Web Analytics Management

WebTrends: A Busy Summer for Analytics

Summertime may be the time for blockbuster movie releases, but I don’t usually associate summer with blockbuster releases among web analytics vendors. WebTrends, with its Analytics 9 release in early August, sought to change all of that. WebTrends is having quite a busy summer, also acquiring a small multivariate testing firm called Widemile at the end of July.

The Analytics 9 release is quite an intriguing package and upon first look at all of its features there is definitely a “wow” factor…both because the interface and analysis functions are cool in of themselves, but a vast improvement on the “traditional” WebTrends interface.  The general thrust of the release is geared to making it easy for your report users to access reports more easily and analyze the data more quickly. Does WebTrends succeed?

The new Insight report profile report summary and drill down is clearly presented to the user with both standard and custom reports available. Rather than split up reports into a vendor-centric hierarchy (a frustrating norm from all vendors since the beginning of web analytics), the reports are presented in alphabetical order.  A search function is also available to quickly find a specific report.  However, you must enter the specific name of the report, as it is not a fuzzy search. On the plus side, the search form does fill in with possible reports based on your entry.

A “story” feature is available for all standard (not custom) reports. This is a great little feature that spits out a descriptive analysis of the report that’s been run. For example, instead of you needing to write about the top level numbers and trends, the story feature populates the analysis template with the numbers in all of the right places. I laughed when I first saw this because I could completely relate to having to spend time on writing these rather obvious analyses that are both labor intensive and tedious…but often necessary when sending reports along to stakeholders.  There is a bit of a downside, in that you cannot customize the canned analyses.

If you are using RSS for news, press releases, blogs and so forth, you can insert the RSS URL into a report, and see on what dates stories were going out on the RSS. All you need to do is a cut and paste of the URL into the RSS Overlay field and you’re good to go.

The other aspect of this release that is quite exciting is the use of the REST API to create automated Excel reports. Readers of the CMS Watch Web Analytics Report, and more sophisticated users of WebTrends know that automated Excel reporting (a la Omniture’s Excel client) has always been a weak point. The new REST APIs make this pain a thing of the past…for the most part. As long as you’re using Excel 2007, all you need to do is copy the http link generated by the report in WebTrends and paste it into the “From Web” field under the Data tab to get the report.  The good news is that you can generate the same report as often as you’d like…daily, weekly, monthly and so on, and the http link will be the same, so you can point to the same link. In addition, there is no limit to the number of rows available in the data export. The automation aspect...that is hands free update of the data into the Excel sheet… is not currently available. This means that you’ll need to do the data refresh manually. This is a bit of an inconvenience, but would not likely be too much to bear unless you’re doing quite a lot of automated Excel reporting.

Analytics 9 is a great step forward, but rather than being a standalone summer blockbuster it has to be viewed either as the first part of a multi-part serial or a preview of things to come. There are a few significant unfinished parts to this story:

What is to become of WebTrends’ custom report interface? This is not covered by the new release. If you need to develop advanced reports, such as those using filters or importing campaign and product IDs into reports, you need to use the “traditional” UI from release 8.5. Same goes for doing drill down reporting.

Other “cliffhanging” aspects in Analytics 9:

• The list of reports in Insight is pre-defined; the company indicates that you’ll be able to custom configure the list in the next release.
• There are two different log ins…one for Insight and one for the “traditional” UI, but there is on administrative control over setting permissions from one or the other.
• Insight does not work with Marketing Warehouse.

There is definitely a “work in progress” element to the WebTrends product right now…which feels both exciting and risky. Management stresses that it is now in a mode of rapid release, and that the product will be fully re-engineered over the next 6-9 months, with the next release coming out in October. According to the company, there have been 44 customers in beta since mid-June, and they are planning to use the feedback from this group to help shape the evolution of the new product.

I think it’s all a good thing, and I’m impressed by the progress the WebTrends team has made since Alex Yoder took over as the CEO a year ago. But for all of the advancements in Analytics 9, I have a question about what exactly and when exactly the core product will be completely re-engineered. It is not exactly clear what features will be addressed and when they’ll be addressed going forward. I think it would be helpful to have more definition around the product development roadmap.  Without this guidance from the company, I’m not exactly sure when the “new” product will be finished or available in entirety. If I were evaluating WebTrends, I’d ask my rep to be as clear about this as possible. Otherwise, I’d feel a bit like I’m guessing on how the product story is going to turn out. Might be fine for the movies, but in the case of a web analytics investment, I’d like to know how the story ends before I pay my money.

