Après l’annonce de notre partenariat avec Web Analytics Demystified, nous sommes heureux de partager avec vous une étude d’Eric Peterson publiée le 24 juillet. Cette étude porte sur l’utilisation d’outils gratuits de web analytique, tels que Google Analytics ou le futur “projet Gatineau” de Microsoft. Malgré l’adoption grandissante de Google Analytics par des entreprises de toutes tailles – qu’elles fassent partie de l’index Fortune 500 comme Chevron, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Dell ou Dupont, l’étude d’Eric montre que les entreprises qui adoptent et implémentent des outils gratuits de web analytique sont moins susceptibles de mettre en application des best practices et donc de tirer le meilleur parti de leur investissement web analytique.
Les points d’orgue de cette étude sont les suivants:
Les entreprises qui adoptent un outil gratuit ont davantage tendance à traiter les web analytics de façon un peu cavalière. 35% des entreprises interrogées qui utilisent des outils gratuits s’en servent de façon ad hoc, contre 20% chez les utilisateurs d’outils payants.
Les entreprises qui utilisent un outil gratuit manquent cruellement de ressources dédiées aux web analytics. 42% des entreprises interrogées qui utilisent des outils gratuits déclarent n’avoir aucune ressource dédiée, contre 18% chez les utilisateurs d’outils payants.
Les personnes qui utilisent des outils gratuits ont en général moins d’expérience des web analytics: 64% des utilisateurs d’outils gratuits ont moins de deux ans d’expérience dans le domaine, contre 32% chez les utilisateurs de solutions payantes.
Comme pour la plupart de ses études, et dans le cadre d’un effort éducatif et d’évangélisation, Eric publie ce rapport sur le site de WebAnalytics Demystified, Inc., dont le “Conseil des Sages” comprend Aurélie Pols.
Un facteur de poids pour des outils gratuits, et notamment avec ces produits récemment arrivés sur le marché, est bien entendu le manque d’expérience et de recul par rapport au reste de l’industrie.
Comme le souligne Eric dans son étude, avec l’arrivée sur le marché d’outils gratuits, on observe d’importantes différences dans la façon dont sont utilisés des produits gratuits ou payants. (more…)
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at some BBC program about Paris and I was surfing through our blog in paralel when I stopped at the Google Trends post I wrote last year. Then I went back to the tool and I was intrigued to see the evolution of the trends of certain terms.
We’ve been very busy these past weeks, sorry for the few posts. I just wanted to highlight a couple of podcasts that Aurélie has done recently:
Eric from Jenerous, did an interview of Aurélie where they discussed different topics about the future of Web Analytics. You can listen to the podcast here.
The 7th of May, when we were attending the Emetrics Summit in San francisco, Jeremiah interviewed us for his Video Show: Web Strategy.
We discuss wuth Jeremiah around different topics as: web agencies, niche interactive agencies, full service agencies, Web Analytics and accountability.
Despite the jetlag we managed to make some sense 😉
Well here is as promised a preview of the Four Gurus For You Session that took place last may in San Francisco during the Emetrics Summit. As you might know the International Committee of the Web Analytics Association organized an online event during the Emetrics Summit. This session intended to the WAA members that couldn’t attend Emetrics presented the 4 most renowned Gurus in Web Analytics answering questions from people attending the event (even virtually).
Very shortly Brian will publish over an hour of video in the WAA website. Access to the videos will be granted only to WAA members, so here’s a good reason to become a member! For about 100 euros per year, you will have the opportunity to pick the brains of these 4 Gurus and learn what are their views in Web Analytics.
On the goship side, you will see for example Avinash throwing his mobile and even hurting himself with the table.
Don’t miss this opportunity and become a member of the WAA today! And if you like this kind of stuff, please state that it was one of the reasons you joined the WAA (we’ll make some more if there’s enough positive feed-back).
René
P.S. I haven’t selected this excerpt because it was my question, well in part only 😉 ; but also because it explains the 10/20/70 rule that Eric has explained in details recently in his Blog.
