The Web Analytics feature race is largely over
John Lovett from JupiterResearch finished his report: Web Analytics Buyer’s Guide, Assessing Vendors’ Competencies and Value - which concluded (..and John is smart, so listen up!) that:
The Web analytics feature race is largely over and we are left with Web Analytics providers competing on Price and Flexibility.
Which is not far from where I think we are today. He also concludes that:
Solutions from Omniture, Unica, and Coremetrics emerged as industry leaders for large enterprises using analytics. WebTrends, Google Analytics, IndexTools a Yahoo! Service, and Lyris HQ ClickTracks also attained industry-leader status for small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) through demonstrated value.
The only surprise in that conclusion, for the average online marketer, is (.. and I sadly agree) that WebTrends is not perceived an Enterprise player any longer.
So if it is indeed about Price and Flexibility, I actually think there is room for an Enterprise contender to go out on a super aggressive Omniture and Coremetrics customer hunt! – I just don’t see who actually have the talent and technology to do so. Hmmm, more on that later..
Cheers :-)
Dennis
July 15th, 2008 at 13:10
Perception, perception. How could WebTrends manage to be perceived as NOT being an Enterprise player? I know of many very large accounts that just don’t use it to its fullest, have no idea that products such as Visitor Intelligence are out there (well, that IS WebTrends’ fault here), and basically have just had issues with defining their own criteria for success (did you say KPIs?).
Anyway, perception is evrything in business. The new management in Portland certainly has a lot on their plate. I have been telling them for months to be more agressive with their Marketing Warehouse/Visitor Intelligence/Score product suite, and their integration with other data sets (of course, I have no voice ;-)).
Anyway, I myself am slowly getting away from all those products as the ones with the most insights when it comes to online customers. Analyzing vast amount of anonymous traffic has a lot of drawbacks and limitations, and as soon as a customer identify herself, we are equipped with much better products, and analysis frameworks, to make good use of the data…
July 15th, 2008 at 14:35
Hi Jacques :-)
Perceptions are indeed everything! FUN Trivia; My analytics “career” actually started way back 1996, when I built a consulting company, where we used WebTrends as the primary web analytics tool (essentially before it had a real version number). The perception back then and up until 2000 - where we sold the company, was that WT was certainly an Enterprise tool. But in the last 10ish RFP’s I personally participated in, WT just wasn’t in the mix. It was always Omniture or Coremetrics and then a contender or two like IndexTools added to the mix.
I do agree that reporting tools (a.k.a. most basic Web Analytics tool features) do not compare much to more true analytics systems. They do however have one “advantage” – which is that THEY are the ones collecting and owning the online behavioral data as it stands today.
..but I also believe that these are the years, where Web Analytics is losing its virginity, and that it will essentially just become another discipline in Business Intelligence. Not tomorrow, but at some point.
Cheers
Dennis
July 16th, 2008 at 14:59
Hi Dennis,
Sure, WA applications “own” web data, but do they really? When we were analyzing server log files, we were then in a more “standardized” environment, i.e. the data was in a structure determined outside WA vendors (oh! btw, they are becoming popular again with mobile analytics!). I also thing we, as an industry, should not be dependent on proprietary data structure and have called for a change. This means that if I had a way of collecting data in a standardized structure, I could decide where I would analyze it, such as shooting it to my data warehouse.
July 16th, 2008 at 15:33
Hi Dennis, Thanks for the kudos on the report. I love your comment about Web Analytics “losing its virginity”. But isn’t that an all or nothing game?!? You can’t lose it slowly. But surely the innocence of Web Analytics is lost — and as you aptly state, competitors will step up to challenge — or else they may as well stay home! With change as the constant, there’s certainly more fun looming for tomorrow.
July 16th, 2008 at 15:50
Hi Jacques,
I agree. It is however just a fact that with a proprietary dataset from e.g. Omniture, IndexTools or GA for that matter - they (we the vendors) essentially own the data, no matter what the T&C’s says (and that would even be the case with a standardized collection tag, as you suggest in your post, and which is a grand idea).
But then again, being a bit fair, NONE of the real-time vendors would be able to provide those solutions with vertical scalability without having developed their own proprietary systems.
I see your thinking, I like it, I just don’t see it happening anytime soon. Sorry :-)
Cheers
Dennis
July 16th, 2008 at 16:20
Hi John,
I think of “losing one’s virginity” as something including a long fun exhilarating foreplay – what we call the Web Analytics Industry. Then POP! - we wake up - and Omniture got acquired by Oracle and put under their BI division (Hyperion alone have/had, what, 5 times the revenue of OMTR). So yes, I agree there are lots of fun looming for tomorrow.. :-)
(..and by the way, what would I know about virginity anyway!?)
Cheers
Dennis
July 16th, 2008 at 17:52
[...] can check out some other thoughts and comments on the report from Dennis Mortensen at: visualrevenue.com I will say that I did not spend the $1,500 bucks to read the full report (I would have, but was [...]
July 16th, 2008 at 21:46
John L.,
I know a lot of work goes into these type of reports and overall I thought the report hit on a lot of trends I see. Well done! BUT:) I can’t get my arms around the Webtrends ranking. I do have to agree with Jacques regarding Webtrends NOT being an Enterprise player. I think anyone that has been exposed to the Webtrends recent product line has to agree that they are in fact - Enterprise. What was the rationale behind this? Did Webtrends not respond?