Definitely interested to hear your take on this...either here or at X Change Sept 9-11.

I'd love to see you in my Think Tank Sessions the day before XChange begins:

From Business Requirements to Tag Design to Tag

Managing Web Analytics on a Shoestring

 

Omniture's Biggest Competitor

I thought Omniture’s Q1 2009 earnings call a few weeks ago provided more insight into the company than past calls; perhaps the result of less than all positive news.

 The company’s posture in the past has been that it is building a moat around itself to fend off competition through the online marketing optimization suite it has been developing. The company continues to state that it doesn’t face real competition. Says Omniture CEO Josh James:

“Yes, from a competitive standpoint the biggest competitor we have announced is the macroeconomic environment. The other competitors that we have are more of a nuisance right now than anything; it's not something that really affects the relationship that we have with our customer. And most of the conversations around with our customers right now are just about the internal conflict that they have in their organizations, because they are having to cut people.”

Other quotes from Omniture that I found intriguing:

 ·         “…so it's not that we are seeing competitive pressure and people are migrating. It's more that they are losing resources in order to take advantage of that technology, and they are arbitrarily cutting cost across their organization.”

·         “…we are seeing some customer attrition at the lower end as smaller customers lose resources to manage the data…”

OK, so Omniture is losing some customers at the low end. But do you believe it’s because of staff cuts and that these customers can no longer get value from SiteCatalyst because there’s no one around to manage the tool?

I don’t think so.

The elephant in the room is Google Analytics. It is common practice for many organizations to run GA and cost-based tools in tandem and as there are cost pressures, there are smaller organizations moving to free solutions.  And, staff cuts or not, many organizations – large and small - are not getting full value from their web analytics solutions because they are not demonstrating the value of analytics to the business.  So, while smaller customers may be on the most likely list to migrate to a free solution, the challenge to make web analytics relevant in any organization poses a threat to Omniture’s strategy for up sell within its product suite.

However, Omniture is also facing competition on the high end as former HBX customers choose other solutions. There is a growing class of enterprises who are placing data integration high on their priority list and who want to control data locally. As a result Unica’s Affinium NetInsight and WebTrends are the solutions considered as on-premise alternatives.

The call featured some introspection that you should welcome if you’re an Omniture customer

·         “…we are going to focus on our customer base and product suite in place and defer some strategic investments and favor a predictable profitability metric until the environment improves and becomes more stable.”

·         “…we are getting some commentary from the customers right now that there are too many sales people on an account…”

Focusing on the customer base and having too many sales people…interesting concepts. How do you think this will play out?

Related Post:

Has Omniture Stalled?

Compare web analytics vendor compliance with the Web Analytics Association Analytics Definitions

As part of the research that went into the 2009 CMS Watch Web Analytics Report, I asked the vendors about their compliance with the WAA Web Analytics Definitions. If you'd like to see how the vendors stacked up you can download this for free, as well as read my post on the findings at:  http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1575-WAA-Standards-Compliance

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone to see how they've used the Definitions in their work...whether it be for vendor evaluation, stakeholder or partner education, or for other purposes.

WebTrends' New Approach to Web Analytics

Since Alex Yoder took over the reins as CEO at WebTrends in August, the company has been on an active campaign to make itself over…on both the image and product development fronts. Preaching a message of “openness” this has been manifest in hiring a new PR firm focused on consistent messaging and a senior management team that shows an interest in accessibility…both noticeable changes from the pre-Yoder days.

Things moved a bit more slowly on the product development front. While the openness vision has been articulated at industry conferences, such as eMetrics, it wasn’t exactly clear what this meant…other than that the Marketing Warehouse was the key to data access.  So, it was with great anticipation to see what the company was going to announce at Engage, its customer conference last week.  