WebSideStory will no longer exist. Bob Chatham announced at Emetrics San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, that the nice brand WebSideStory would no longer exist, but don’t be afraid, the company hasn’t closed, it’s just that it changes its name to Visual Sciences, to better reflect the new positioning of the company.
Last year, at Emetrics Washington Bob did already a very interesting presentation explaining the positioning of WSS after VS acquisition: going towards ‘Customer Analytics’. Back then, Bob explained how Web Analytics would enlarge it’s scope from simply Web analytics to Customer Analytics going through Internet Channel Analytics and Multi-Channel Analytics. I remember that this presentation was really inspiring; Aurélie and I were very excited with this new overture in Web Analytics and by Eric’s private demo of Visual Sciences. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Visual Sciences, you may read a couple of posts that Aurélie wrote following Emetrics Washington 2006:
As you might have read on the Yahoo Groups, Eric Peterson is paying us a visit at the end of this month (he’s attending a Web Analytics Congres in The Netherlands). As Aurélie and I will be joining Eric during that week-end we thought it would be interesting to organize a diner in Amsterdam on Friday the 1st of June. This diner is open to anyone interested in Web Analytics willing to spend some time with us. The attendees will have the opportunity not only to meet with Eric, but also to have a discussion about the European figures of the Web Analytics Survey he has made recently (read the US figures here).
So if you care to join us, please send me (rdo AT ox2 DOT be) or Eric an e-mail so we can book a restaurant for this occasion (please do so ASAP as we want to make sure to be able to accommodate everybody).
During Emetrics San Francisco I had the opportunity to visit Google (I’ll blog about that in the coming days) and to have a look at the alpha version of Gatineau. This made me want to emphasize and explain our Code of Ethics as independent consultants.
But before I get into that let’s explain a little bit more: (more…)
Aurélie and I just got back home after filling in a complaint for lost luggage at the airport… (thanks American Airlines). So we are back in our little Brussels and it’s great to be home, the birds sing this Sunday morning (home sweet home).
As I was saying in my Google Analytics V2 launch post, the bar has been kicked several steps higher for more modest vendors, what with email and scheduling now being built into GA.
For datawarehouse-enabled vendors, the time has come to differentiate from other tools, not by adding a 3D exploration layer, but by adding functionalities and value to the presentation and exploitation of data reports. (more…)
Of course we at WebAnalytics.be had been in the know for a while now but, as you can imagine, we had to respect Google’s non-disclosure agreement and not even hint at it. We got special coverage of V2 when we attended the Google Analytics Authorized Consultantcertification training in Dublin.
This restraint was all the more difficult since GA now breaks the barrier that separated it from the other vendors’ solutions : scheduled reporting.
That’s right, folks.
Google Analytics is free, has a user-friendly, AJAX-based interface in more than 10 languages, enterprise-class featuresand now sends recurrent reports to your mailbox, in the format of your choice.
I will post more details on this new release and its potential in the days to come.
So basically, smaller actors such as XiTi, Weborama, StatCounter, SiteReports et al., will no longer have a differentiative edge as a product. I hope they come up with other attractive features other than being cheaper than other vendors.
If you need consulting and/or assistance on Google Analytics or other leading Web Analytics products such as WebTrends, Omniture or WebSideStory, get in touch with us via this blog or by using our contact form.
Google has just announced here in San Francisco the release of the Version 2 of Google Analytics. We are very excited at OX2 as we have been testing this new version since a bit more than a month now. As you know part of our Web analytics team attended the GAAC training in Dublin a couple of months ago and they also got trained on this new version.
It is radically different from the current version and incorporates great new features (I love the big bounce rate percentage and the export functionnalities have really been improved). I won’t enter into details right now as you know I’m not an Analyst (as I like to say, I’m just the sales guy ;-)).
Julien will be publishing in the coming hours a post about this new version! And we will publish more insights in the coming days/weeks.
So if you’re using Google analytics expect a radical change (but don’t worry there will be a transition period in which you will still be able to use the previous interface).
