross-channel customer intelligence.

The article describes how to create an architecture of conceptual building blocks of functionality that are tool and platform agnostic. The five building blocks that make up the conceptual architecture are described in the article. They are the data collection engine, a pixel server, an ETL transformer level, the data storage engine, and the client-side tracker.

The content explains how the Amazon Cloud provides plug-and-play tools for implementing each of the conceptual building blocks. Using the cloud platform, it is easy to build a custom web analytics platform by selecting the building blocks based on the business reporting and data analysis needs.

For example, largely static reporting needs might be different from highly interactive, exploratory data analysis. The appeal of building a custom solution with the AWS cloud and using components above lies largely in the fact that all the components above can be up and running with almost zero capital investment. Access to almost unlimited storage, processing power, and a significantly lower total cost of ownership are strong value propositions to consider when making build vs. buy decisions when it comes to implementing advanced digital analytics.

An explainer article showing the benefits and building blocks of a custom built web analytics solution on the Amazon Cloud. A guide for business executives and IT leaders interested in building advanced analytics capability.

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