Microsoft adCenter Analytics Discontinued – and the future of FREE Web Analytics
My good friend Mel Carson just announced that Microsoft adCenter Analytics is to be Discontinued. They actually call it a close of beta program, but Don’t Kid a Kidder! This is it; Microsoft just announced that they don’t want to play in the FREE Web Analytics Market. A statement which immediately brings forth the question; what is the future of free web analytics?
Before answering that; I want to insure that we all agree that free web analytics as a concept doesn’t really exist, the currency simply changed from USD to DATA. So you might not get an invoice from Google or Yahoo, but you most certainly pay by sending your data their way. I am not saying this is bad, I actually think it is an absolutely fair exchange. (I know I am biased)
It is also known and accepted that one cannot really be a player in the online advertising market today without access to rich visitor data. Visitor data, that we typically see enhanced with extremely valuable conversion data, when coming as part of a web analytics deployment.
Finally and not uninteresting is of course the actual value of the web analytics application itself, and thus the relationship between advertiser and media owner. It is believed that people who deploy some sort of campaign control mechanism, such as a web analytics solution, are likely to spend more on online advertising. Not only that, it is also important that the media owner, such as Google or Yahoo, gets the opportunity to present their own conversion stories. It seems silly if I advertised in the Wall Street Journal and had the New York Times tell me whether it was successful or not. Just like it seems silly that Yahoo! would let Google own the conversion story.
Why do you think Google Analytics provides “Last Click Campaign Attribution“ and Yahoo! Web Analytics provides multiple models including “Original Source Campaign Attribution”? – Because last click favors Search and Google owns search and thus present a positive picture of their channel, Original Source on the other hand favors Display and Yahoo! owns Display and thus present a positive picture of their channel – same data, two different stories.
Knowing the above two facts about Data and Application, I am very confident in saying that the FREE Web Analytics Market is very much alive and kicking. And if I am rude, I might just conclude that Microsoft decided that they don’t need to present the conversion story (they don’t own any of the two major channels) and that they can get their data from somewhere else, such as Internet Explorer, Messenger and Toolbars etc.
How does this impact Yahoo! Web Analytics? Well, this is my personal blog, so in my personal opinion it doesn’t change anything at all. We definitely plan to continue our innovation around Analytics. Next step is the upcoming launch of a new version!
Let me know if you disagree or if I am being to simplistic in my attitude.
AND see you at SES in New York, where you will find my in or around the Yahoo booth throughout the week. I might even be able to show you some of the sexy new YWA features. :-)
Find the original message sent out to Microsoft adCenter Analytics users below (I was one of them):
Cheers
Dennis :-)
Dear Dennis,
The Microsoft adCenter AnalyticsBeta team is announcing the end of the adCenter Analytics beta program. The program has been closed, but Analytics will remain available to you through December 31, 2009. Please note that all hosted services, data collection, and technical support will end at that time. If you would like to save your historical data, please use the export feature to download your reports before December 31, 2009.
The Analytics team wants to sincerely thank you for your participation and your contributions to the program. Our objectives at the outset were to serve the needs of small and midsize business customers, as well as evolve the Microsoft strategy to encompass web analytics.
The beta program was a success in every respect. The insights you’ve contributed through your use of the tool and your feedback have helped us immeasurably in shaping Microsoft’s future in web analytics. Your feedback has helped us confidently determine that we can serve advertisers and publishers best by offering a tailored solution that meets more specialized needs.
You can rely on our continuing e-mail support through December 31, 2009. We recommend that you use the coming months to evaluate your web analytics needs and begin searching for an alternative web analytics solution. Click here for a list of companies that offer comparable analytics solutions.
For additional information, visit the adCenter Analytics blog and its award winning content. The blog will be renamed “Insights and Analysis” and will remain focused on advertiser ROI and optimization.
Again, thank you for your participation. We appreciate your contribution.