I have to admit that for Aurélie and I it wasn’t a big surprise as we were in the secret since a couple of months now when Eric contacted us to propose Aurélie to join his Board of Advisors (Nevertheless, Aurélie got her surprise as before starting his presentation Eric took her on stage and sang Happy Birthday to her -she just turned 29 for the sixth time yesterday- along with the 500 attendees – I’ll post a little video about this ;-)). I remember the day he sent us an email asking us to have a chat with him over Skype. Back then, we were really surprised by his future move and pretty honored to be not only among the firsts to know his secret but also his will to have Aurélie to join his Board of Advisors (thank you Eric, we will always be grateful for your trust and confidence).
So what is it all this about, what Eric plans to do? What are his objectives? What’s his company positioning?
Eric has created his company around what he calls ‘The Truth About Web Analytics”: (more…)
A first version of this post has been hanging in the ‘draft’ section since the week after I came back from the Emetrics in London (29-30 March 2007), but as I’ve been quite busy and I actually reached my 3 outcomes since 2 weeks only (since our WAW in Brussels), I feel it is now the time to publish it.
A chance to win Jim Sterne’s Markting Optimization Library made me help to set all the work aside and finish this post as well. You never know 😉 (What do you think Jim? You think I get nominated?)
Let me start by explaining the concept of the 3 outcomes.
Like last year, between presentations, there was the time for a roundtable discussion. Last year one of the discussions was about Web Analytics KPIs, and this year was quite similar. But instead of thinking about the succes factors that need to be measured for a web site, this time you had think about the personal objectives you wanted to meet by attending the Emetrics. Kind of your personal summit KPIs. In addition, these outcomes had to fulfill some criteria, and I quote:
Each of your outcomes will be effective when they meet the following criteria.
S – Specific (the What, Why and How)
M – Measurable
A – Attainable
R – Realistic
T – Timely
S.M.A.R.T. outcomes emphasize what you want, rather than what you don’t want.
So here we go with my personal outcomes of this years Emetrics London: (more…)
I just did a rapid search on the Yahoo User Groups with the term “ComScore“.
Just to see if the discussions we’ve been witnessing currently had crossed our paths before.
And they did: 160 results, dating back to the 7th of August 2004. In the last 10 results, I’m amused to find names such as Jim MacIntyre, current WebSideStory/Visual Sciences CEO and working already in January 2005 for VS, Google’s Brian Clifton a voice back then from Omega, Fred Kuu and … hum, Sage metrics turned Omniture, for some.
So, the discrepancies in numbers is not a new debate. Normal, it’s not the same way of counting 😮 No surprises there.
What started it off this time?
Apparently, and I’m still picking this up from the Yahoo User Group to start with, on April 16th, ComScore announced through a press release that “Cookie-Based Counting Overstates Size of Web Site Audiences. Frequent Cookie Deletion by 3 out of 10 U.S.Internet Users Leads to Overstements in Audience Sizes by a Factor of High as 2.5“.
Micheal Wexler, Eric Peterson & Joe Wilson made sure the announcement was brought forward to the Yahoo community and it spurred of comments, a lot! (more…)
CoreMetrics is introducing a new release of their Web Analytics product (as published on PRNewsWire.com – read the full story).
Excerpts:
The new offering enables marketers to simultaneously track the multiple influences that impact each consumer at any point in the sales cycle, drawing on Coremetrics LIVE Profiles, the industry’s only complete record of all visitor behavior and cross-session activity. It provides unlimited insight into marketing campaigns along three dimensions: ability to draw new visitors to the site, nurture them along the conversion cycle, and trigger action.
Impact :
Is this going to impact WebSideStory‘s HBX, Visual Sciences and their Customer Analytics approach?
If the product does it right probably.
After a very nice bath, a good nights rest and some usual Saturday grocery shopping, I finally got René out of his week-end siesta and decided it was time to start my first post about the Emetrics Summit we attended, together with Siegert, during the end of this week in London.
