ad:tech London 2007 web analytics roundup

This is the third consecutive year ad:tech London is playing out – to great entertainment for all of us. I will spare you the grand review of the show where all of the major Web Analytics and other Online Optimization vendors where present – with a European flavour! we “missed” CoreMetrics and Webtrends though and NO Google Analytics, what’s up with that Brian? :-)


ad:tech London Web Analytics Vendors:

• Omniture (OMTR)
• IndexTools
• Visual Sciences (VSCN)
• Nedstat
• Site Intelligence
• Unica Affinium NetInsight (represented by SCL)
• Stats Plugger (still keen to figure out how they plan to survive in the age of GA?)

Did I forget anybody? – but to conclude, this WAS by far the best ad:tech London show so far and I am happy that I had the opportunity to meet up with a bunch of our grand UK partners (and competitors).

N.B.
And do check out this ad:tech London roundup comment by Lisa.

Web Analytics Day Brussels 2007

I recently attended (in a stressed tour around Europe) a great event arranged by Rene, Aurelie and the rest of the tremendously smart team at OX2: Web Analytics Day Brussels 2007.

The traditional Rat Pack of Web Analytics vendors participated together with somewhat local Nedstat:

• Webtrends
• IndexTools
• Omniture (OMTR)
• Nedstat

Great! because the day was packed with really first-class presentations (this including Eric Peterson)... and I especially enjoyed the presentation by David Rhee about social networks and online communities. Super exciting stuff!!

Here is a quick 2 min MTV style recap of the day:





Which shows the good looking presenters:

• Aurélie Pols
• Eric T. Peterson
• Dennis R. Mortensen (Yes I actually own a pair of glasses)
• Stephan Loerke
• David Rhee
• Neil Morgan
• Ian Thomas
• Henk Schepens
• Tracie Caroopen

The only annoying fact was that I did not have the time to sit down and relax, network a bit and join in on the Cocktail Reception (sponsored by Omniture) – It is still beyond me; how I could plan my schedule so that I could not take advantage of free cocktails from Omniture.. he he :-)

Links to other blog posts:
World Tour Day Five: Brussels (Eric Peterson)
OX2 Web Analytics Day 2007: Thank you & Feedback (Web Analytics .be Blog)

Web Analytics Report Surfing and how to avoid it

I introduced a term called “Report Surfing” a while back - to explain an unfortunate behaviour in the usage of Web Analytics tools and one of the greatest sins one as a Web Analytics practitioner can do!

Reporting Surfing explained as in; one logging in to your e.g. IndexTools or Omniture account and browse the canned reports (such as #visit, most popular pages, top 10 referrers, perhaps even a scenario) from top to bottom. With no real agenda other than looking at the reports.

I inexhaustible preach methods on how to avoid this, in particular because clients utilizing a web analytics tool in that manor will get little to no return on their investment. So...


How to avoid Web Analytics Reporting Surfing:
Ask yourself three business related questions that you would like answered -- BEFORE -- you open up your web analytics tool. Then try to answer those three questions through your tool using anything from standard reports, customs reports, filters, segments and other tool functionality.


Example - Business related question: “Are my recent SEO initiatives paying off?”
This is a fair question from a marketing manager who just hired Rand Fishkin :-) or any other SEO authority to optimize their organic efforts. But it also comes clear - that even before opening up the web analytics tool one would have to debate / think about HOW to answer this.

- What is the period in question?
- What is the baseline index?
- How do we define “paying off”?
- How do we measure success (traffic, ranking, conversions or)?
- What are the success and failure thresholds (targets)?
- If any specific search phrases stand out, should they get reported on?
- What was the cost of the initiative and where is this data coming from?
- Did the initiative end or are we reporting on the progress?
- What do the manager expect, a simple YES/NO or a detailed report for him to conclude on?
- Should you provide suggestions for actions on how to improve or not?
- Etc..

Keep adding to the list. NOW! we are analysts and not just report surfers! Doing this exercise (asking a business related question beforehand), you avoid the trap of surfing useless reports for an hour every second day!

