CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A Forrester Research survey of 24 financialservice e-business executives found that most of them know whatsays success in their business but that most aren't using the righttools to prove they're hitting the mark.

"The results from Forrester's survey show that most e-businessexecutives know the right metrics to use to measure their success,but few are able to measure them--and those who do measure themdon't always measure them effectively," said author BradStrothkamp.

Strothkamp based that conclusion on a survey of U.S., Canadianand British bank executives who belong to the Cambridge-based thinkfirm's Channel and Product Management Research Panel.

According to the survey, while financial services companies'most important goals may be cost savings, sales ranked mostimportant for the e-business executive.

According to the Forrester survey, three out of four means usedby financial service companies to measure the value of an onlinechannel are sales related; 19 out of the 24 surveyed foundincremental sales important, trailed by 17 saying attaining newcustomers; and 17 cited cross-selling and up selling currentcostumers.

The survey also found that cost to serve is not nearly asimportant as it was in the past, especially when it came tojustifying the early investments in online banking technology.

"Reduction in cost to serve ranked below sales-related goals andretention in our list of ways e-business executives derive valuefrom the online channel," Strothkamp said.

Brand awareness and public relations ranked last in importanceto this group of senior manager. Only 12 of the 24 surveyed foundthat these were important measures of value.

The study also found that locating the right tools for measuringgoal attainment is difficult.

"The metrics that today's execs draw upon to run their businessare limited in scope and of little value when it comes to makingbetter decisions," Strothkamp said.

The most easily available metrics e-businesses can use are sitetraffic, online service enrollments and the number of self-servicetransactions. However, these measurements do not really expose howefficiently a Web site is facilitating meeting sales goals, whichis the objective most executives surveyed to their businesses,Strothkamp said.

The most important measures to e-businesses--customer retentionand sales--are most often the least measured metrics used by thebusinesses, with only 10 out of the 24 surveyed using thosecriteria to measure their attempts. However, 14 out of the 24surveyed use site traffic to determine the success of their Websites, rather than higher-value metrics, Strothkamp said.

"You need metrics to justify your business cases, but you needbusiness cases to justify investing in metrics," the Forresteranalyst said. "If e-business executives are ever going to maketheir mark, they must make metrics as much of a priority as theywould a piece of functionality or a Web site redesign."

He urged that e-business managers make securing measurements ofmetrics one of their top priorities in the year ahead. Even thoughfinding adequate metrics to measure success of a Web site, such asapplication completion rates, will realistically take two to threeyears, savvy executives will use intelligent metrics to measuresuccess correctly before then, Strothkamp said.

Examples he cited in the financial services arena include themuch-cited studies that Bank of America and Wells Fargo have doneon success in online banking.

"To help achieve their measurement goals, e-business executiveswill bring in technology like Web analytics to understand Webshoppers' behavior, they will challenge their vendors to justifythe benefits of their services with metrics that map to theire-business success, and they will look to firms like OpinionLab toadd customer insights to the mix," Strothkamp said.

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