A poll of the chief marketing officers (CMOs) of some of the biggest companies in the world has revealed that web analytics is deemed to be the best way in which organisations can improve the effectiveness of their campaigns.

One-quarter of those surveyed at the annual Chief Marketing Officer's (CMO's) Summit - organised by the Aberdeen Group - ranked web analytics as the most effective enabler of better marketing when it comes to website promotion.

Just over a fifth of respondents voted for customer analytics, while 17 per cent of CMOs said they believe customer profiling tools were the most important.

Most marketers at the event also said that they perceived recommendations from friends, family members and other consumers as the most trusted by their customer base.

Among the CMOs in attendance at the summit were those from Wells Fargo, Walmart, Marriott, Levi's and Eastman Kodak.

In related news, a recent whitepaper by the Web Analytics Demystified research organisation suggested that more needs to be done to come up with a useful and practical measure of visitor engagement within the analytics industry.

The ideal solution would be able to be integrated with the web measurement applications that are in wide use today, the publication suggested.