Determining the performance of website-based relationship marketing

• We extend web mining approaches by integrating managerial aspects on website usage.
• Performance assessment and marketing intelligence are aligned in a framework.
• Our approach can be used for optimization of relationship marketing effectiveness.
• Applicability is demonstrated by a real world example using clickstream data.

Company websites are an important instrument for relationship marketing activities. We present a methodological framework that aligns website performance assessment and marketing intelligence for evaluating the performance of relationship marketing activities. In this context, we develop an extended web mining approach that integrates managerial perspectives in the analyst’s investigation of the customer-website interaction based on historical clickstream data.This approach enables quantification of the moderating effect of a website’s structure and content regarding website-based relationship marketing. The applicability of our approach is demonstrated by clickstream data of 477,471 visitor sessions on a software developer’s website. The results provide detailed insights into the usage behavior on a website and the mechanisms to enhance e-commerce efficiency via website optimization.