Web Analytics Weds
By Craig Danuloff
Today is Web Analytics Weds, which means that there are get-togethers for the analytically-minded in cities all over the globe (Analytics Weds List). I'll be trying to attend the New York City meeting tonight, but coincidentally (I hope it wasn't intentional) the first Omniture user group meeting is also tonight in NYC (W Hotel in Union Square, 6pm) so not sure yet how I'll allocate my time.
We've been Omniture SiteCatalyst users for about two years, and prefer it over the other packages because of the level of customization it provides in terms of both data collection and reporting. We just moved our own site and this blog onto SiteCatalyst yesterday, after previously using Google Analytics for about six months, and IndexTools for about 18 months before that. I still use Google Analytics on 3 other sites, and still have other personal IndexTools accounts which I've used for years.
My impressions of Google Analytics have always been pretty poor. I had some experience with Urchin (the company and technology that became Google Analytics) and found it servicable if not impressive, but am constantly confused by the Google Analytics interface - I could create dozens of posts for thisisbroken.com on
the interface foibles. In addition, it always seems like I can't get there from here - find basic data that I'm used to getting from an analytics package. Like if I view the referer list I see domains but not the specific URLs which I'd like to follow back to see the inbound links. Or if I look at Daily Visitors I can't figure out how to see visitors by the hour. I could go on and on.
So I was surprised yesterday to find two things. First, the Unofficial Google Analytics blog, which in tone and content sure makes GA sound impressive, and this post from Aninash Kaushik that basically says if the right person use GA properly you don't need higher end packages (like Omniture).
At the moment, I'm still not convinced because I've spent a pretty fair amount of time trying to like GA and am just entirely unimpressed. But I'm going to spend some time reading and playing and see if these two can convince me or if I can write an authoritative contrarian post as to why the cost and features of Omniture are a good investment.
Whatever the package is, it's clear that web site analytics needs a lot more time and attention from online marketers. Nearly every client and prospect we talk to is under-utilizing the tools and capabilities, which means making decisions on less than all the available information. I was glad to find the list of analytics bloggers on Eric Peterson's site (although his list leaves off the great Matt Belkin) and have added them all to my RSS reader and look forward to reading (and writing) more on this subject in the very near future.
Comments
Craig: Thanks for the thoughtful post and presenting your point of view. I’ll make a slight clarification to your reference to my post (10/90 Rule of Magnificent Success).
Perhaps I failed in clearly delivering the core message in the post you reference: Web Analytics and web interactions (between our customers and our businesses) are both inherently complex and to get maximum value, independent of tool, we need to invest at a massively higher level in brains. Dumping the in house tool for GA is a suggested solution to find money for brains. That’s it. There is no implication in my post, or in my mind, that GA is better than Omniture or WebTrends is worse than ClickTracks or CoreMetrics beats them all.
Web Analysis, and web insights, is inherently very very complex and the core message was focus on the people in terms of spending and not the tools because they’ll all get XX% there with the right brains applied. But each company will find its own sweet spot with the tool and that is absolutely fabulous.
That being said I do have a point of view that inherently “high end” tools are better. I share that point of view in this comment that is a quick two minute read:
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2006/06/top-ten-signs-you-are-a-great-analyst.html#comment-175
Thanks again for your post and I look forward to your authoritative contrarian post, that’s the great thing about our world the conversation is where the value is.
-Avinash.
Posted by: Avinash Kaushik | June 14, 2006 2:36 PM
Thanks Avinash. I did read your 10/90 post and plan on quoting it (to clients) extensively! And I appreciate the clarification about your point on GoogleAnalytics.
I do expect to be the contrarian a lot of the time, but from what I've read, not to you. But I look forward to our discussions in whatever format they take.
Posted by: Craig Danuloff | June 16, 2006 1:09 AM