Mobile web analytics studies the behaviour of mobile website users in a similar way to traditional web analytics. In a commercial context, mobile web analytics refers to the data collected from the users who access a website from a mobile phone. It helps to determine which aspects of the website work best for mobile traffic and which mobile marketing campaigns work best for the business, including mobile advertising, mobile search marketing, text campaigns, and desktop promotion of mobile sites and services.

Data collected as part of mobile analytics typically includes page views, visits, users, and countries, as well as information specific to mobile devices, such as device model, manufacturer, screen resolution, device capabilities, service provider, and preferred user language. This data is typically compared against key performance indicators for performance and return on investment, and is used to improve a website or mobile marketing campaign's audience response.

The majority of modern smartphones are able to browse websites, some with browsing experiences similar to those of desktop computers. The W3C Mobile Web Initiative identifies best practices to help websites support mobile phone browsing. Many companies use these guidelines and mobile-specific code like Wireless Markup Language or HTML5 to optimize websites for viewing on mobile devices.

Collecting mobile web analytics data has proven to be less straightforward than traditional web analytics due to a few factors. Traditional analytics software on a mobile website only provides data for HTTP requests coming from the most advanced mobile browsers; such as those found in the iPhone and other smart phones and PDAs, with no data on other mobile devices browsing the site. Additionally, common web analytics software that use server log parsing to associate different IP addresses with "unique visits" may fail to actually identify unique visitors. This is due to IP addresses from each mobile device originating from a gateway IP address of the network access provider.

Several dynamic server-side platforms are used to develop mobile sites. Server-side tracking code is recommended for more accurate analytics reporting.

Different tracking processes or mechanisms are available for each of the above platforms. For unsupported/HTML sites, the JavaScript pixel tracking mechanism is most commonly used.

Because mobile websites are typically open to access from any kind of network - fixed, Wi-Fi, cellular wireless, satellite wireless, etc. - a traditional web analytics solution could range from fairly accurate to mostly inaccurate, depending on where the HTTP requests are coming from.

In addition, mobile web analytics involve metrics and KPIs associated with mobile device information, such as model, manufacturer, and screen resolution. These data can usually be assembled by combining device identification information taken from special HTTP headers, such as user-agents, with device capabilities stored in a device information registry, such as WURFL. This method is not provided by traditional web analytics solutions because it is mobile web-specific.