"Omniture and Google Analytics over-hyped", that's the headline of the press release from CMS Watch I got in my mail box this morning.
They go on to say that "today (they) rejected the snowball of hype suggesting that Google Analytics and Omniture are the only remaining solid choices for Web Analytics" and "CMS Watch research finds that enterprises can select from a broad selection of established vendors that work well in diverse scenarios and can scale as web site traffic grows".
CMS Watch is absolutely right that there are some great products, some of them much better suited for a particular client and situation (because of price, local presence, specific features, etc.). This seems to be especially true in Europe.
However, I don't agree that larger market share means over-hyped. Are they delivering on their promise? I think so.
Furthermore, you can't really compare Google Analytics and Omniture, they are at different positions on the large spectrum of web analytics solutions.
Google Analytics is great to start in the field and Forrester put it near the middle of their Wave: good offering, good strategy. Other products can compare advantageously to Google Analytics.
I also share Forrester's opinion about Omniture: strong strategy and strong offering. Omniture SiteCatalyst goes way beyond Google Analytics in terms of segmentation, custom metrics, system integration and advanced analysis capabilities... for a price. But web analytics doesn't stop with data collection and analysis, one need to look at the larger offering and think about other complementary tools to complete the Trinity approach put forward by Avinash Kaushik: Behavior, Outcomes and Experience. This includes A/B and multivariate testing, surveys, performance analytics, etc. Should you go with best of suite or best of class?
Companies looking at spending tens of thousand of dollars annually in a multi-year contract for a tool/service, training and put their faith in such a product to take important business decisions better do their research seriously. Although expensive, I think the report might make a lot of sense for companies currently in the selection process.
The web analytics vendors market shares I have started to publish might also be a consideration in the selection process. I leave it to you to decide if going for the bigger player is a good or a bad thing.
Named one of the most influential industry contributors by the Digital Analytics Association. With over twenty years’ experience empowering organizations to analyze and optimize their online channels, Stéphane has cemented his position as a leading voice for online analytics and optimization.
2 comments:
For Core Metrics and WebTrends not to be included is a bit ridiculous.
WebTrends still has more customers than Omniture. Even when the Visual Sciences deal is complete they still may have more. The flexibility of WebTrends in either a Software or Hosted environment is right up their with Omniture and better in A LOT of cases. Omniture does provide a better Out of the Box experience but WebTrends provides much more flexibility in how to collect, report and analyze data. If you are a savvy Analytics user WebTrends puts more of the power in your hands. Granted, they have had some management shakeup - but from what I hear it was a good thing.
And Core Metrics is still a very viable choice for Retail. Although it lacks some of the flexibility of WebTrends and even Omniture it is tailored for Retail clients and offers a much more in depth set of functionality specific to Retailers without much up front work.
I agree, that the report has over-hyped Google and Omniture. Heck, they even forget to highlight Click Tracks. One of my favorite smaller players:) Go Click Tracks.
Here is some of my guidance for clients:
Google - If you are new to Analytics and want Free, go with Google. That one's easy. Even if you use another vendor like Omniture, WebTrends or Core Metrics. Use Google in conjunction. Why not, it's free! Numbers won't match, I can tell you that, but Google does have some reporting, especially keyword based reports, that others don't.
Omniture - Definetly the new heavy in the space. A solid choice but don't get sold on all that great marketing they do and overhyped reports like the CMS Watch. WebTrends and Core can still provide a better solution depending on the customer. If you want to be a follower and want comfort going with the leader, just cause they are the leader, go for it follower:) Just be aware that you probably won't get the same amount of attention as you might with others. They haven't been showing much love to clients lately. And Omniture, if you feel like I'm being harsh. Well, that comes with being number 1. You've done a solid job to date, no doubt, let's see how all those acquisitions ban out and how distracted you get.
WebTrends - the only company offering a viable Software offering to small, medium and large companies - in addtion to their OnDemand offering. The most flexibility in the space to answer tough questions that can't be done with Omnniture's Site Catalyst and either requires Omniture's Data Warehouse/Discover or can't be done at all. If WebTrends gets their VI platform up to snuff - watch out for them making a possible return to the glory days. It's a long shot but some of us are pulling for you just the way I pulled for Omniture when WebTrends was on top. I think I like underdogs.
Core Metrics - still the best choice in Retail in my opinion. Omniture has taken some of their larger clients with clever marketing and aggressive selling but Core is still a very solid choice here.
Lastly, the local presence of your Analytics provider has seemed to make a difference with some clients we have. A good strong team that tries to partner with you can make a world of difference.
Good post Hamel as I couldn't have agred more with your post.
Looking at how CMS Watch is evaluating the different Web Analytics tools in the market, one question came to my mind:
Has anyone ever looked at the CMS solutions in the market to evaluate which is the best one for Web Analytics?
What if you are looking for a brand new CMS and want to pick one that will offer the best features for a new web analytics implementation? Something
- Integration with several analytics tools
- Easy tagging and tracking code installation, with almost no IT intervention
- Hierachy handling
- A/B Testing ready
- Event tracking
- ...
Or even put together such a list of features?
Nice post, by the way!
Thanks
Jose
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