Web Analytics ROI, or WaROI, it occurred to me, is much like Search Engine Optimization ROI or Search Marketing ROI:

"…The analytics tools are great, but the data and ROI you can get are so much greater when the data is shared and used in conjunction with other insights and processes. Now that you've identified your best opportunities, it's time to move into the testing process through either multivariate testing or A/B testing using a tool like Offermatica. But just like the analytics tools, an optimization tool is only as good as the opportunities you identify and the insights behind the solutions to those opportunities."

Also, Jason Burby, in ClickZ, mentions "Recently, there have been a lot of conversations on Yahoo's Web Analytics Forum about the ROI (define) of Web analytics tools. Many people on the board offered suggestions; some were quite good, but nearly all were shot down as not applicable to most sites".

Meanwhile MyMoTech says …There is no ROI for web analytics but what is really meant is Web Analytics ROI or WaROI is a result of using the advice and insight you get from the Web Analyst who uses the Web Analytics Platform and Tools - and the Web Analytics Platform or Tools, without applying and learning from the information provided, is valueless.  

I agree, nothing is worthwhile if it goes into one ear and out the other; if you spend a million bucks to buy a top end Web Analytics Platform and hire a bunch of Web Analysts…but don't listen to them…and don't change anything…the money was wasted and the platform provided no value.

But the problem is not, in this case, with the platform, it's with the organization, the people in it, and the processes that govern it.

It's easy to say there is no ROI for Web Analytics, but it's just a play on words; it's assumed that people will buy a tool to use it - but sometimes, individuals, for a variety of reasons, can't utilize what they have in front of them.  Would it be fair to call the investment in Web Analytics of no value, no ROI, no WaROI?

It's the same thing with SEO/SEM or, anything else…. if you spend money and resources and then, don't do anything with it, opportunities were missed, but the tools themselves, have/had value. 

So, today MyMoTech says Web Analytics has no ROI and last year, Avinash Kaushik said Web Analytics is Dead; those things are spoken and written mostly for effect and to get attention - they're not meant to be taken literally.