.. and NOW - off to bed to listen to one off my Bill Hicks shows.

N.B.
On the same subject: Web Reporting vs. Web Analysis

Web Analytics Wednesday – Stockholm (Sep. 2007)

As we all anticipated; Lars Johansson (with a little help from us sponsors) put together a stellar web analytics Wednesday last night. And if possible even better that the last web analytics Wednesday - Stockholm (Mar. 2007). Great show Lars!

The main event of the evening was the Presentation “web Analytics is easy” by Eric Peterson – this including his RAMP pitch (which you should go look up on his site – it makes a lot of sense)

AND I of course enjoyed sitting in the Panel with these smart folks:

• Ian Tickle, Webtrends
• Dennis R. Mortensen, IndexTools
• Jonas Damgaard, Omniture
• Eric Peterson, Web Analytics Demystified Inc.
• Steve Jackson, Satama
  

Where we had a great debate and some really interesting questions, such as working wither either engagement metrics or buzz metrics. And the first people to ask questions were given books from Avinash, Eric .. and I brought 10 Web Analytics Shootout 2007 reports.

Other great comments from the event:

• World Tour Day Two: Stockholm, Sweden. (Eric Peterson)
• Web analytics Tuesday in Finland and Sweden proves that web analytics is hard (Steve Jackson)

2007 Web Analytics Shootout (IndexTools, Visual Sciences, Unica, GA and more...)

I of course met up with Eric Enge in San Jose at the latest Search Engine Strategies – where he presented the final research report of his 2007 Web Analytics Shootout. The report is, according to Eric, an evaluation of the performance, accuracy, and capabilities of 7 different analytics packages as implemented across 4 different sites. (If you find this stuff interesting, you should definitely read the 2. part about analysis of JavaScript placement and how it matters, as well as a qualitative reviews of the analytics tools.


2007 Web Analytics Shootout Goals

1. Evaluate ease of implementation
2. Evaluate ease of use
3. Understand the basic capabilities of each package
4. Solve specific problems on each web site
5. Discover the unique strengths of each package
6. Discover the unique weaknesses of each package
7. Learn about the structural technology elements of each package that affect its capabilities
8. Learn how to better match a customer's needs to the right analytics package
   

2007 Web Analytics Shootout Vendors

• Clicktracks
• Google Analytics
• IndexTools
• Unica Affinium NetInsight
• Visual Sciences' HBX Analytics
• Omniture SiteCatalyst
• WebTrends
  

2007 Web Analytics Shootout Additional Contributors

• John Biundo of Stone Temple Consulting
• Jonah Stein of Alchemist Media
• Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz
• John Marshall of Market Motive
• Dennis R. Mortensen of IndexTools
• Jim Sterne of Target Marketing

I am of course somewhat biased (being one of the vendors and at the same time one of the additional contributors) – so this is what my good friend Jim Sterne had to say:

“In this updated 2007 Analytics Shoot Out, Stone Temple Consulting takes the same approach of head-to-head comparisons of major web analytics packages on real websites. Yes, they evaluate things like ease of implementation, use, and reporting. Yes, they look at the strengths and weaknesses of each package. But then they dig deeper into the conundrum of accuracy in web analytics data and discuss where accuracy matters. They look harder at first-party versus third-party cookies. They measure how does JavaScript placement on the web page affect the resulting data? They also get practical, identifying which analytics tools are best for which types of websites. Are you trying to compare and contrast the different tools out there? This is a great resource.”


Other blog comments:

• Stone Temple Consulting Publishes Web Analytics Shootout Results (SEW)
• Web Analytics Shootout by Stone Temple Consulting (web analytics world)
• 2007 Web Analytics Shootout - Final Report (shaving Occam)
• 2007 Web Analytics Shootout - Will the Real Web Analytics Provider Please Stand Up? (Enquiro)
• Eric Enge Finalizes 2007 Web Analytics Shootout (SEO Scoop)