Now that the smoke has cleared, let’s see what happened:

A Big Pre-Announcement

A New WebTrends Open Exchange – Yes, Open Exchange has been around since September 2007, but primarily as a partnership program. The revamped Open Exchange will provide API access that builds on its Tag Builder functionality. At first impression this is all a good thing: a fully published API should help extend data export to third party solutions; provide an alternative to the ODBC drive for exporting data into Excel and enable better access to both Analytics and Marketing Warehouse data. These last two points are significant because for years WebTrends has insisted that there are no issues with the ODBC driver even though many in the marketplace have expressed unhappiness with the product. On the second point, there seems to have been an overemphasis on developing additional reporting and querying capabilities for Marketing Warehouse at the expense of the core Analytics product.  

 Is there a catch? Well, the critical component of the web services is the Data Collection API, and this is available in beta only right now…general release for Analytics slated for June and for Marketing Warehouse in Q4 2009. Any beta users out there? I’d definitely like to hear about your experiences after you’ve used the APIs to see what you think.

Quick take: Big build up and pay off to be determined.

An Interesting Partnership

A Co-Branded Radian 6 Offering – Radian 6 is one of the new breed of analytics tools that monitors social media impact. WebTrends announced WebTrends Social Measurement Powered by Radian 6. The promise is that through Open Exchange, you’ll be able to integrate Radian 6 data with WebTrends Analytics. However, you’ll need to wait on this…probably at least another quarter for any integration. In the meantime, you can purchase the Social Measurement solution through WebTrends and for now; see basically the same reports as you would if you purchase Radian 6 directly.

Quick take: Big build up and pay off to be determined.

A Packaged Approach

A Solution-Oriented Vertical Offering – Throughout its history, WebTrends has lacked cohesiveness to its product and service offerings. Yes, it could do a lot, but it’s been difficult to figure out what part of the solution would fit your needs. The company is addressing this with eight vertical focused solutions. Nothing like the Coremetrics reporting or the Omniture playbook approaches, these service/solution offerings are presented as complete offerings that encompass strategic, technical and tactical components. Of course it will be curious how these complex engagements are estimated, planned, delivered and managed.

Quick take: Big build up and pay off to be determined.

So, You Tell Me…

As I mentioned, WebTrends is doing a lot these days to convey a new image. Management is easy to talk to and very forthcoming with information. They are doing a great job at reaching out to analysts, and you can sense a real energy…so different than years past. But I wonder what you’ve seen…in your demos with WebTrends, your experiences with tech support? Do you think the company has changed for the better? Is this management enthusiasm and sense of purpose evident in your day-to-day dealings with the company? Or is it pretty much the same old, same old?

The next few quarters should be telling as to whether Engage will be seen as the public turning point for the company, or nothing more than a pep rally for the company faithful.

 

Microsoft adAnalytics Bids Adieu

In contrast to the great expectations accompanying its beta to duke it out with Google Analytics, the end of the adAnalytics beta and product was announced quietly on March 12. While there hasn’t been an official reason given, it doesn’t seem like there was ever a really big following for the solution. While certainly not scientific proof of this, the lack of response to a feedback request on the adAnalytics blog back in July makes you wonder what the take up of the solution actually was in the end. In general, it was surprising that it was such a non-factor in the analytics space. Perhaps adAnalytics will be best remembered for its ability to provide a limited amount of demographic data on about 25% of users based on their MS Passport Live ID...an intriguing concept, but not complete enough to draw any meaningful conclusions about traffic to your site. While it may be entertaining to speculate on whether MSFT will pursue the analytics game going forward, I’m not sure what they would need to do so. Sure, companies such as Omniture, Coremetrics and WebTrends are all possible acquisition candidates, but I don’t think they have much reason to do so. If it’s data that they want, they can get that through the rest of their web and PC-based applications and services.

I also don’t see this as any type of rejection of free analytics…I see more and more organizations looking to integrate Google Analytics into their web analytics framework as a way to service low demand analytics consumers and cut down on page view charges associated with their fee based vendors. And while many in the market may be frustrated at the lack of availability of Yahoo! Analytics there will likely be more interest in direct proportion to access over the coming months. No, the adAnalytics marketing strategy just failed to materialize effectively, and Microsoft clearly saw no reason to keep a service that added little or no value to its bottom line.

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If you're anywhere between NYC and DC, lets meet up at JBoye's Philadelphia conference May 5-7. I'll be speaking on Strategic Techniques for Improving Your Web Analytics will show you how a well executed web analytics strategy leads to successful analytics solution implementations.

