Summary:
Based on the results of ’the 5 most used Web Analytics reports’ usage study - one can conclude that there is an evolution towards less use of standard reports for the sophisticated Web Analytics user. In point of fact to the extent where 1 in 10 reports requested by a sophisticated web analytics user is not provided out of the box from the web analytics vendor.

This is the 3rd post in a series of posts about the factual (quantitative researched) state of the web analytics industry. Where the two previous study results are to be found here:

1. Web Analytics Industry – International Pulse (US vs. EU)
2. Web Analytics Level of Advancement in the UK, Benelux and Scandinavia

In this study, I wanted to find out if there was a different usage pattern between sophisticated web analytics users and less sophisticated web analytics users, and if so, what reports one would advance to. The data collection methodology is as indicated in previous studies, based on the fact that the IndexTools service is instrumented with the IndexTools tag itself.

Dataset:

Period: Q1 2008
Report requests analyzed: 2,170,503

Functions of a report, such as Segmenting, Filtering, Drilling-down, Drilling-trough, applying Events or Alerts etc. are not treated as direct report usage and thus not part of this study. The definition of sophisticated and less sophisticated was based on self selection in tool feature selection.

The 5 most popular Web Analytics reports utilized by sophisticated users

1. Custom Created Report
2. Campaign Summary
3. Last Visitor Details
4. Visits
5. Most Requested Pages

The 5 most popular Web Analytics reports utilized by less sophisticated users

1. Last Visitor Details
2. Campaign Summary
3. Visit Path
4. Visits
5. Page Views

*Please be advised that the above visuals are presentations of averages and not medians. The median had a long tail distribution leaning towards a heavy tail, indicating that web analytics users tend to use fewer report than the overall average, but it is not the SAME few reports. This was confirmed when I looked at individual web analytics users, where it was still a long tail distribution, but with a fat head.

Conclusion

Based on the results of this ’the 5 most used Web Analytics reports’ usage study - one can conclude that there is an evolution towards less use of standard reports for the sophisticated Web Analytics user. In point of fact to the extent where 1 in 10 reports requested by a sophisticated web analytics user is not provided out of the box from the web analytics vendor.

For the less sophisticated web analytics user there is an indication towards high value in REAL-TIME reporting (Last visitor details and visit path are both LIVE-data based reports). In point of fact to the extent where 1 in 8 reports requested by a less sophisticated web analytics user is directly related to REAL-TIME reporting.

I also find it an interesting finding that Campaign Management - no matter the level of sophistication or spend – is top of mind and absolutely sees as a crucial report activity.

So a quick Web Analytics industry conclusion could be (a tad too quick and unfair, as study data was from IndexTools only) that for one to thrive today and tomorrow, clients should be able to model data into custom reports and in best case, in real-time.

Source: 2,170,503 web analytics report requests throughout Q1 2008.
Vendor: IndexTools a Yahoo! service
(VisualRevenue.com/blog - Dennis R. Mortensen)

A fun response would of course be, to see what the 5 most used reports (not functions) of Google Analytics is – Avinash? Or the 5 most used reports from Microsoft AdCenter Analytics – Ian?

…Or evenly exciting, your subjective personal top 5 – Anyone?

Cheers
Dennis.. :-)