Fresh from the wire comes the news that IBM have announced the takeover of Web Analytics powerhouse Coremetrics. Coremetrics, a leading organisation in the marketing optimisation field, produced the Coremetrics Continuous Optimization Platform, their own analytics and optimisation software.

That IBM could see the worth of buying Coremetrics is no surprise. Web analytics – especially when it’s combined with the kind of aggressive optimisation espoused by Coremetrics – offers genuine and tangible ROI. More than just technical feedback, it also provides insight into visitor behaviour that can bolster knowledge of target demographics and open up new routes to selling. The IBM press release announcing the acquisition of Coremetrics contains this telling little stat:

“IBM’s 2010 CEO Study showed that 88 percent of CEOs will focus on getting closer to their customers in next five years, 82 percent of CEOs want to better understand customer needs and 85 percent of CEOs require more visibility into their businesses.”

That’s just some of the kind of data that Web Analytics can provide. Joe Davis, CEO of Coremetrics, further backs this up: “Marketers increasingly need the ability to see across their organizations and the agility to make split-second decisions based on real-time data.” This is as true for IBM/Coremetric’s giant clients as it is for North West based SEMS and Start-ups. The future of online marketing is intertwined with the future of Analytical measurement and analysis.