WEB ANALYTICS ANALYZED
Once upon a time, in a not so far distant past, a strange thing was happening on the web . . . very few people were tracking what was happening on their websites. Rumor had it that only about 20% of all website owners were actually monitoring their site statistics, their site user behaviors, and (gulp) even their return on their online marketing spends.
Thankfully, due in many parts to the FREE Google Analytics product; it appears that this nightmare is quickly coming to an end. For those of you, however, that have still not integrated advanced web analytics on your website . . . we ask why not? There are many excellent products out there, some even FREE. Below we hope to highlight the cream of the crop so we can get you on the road to tracking today!
Google Analytics: Cost = $0.00
http://www.google.com/analytics/
Google Analytics is an extremely powerful FREE application. It provides a wealth of information, an easy to use web-based interface, and a lot of ecommerce statistics which are not usually common in free applications. It ties in nicely with AdWords, which is great if you do a lot of advertising there. The downside is that the data is often 12 hours behind, so it’s not useful for looking at up to the minute stats. However, with their latest upgrade, this system has made leaps and bounds and I imagine will continue to do so – because its Google. Also, did we mention it is FREE?
Click Tracks: Cost = as low as $79 per month
http://www.clicktracks.com
Click Tracks is the originator of the “page overlay” technique. Page overlay lets you visually see your statistics on the actual pages of your website, as opposed to reading them in a data sheet. Some people live by the visual overlay; other people don’t like it at all. They do offer a free 30 day trial, so you can decide for yourself. They also offer both a hosted ASP solution and a software solution if you want to keep the data on your own server(s).
HitBox: Cost = Must speak with a sales agent for pricing (determined by products, expected usage, and ownership type)
http://www.websidestory.com
WebSideStory, now Visual Sciences, is one of the leaders in analytics reporting. HBX was one of the first to implement setting up custom funnels to track conversion on goals, they’ve had a site overlay for a long time, have a great plugin with Excel called ReportBuilder, introduced user segmentation early on, integration with PPC advertising, and have been using AJAX and other "web 2.0" technologies before the term even existed.
Webtrends: Cost = Must speak with a sales agent for pricing (determined by products, expected usage, and ownership type)
http://www.webtrends.com
Webtrends has been around forever and been sold a few times along the way. Now on their 8th version of their application, and they boast a big client list. Some new features include a conversion view from five points, bookmarking and sharing of analytics, a unique first-party cookie solution, and more. Unlike some of the other power applications, they do offer a free trial, but pricing isn’t cheap.
Omniture: Cost = Must speak with a sales agent for pricing (determined by products, expected usage, and ownership type)
http://www.omniture.com
A web analytics company based out of Utah that’s been on fire over the past couple of years signing big clients like eBay, Microsoft, and AOL. We have experience using their SiteCatalyst solution and it’s great for its power in user segmentation and ecommerce statistics. They also have a Data Warehousing feature that allows real time reporting combined with the flexibility of having good access to old data. Pricing isn’t cheap, and once again is negotiated with a salesperson.
NOW of course, not all websites are created equal and every website owner will have a unique goal and need for tracking. Therefore, there are no “one size fits all” solutions here. That said, you will want to speak to your potential vendor about many things before you decide on a final product. Below are the 10 main questions to ask your potential Web Analytics Vendor.
10 Questions to ask Web Analytics Vendors:
1) Main differences with free tools.
2) Types of versions and flexibility.
3) Types of data collection options and entrenchment.
4) TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).
5) Type of Support (options, pricing, technical or business).
6) Segmentation awesomeness (post data capture).
7) Exporting data (options, history, data ownership).
8) Integration with other sources of data.
9) What’s up next, the competitive edge.
10) Types of business lost, why.