As usual, there is a lot to digest after such an event but, in contrary to last year, it was more about networking and confirmation of our own issues and findings than real new knowledge and great surprises. Call me ‘blasée’ or just really focused.
In any case, please allow me to start with some kind of rant through a list of things I heard from vendors and found misplaced, ridiculous, utterly stupid and shows how little some of them (not all by afar) actually know about the business they’re in.
I’m aware of the fact that these are harsh words but as more and more vendors seem to be walking the education path for their own personnel as well (on top of their clients apparently), I would just like their statements to be more than simple words.
Yesterday, during the Emetrics Summit in London we were given the opportunity to ask questions to a panel of Web Analytics vendors that covered most of the top players of the Industry. Jim called it the ‘Vendors Variety Hour‘. It was a pity that Ian Thomas could not participate as Microsoft hasn’t yet launched Gatineau 😉 (looking forward to see you in the panel next year).
Last year during the Emetrics there was a question ‘Vendors name one thing you do better than WebTrends‘. This year I decided to bring again the question, but with a twist ;-):
‘Vendors, what would be your unique selling proposition?‘ And the twist was for Avinash that was actively representing Google: ‘Avinash you cannot say that GA USP is it’s free‘.
For those of you who don’t know Emetrics, it’s the best WA related event worldwide gathering the best professionals of the sector. We will make some posts afterwards as we use to. In the meantime, you can read our previous posts about Emetrics of view this video that explains the concept.
Following our previous study of CAC40 companies (FR) and their use of Web Analytics tools, here is a similar study that I ran on IBEX35 companies, the IBEX35 being the Spanish stock exchange index.
Here are our findings:
A staggering 62.7% of IBEX companies do not use a visible Web Analytics solution.
By visible I mean Javascript-, tag-based solutions. If the companies listed below are indeed using a logfile solution, I suggest using the comments section to discuss this further.
One of my favorite former employers, Deutsche Bank, will be holding as from the 12th of February their Securities 2007 Small Cap Growt Conference in Naples, Florida. The reason I’m wirting about this is the mention of Omniture’s participation, during last week’s audio cast. Interestingly enough, they weren’t the only ones I overheard last week that would participate.
As I was researching for an article about Business Intelligence & Web Analytics this week, other companies mentioned the exact same event.
Reason enough to take a peak at who would be there and what would be made available.
The following link sums up the companies attending with links towards their webcasts, if these are made available (which is not clear at this moment).
Companies attending that are currently of interest to me are: RightNow Technologies, Unica, Omniture with Josh James & Michael Herring, Informatica Corp., WebMethods, .. and I’ll leave you discover the rest.
WebTrends, the market leader for web analytics and Marketing Performance Management solutions, today announced it was recognized as the leader in Market Suitability in JupiterResearch‘s report, “Web Analytics Constellation: Assessing Web Analytics Applications,” published on February 6, 2007. WebTrends out-scored all other web analytics vendors for its top ranking in market suitability, which was based on product pricing, critical feature set, standard feature set and product support cost. JupiterResearch mapped and ranked WebTrends available feature set against a pre-requisite feature set as determined by JupiterResearch, and interviewed vendor clients to assess the strength and availability of its services.
“WebTrends has led the industry since the market’s inception, and we are thrilled to be named the top vendor for market suitability for the second consecutive time in Jupiter’s web analytics vendor evaluation,” said Greg Drew, CEO and president, WebTrends. “Over the past year, we’ve built-out a strong suite of solutions focused on marketers’ highest points of value including accurate comprehensive analytics, targeted relationship marketing and automated paid search optimization. This momentum, which has made WebTrends solutions the most award-winning in the industry, continues to accelerate.”
Sorry about the silence.
I was breathing out, taking the liberty to focus internally on the growth of my department and my clients needs.
These are evolving as budgets are increasingly being shifted towards web based initiatives and the online channel.
And we all know what this means: increased accountability made possible through better use of the knowledge and decisions taken based on our preferred sector, yes, Web Analytics!
