NetIQ: NetIQ: Customer Retention Study

WebTrends partnered with independent customer analysis consultant Jim Novo to conduct a study on customer retention. The finding are presented here. Some highlights:

• 52% are not currently measuring retention

• 28% are looking at repeat visit and purchase rates
• 16% are segmenting customers based on retention-specific metrics
• 3% are doing detailed cross-channel marketing analysis
• 23% count leveraging paid search campaigns as a significant part of their
  marketing mix while 23% do nothing at all

• 31% do not measure the results of their search engine marketing campaigns
• 41% measure track click-through & general traffic
• 16% measure web activity through to conversion
• 11% complete a detailed ROI analysis including lifetime value, revenue by
  phase

There's also a white paper here on how marketers can measure and improve customer retention.

With the common knowledge that keeping an existing customer is easier and much less expensive than gaining new ones, it's surprising that more marketers don't make customer retention a higher marketing priority.