Sincerely,
The Microsoft adCenter Analytics Team
March 13th, 2009 at 9:18
[...] li rilascia, anzi il settore è più vivo e in fermento che mai (vedi anche la prossima release di Yahoo Web Analytics), ma semplicemente il costo si è trasformato da dollari a dati (ancorché i costi non si siano [...]
March 14th, 2009 at 6:55
Hi Dennis,
You make an interesting point about “telling the conversion story”.
As a practitioner I am glad Y! WA provides an alternative to GA, though I’m of the opinion that they aren’t direct competitors. My hope is that the two tools will keep pushing each other on a continuous path of improvement.
In that sense I never felt Gatineau or AdCenter Analytics ever provided real competition or a catalyst for improvement in the web analytics world. No one seemed to talk about it and not many used it. So its withdrawal will have no significant impact on the market, at least in my opinion.
You mention the Original/First/Last/ campaign attribution metrics. Using the Last campaign certainly favours Google (with caveats – I’ll come to it in a second). But I don’t think that is the main reason GA uses it. Same as Yahoo didn’t buy Index Tools because it has the Original Source metric.
After all, most WA tools use the Last as default and may also provide the option for Original, First or Linear. Last is often the easiest for marketing managers to understand.
What would really help us as practitioners are more advance models for campaign attribution. So we do not need to choose between original, first, last or linear. Ideally we would be able to provide different weightings for each touch point based on our own designated weighting system. This would change from client to client. However, the modelling tool should give us the flexibility to do so. I would prefer this integrated into my analytics tool rather than having to create it in a BI tool. I have a few ideas which I would be glad to share with you (perhaps via phone or email).
Finally, coming back to the caveat about Last favouring search. I don’t have robust stats to back me (perhaps you do) but I’m not entirely sure search is the most frequent last touch point.
I often see search being the first and direct being last.
Let me know if you’d like to chat about it more.
Thank you,
Michael
March 15th, 2009 at 11:32
Dennis,
I couldn’t agree more on the aspect of “owning a certain marketing channel and favouring it through your analytics solution”.
Basically it has been always a good idea to invent the ruler the success is measured with along with your product.
March 15th, 2009 at 18:58
[...] como nos cuenta Dennis R. Mortensen, director of data insights en Yahoo, se acabó lo que se daba y Microsoft ha decidido no continuar desarrollando ni soportando su software de analítica web, adCenter [...]
March 18th, 2009 at 13:25
Hi Michael,
Funny that you bring up attribution because it’s been a hot topic at Yahoo! We’ve had many discussions surrounding attribution models (including ongoing disucssions about view-through attribution and weighting). In fact, Yahoo! Search Analytics (not to be confused with Yahoo! Web Analytics) provides an attribution metric called Assists. Assists show you the total number of times that a clicked ad contributed to the conversion of another clicked ad.
Here’s an example…
A visitor clicks on a Sony laptop banner ad, reaches the web site, but does not convert. Later (within 45 days), the same visitor goes to Yahoo! and seaches for the key term “sony laptop”. They click on the PPC ad, reach the web site and this time convert.
The result? The Sony laptop banner ad is attributed with an Assist while the search ad (“sony laptop”) is attributed with the conversion. So not only are you able to see how a campaign/ad converts on its own, but vis Assists, you’re now able to see the total number of times that the campaign/ad contributed to additional conversions.
This level of attribution is changing the way our advertisers manage their online ad budgets. In cases where advertisers may have lowered the budget for a display ad because it didn’t convert well on its own, now they’re realizing that the display ad is more valuable at driving conversions to other ads such as search. So rather than pulling back on their budgets, they’re maintaining the budget and in other cases throwing more budget dollars at it.
And Assists aren’t just regulated to Yahoo! related properties. With Yahoo! Search Analytics, you can track outide the Yahoo network. You can track Assists and conversions for your email campaigns, shopping comparison ads, affiliate ads, display, and even other search ads (like Google and MSN).