In parallel, pressure is also being put upon a number of sectors such as media/press, energy, financial, … to find new ways of creating value, gain or sustain market share in order to assure financial growth of the corporations these sectors are made of.
Financial markets are becoming less asymmetrical with regards to information (yes Pascal, MotleyFool is a wonderful site!) and share holders are more dispersed than they used to be. OK, Wall Street’s still there as the financial beating heart of our planet (for more information, read Jacques Attali, Une Brève Histoire de l’Avenir) and as Jacques would have it, the innovative heart would also be on the same continent (this time for Xavier: you seem to be on the right side of the Ocean… for now).
But as Jacques would also have it, economical hearts move and unlike some former bosses in my career would have it, we are indeed on our way to a technological revolution.
By fear of sounding too much like Che Guevara, let’s just assume that, as Bob Dylan would peacefully sing, “The Times They Are a-hangin'”. (more…)
As an Instadia partner in Europe, we here at OX2 had sort of a hunch as Aurélie heard about Instadia recruiting a marketing manager 🙂
I, for one, can only regret the disappearance of the only major European WA vendor, which provided for healthy competition over here.
Then again, I suppose this can be seen as a sign of times, with globalisation leading to mergers and acquisitions.. or the quiet elimination of competitors 😉
Let’s see what Omniture has in store for Instadia…
Cheers,
Julien
If you believed the “WA predictions for 2007” fad, you may not be surprised by this acquisition. To paraphrase the good folks at GA Experts, the biggest surprise has yet to come from the purchase of Deepmetrics by Microsoft.
As an open letter to WA vendors, I’d like to address the following points:
While multinational environments call for consolidated understanding and reporting of web data, there are regional specifics that do not always fit into any of the buckets provided in WA tools, there are reports that become truncated or meaningless. One does not consider Web Analytics the same way in Japan, Scandinavia, Brazil, Nigeria or the US of A.
Multiculturality, anyone? 😉
You always need an outsider to stimulate competition and bring new blood to an industry. And yet, outsiders seem to be assimilated/purchased by bigger actors by the time they reach some sort of critical reputation, market share or client portfolio size.
By absorbing smaller vendors, you end up forcing newcomers into niches… which end up being assimilated into a bigger vendor’s solution that lacks that particular feature 😉
On the bright side, this globalisation-induced approach takes us closer to the establishment of Web Analytics standards that go beyond the usual trinity (page views, visits, visitors).
If we consider Microsoft’s case, Office document formats are now commonplace. And yet, Microsoft is only just now adapting to full-XML documents that are more easily integrable into other documentation systems.
The same could happen to Web Analytics once a major actor such as Microsoft enters the fray and forces the industry’s hand in terms of standards. My money is on Google, though 😉
This is the blog of WebAnalytics.be, a Business Unit of OX2, a pan-European Interactive Agency based in Bussels capital of Europe.
This Blog has been created to allow our team members to share with you and the rest of the world their ideas thoughts and views on Web Analytics.
So I hadn’t checked the latest 
Last year, at Emetrics Washington Bob did already 
During 
So here it is, the long-awaited 
A first version of this post has been hanging in the ‘draft’ section since the week after I came back from the Emetrics in London (29-30 March 2007), but as I’ve been quite busy and I actually reached my 3 outcomes since 2 weeks only (since our 
I just did a rapid search on the 
CoreMetrics is introducing a new release of their Web Analytics product (as published on PRNewsWire.com – 
After a very nice bath, a good nights rest and some usual Saturday grocery shopping, I finally got René out of his week-end siesta and decided it was time to start my first post about the 
Yesterday, during the 
Following 
One of my favorite former employers, Deutsche Bank, will be holding as from the 12th of February their Securities 2007 Small Cap Growt Conference in Naples, Florida. The reason I’m wirting about this is the mention of Omniture’s participation, during last week’s audio cast. Interestingly enough, they weren’t the only ones I overheard last week that would participate.
Sorry about the silence.
OX2 Web Analytics Blog 