From Digital Activities to Business Value: Development of the Integrated DAEP Framework

Digitalization enables firms to establish multiple digital touchpoints, collect data on user behavior, and apply analytical approaches to monitor and optimize business activities. Nevertheless, digital presence and the intensity of digital activities alone do not guarantee the creation of business value. This study aims to develop and empirically evaluate the integrated DAEP (Digital–Analytics–Experience–Performance) conceptual framework, which explains the process through which digital interactions and data are transformed into analytical insights, improvements in user experience and customer engagement, and measurable business outcomes. The study is based on a secondary analysis of four empirical studies and a structured cross-case synthesis of business cases in the areas of e-commerce, user experience, digital marketing, and web analytics. The analysis is conducted across the four components of the DAEP framework and the transitions between them, distinguishing among digital or operational, behavioral or relational, and business or financial outcomes. The findings indicate that the business value of digital activities depends not merely on their presence or intensity, but primarily on a firm's ability to transform digital data into analytical insights, use these insights in decision-making, and translate them into improvements in the digital experience and activities associated with customer responses and business outcomes. Empirical support for the individual relationships within the framework varies in strength. The clearest evidence concerns the importance of analytical interpretation of data, the translation of insights into optimization activities, and the distinction between digital activity and actual business value. Evidence is less direct for the complete mediating sequence linking user experience, behavioral responses, and financial outcomes, as well as for the continuous feedback loop. The theoretical contribution of the study lies in integrating areas that have largely been examined in a fragmented manner into the process-oriented and cyclical DAEP framework, thereby enabling analysis of the transitions through which digital activities may be transformed into business value.