Web Analytics Wednesday Stockholm

Lars Johansson put together a super Web Analytics Wednesday event last night! The main events of the evening, beyond some really pleasant networking, was two presentations by Practitioners and the Vendor Panel:

  

• Practitioner Case Study: Jannike Tillå, Aftonbladet (reporting KPI’s on a hourly basis – I am impressed)
• Practitioner Case Study: Massimo Pascotto, Scandinavian Airlines
• Vendor panel, moderated by Lars Johansson & Mattias Malmnäs

I (IndexTools) participated in the Vendor Panel together with Google , Omniture , Webtrends , and WebSideStory and one of the surprising questions and debates was about accuracy in Web Analytics tools. Surprising, because this is a debate that was somehow closed over the last few years. All vendors on the Panel use pretty much the same data collection methodology - and yes, WebTrends' patent-pending first-party cookie solution is no different ;-). Brian from Google (as part of the audience this evening) – added a few truths about why we just have to accept that there is no such thing as 100% accuracy. This included the fact that:

• A) Not all visitors accepts 3rd party cookies
• B) Not all visitors accepts 1st party cookies
• C) Some visitors use both their “WORK” computer and their “HOME” computer and are "counted" as two.
• D) ...

If you want to do dig a bit deeper into this subject; go read Avinash’s super post about Data Quality Sucks, Let’s Just Get Over It – and the one advice you should take from that post is, if you ask me:

- Assume a level of comfort with your data

And of course – it’s always nice to meet up with Brian, Sara, Matthew, Ian (Thank you for the WebTrends powered “Belgisch bier” .. and of course the opportunity to say hi to the smart people from Pricerunner.com.