It’s the only major search engine that provides cross channel attribution metrics. I invite you to try it out if you have Yahoo! search campaigns ruinning.
Dennis, of course, can speak more closey to Yahoo! Web Analytics and its approach to attribution.
March 18th, 2009 at 14:08
Hey Michael,
(and Matt)
Thank you for the thorough and detailed set of comments. We at YWA, by no means, tell ourselves that we conquered attribution. Which I also believe you see very well from the post itself. I am actually somewhat admitting that some of the players might be colored, no harm intended, to some extent.
I liked, which echo your comment Michael, the following statement from Forrester:
“Given today’s challenging economic times, attribution is critically important because so many organizations are questioning the value of their outbound marketing efforts. Marketers should begin measuring multicampaign attribution now, before it becomes a corporate mandate.”
And some of the research also confirmed the need of actually being able to provide ad-hoc AND custom attribution as you talk about. This is a study performed by Forrester as well:
In conclusion; I believe it is likely that you will see Web Analytics vendors provide either access to RAW data, so you can go work your own attribution models, or provide more flexible interfaces, so you can manage multiple unequal touch-points.
Again. Thank you for the great input.
Cheers
d. :-)
March 20th, 2009 at 16:29
Hi Matt, Dennis,
Matt – I was fascinated by your description of the Y! Search Analytics. That is new to me and very interesting. I certainly will explore it further. Thanks for sharing.
Is it possible to integrate this data with web analytics? Put that into Y! WA and you have a killer app.
I forgot to mention that Omniture have a plugin (cross-visit participation) that enables you to “stack” up marketing activity. Essentially you can capture the campaign path visitors take. It is worth a read:
http://blogs.omniture.com/2009/03/09/cross-visit-participation-inside-omniture-sitecatalyst/
Regards,
Michael
April 5th, 2009 at 9:23
[...] im Blog von Dennis R. Mortensen ist es zu lesen, was für Google Analytics und auch Yahoo! Web Analyticts [...]
April 6th, 2009 at 9:09
Even though not many used Microsofts solution (strangely I have not heard anyone using it), a healthy amount of competition is always good to keep the tool owners on the edge. It will be interesting to see what will happen when Yahoo Analytics goes out of beta mode. Will Google start feeling even more pressure, making the tools even better, or will everyone choose Yahoo Analytics, creating a new giant. :) Or will nothing happen.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:52
[...] Mortensen, mannen bak Index Tools (nå Yahoo! Web Analytics) har en alternativ forklaring på nedleggelsen av Adcenter/Gatineau. Både Yahoo! og Google har en agenda med hvordan data [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 13:38
[...] Dennis Mortensen poodhaluje na svém blogu, proč tomu tak je. Google tímto v podstatě přikrášluje konverzní výsledky search reklamy, kde je logicky nejsilnější. Vyplývá to z chování zákazníků – pokud jsem dospěl v rámci procesu nákupního rozhodování k závěru, tj. ke konkrétnímu produktu a značce, mám 2 možnosti, jak se odnavigovat na web dané značky: půjdu přímo vyťukáním adresy do prohlížeče, a nebo se obrátím na svůj oblíbený vyhledávač. Víme přece všichni moc dobře, jak často je search box vyhledávače zaměňován za adresní řádku prohlížeče. Tyto navigační dotazy, které jsou jen posledním kamínkem v celém dlouhém procesu nákupního rozhodování, si nezaslouží v atribučním modelu všechnu slávu, nicméně je v zájmu Googlu tuto zjednodušenou představu o fungování search reklamy všemožně podporovat. A jak podotýká Dennis, je na druhou stranu také v zájmu Yahoo podporovat takové atribuční modely, které přikládají větší váhu takovým formátům reklamy, které stojí v ranné fázi budování každého nákupu – brand awareness a consideration, a tím je display, což je silná doména Yahoo. Tato logika také vysvětluje akvizici IndexTools a přeměnu v Yahoo! Web Analytics. [...]