webanalytics.cl

The results are in! Thanks to everyone who participated in the experiment.

After processing the answers to remove some slightly skewed values (those out of the range average ± 1.5 x standard deviation were removed) the results are shown on the figure and on the following table:

My interpretation of the results:

1. On average Omniture occupies 1st place both in Current Features Offering and overall Strategy in the WA professionals mindset.
2. Google Analytics is recognized to have the strongest Market Presence and also a strong strategy, 2nd to Omniture.
3. Coremetrics, Webtrend and Yahoo! Analytics are perceived to have a weaker Strategy and Market Presence than the other two vendors.
4. I think this last point contributes to Google Analytics’ Current Features Offering been perceived as strong as the one from paid/former paid vendors Coremetrics, Webtrends and Yahoo! Analytics.
5. Omniture has grown its market presence with the acquisition of HBX/VisualSciences outperforming Webtrends and Coremetrics.
   

What makes Omniture and Google Analytics leaders?

1. A clear strategy and value proposition. For Omniture is its 1-stop shopping approach through a synergic suit of products and for Google Analytics its best free web analytics tool and straight forward approach to WA.
   
2. An orchestrated and continous media presence gaining top-of-mind in both analysts and decision makers. For Omniture through acquisitions and partnerships that cloud the days of its competitors. In the case of Google Analytics its perfect timing of features releases, a ubiquitous presence on the blogosphere and a mediatic and charming Avinash Kaushnik do the trick.
   

What shall we expect from Coremetrics, Webtrends and Yahoo! Analytics in the next 12 months?

Last week there was a very active post and comment thread on Francois Derbaix’s blog (Francois is CEO of www.toprural.com). His post explained the difference he had found between the organic traffic measured  for toprural by XITI and Google Analytics. In just a few days 71 persons commented or linked to the post, some of them just tailgating on the “Google is Evil” theme.

He implied that Google used GA to give a wrong idea on the share of organic traffic over total visits and basically “scooped” the news that GA has a campaign tracking latency with a default value of 6 months. In my opinion Google has been pretty clear on what information is reported on the traffic sources and also regarding the configuration options to modify the campaign tracking latency. So basically, the web analyst using the tool is responsible for the configuration and knowing what GA is measuring and reporting.

To analyze the comments thread I marked each comment as either a trackback or a comment, then I reviewed and matched either the content of the comment or the post linking to the thread to one or more of the following themes:

1. Google is evil or/and Why GA lies to me?
2. Surprised and/or uninformed and/or thankful to know
3. Genuine concern and/or Request for advice/Acknowledge need of specialized support
4. Provide set-up advice and/or additional information
5. Watercooler or miscellaneous conversation and yadayadayada
   

After browsing the 123 comments and posts involved directly in the conversation till the 23/02/2009 I can highlight the following:

• 71 participants (including post author and guest-star  Avinash Kaushnik)
• 123 comments, 27 of them were trackbacks
• 1 every 3 participants was surprised to know Google Analytics track traffic sources in this way and the latency was 6 months
• Only 1 every 10 participants provide set-up advice, solutions or additional information to enrich the conversation
• 12 out of 71 participants at one point of the conversation wrote about the Google is evil theme
• And 6 out of the 27 posts linking the original post were about Google is evil!
• 21 out of 71 participants show genuine concern, requested advice or acknowledge the need for specialized support.

For me the biggest discovery was to learn that so many people use Google Analytics without bothering to learn about its configuration nor the data reported and how quick they place the shame on the tool once they realize they have been getting it wrong.  I’m thinking  “Eyes wide shut”.