75 of 2009

It’s been a busy first few months of 2009 and I wanted to tell you about some of the things I’ve been working on…also wanted to pass along a discount to eMetrics, a reminder about the WAA Public Sector Survey and a heads up about an upcoming presentation I’ll be making in May.

• In mid-February, I finished up the CMS Watch 2009 Web Analytics Report. This is the third edition of the report, and I added coverage of video and mobile specific vendors. Also, in response to the WAA’s review of the 2008 report, I asked all vendors to provide their take on WAA Metrics Standards compliance. Out of the 20 vendors that were covered, 10 complied. It was heartening to see that both Google Analytics and Coremetrics went public with their compliance soon after I made the request…and disappointing that more vendors did not. You may have your opinions about the relative value of the WAA Standards, but I think the effort that vendors do or do not put into transparency speaks volumes.
  

• If you’ve been reading my blog posts since the beginning of the year, you’ve noticed I’ve become quite interested in the question of web analytics data privacy and access. To expand on this often overlooked topic, I’ve teamed with CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne to write Do You Really Own Your Web Analytics Data? I’d love to hear what you think about this relative to your vendor selection decisions.
  

•  I mentioned in my post last week about the WAA Public Sector Survey. If you haven’t taken it, there’s still time…in fact you have until Monday, March 23. So, if you’re a .gov, .org, .edu or .mil, take 10 minutes and contribute to the knowledge-base…I’ve been tracking the results and seeing some very interesting trends and findings. This leads me to…

•  eMetrics in San Jose. We’re hoping to have preliminary findings in time for the big, big show May 4-7. And if you use this promo code WAMANAGE12 when you register, you’ll get 12% off your registration. If you register by this Friday, March 20, you’ll get an even better deal with Early Bird pricing! Go to: http://www.emetrics.org/sanjose/2009/register.php

Finally, if you can’t make it to eMetrics, join me on May 7 in beautiful, downtown Philadelphia, where I’ll be speaking at the JBoye conference.  My presentation, Strategic Techniques for Improving Your Web Analytics will show you how a well executed web analytics strategy leads to successful analytics solution implementations. The conference runs from May 5-7.  To register and find out more, go to: http://www.jboye.com/conferences/philadelphia09/schedule.

Who’s Web Analytics Data is it Anyway…Part 3

Since I wrote Whose data is it anyway? and Whose data is it anyway? Part 2 I've started to dive a bit deeper into the subject  of web analytics data ownership as part of my vendor research for the just released The 2009 Web Analytics Report and because I'm managing a vendor selection process for a Federal government entity.

It’s a complex issue and one that often gets overlooked during web analytics vendor selection and contract negotiations. Many analysts and web managers whom I speak to at large organizations either don’t read or don’t have access to their vendor contracts…and generally don’t ask about data ownership during the vendor evaluation process.  Many people just assume that they own their web analytics data.

So what does data ownership really mean? Is it simply a “concept”, or does it translate into anything of business value? Well, it depends on your vendor…what they say, what they don’t say and what they put in writing.

Let’s look at the four aspects of "data ownership":

Use of Your Data

As we’ve already written, Google Analytics and Yahoo! Web Analytics state in their contracts that may use your data for a variety of commercial purposes. Not all, but a few of the fee-based vendors state that they’ll use the data for benchmarking or industry average information. This seems to be a more palatable pill to swallow for large, security-concerned enterprises, such as those in government and financial services.

Data Security

All of the largest web analytics vendors have gone to great lengths to ensure the safety of your data from the perspective of storage, access, and redundancy and server failover. Yet if there’s a data loss, you’re on your own. All agreements absolve the vendors of any liability. So, in this case, what does data ownership really do for you? Not much.

Data Retention

Being able to run reports on historical data and having access to unaggregated data as far back as your contract runs may be considered to be a sign of data ownership, and one that many take for granted, but it is nothing of the sort. There are basically two types of web analytics data you can retain: data that is used in creating summary tables used for the reports you run in the core solution, and unaggregated data that makes up your web analytics database. The length of time that this data is kept may or may not be in the contract. We find this to be part of your service agreement, and can be completely negotiable. Your vendor will have a default length of time for both types of data…typically 12-36 months. You want more than the default, you can pay for it. We know of one fee-based vendor that breaks out default retention on an hourly, daily, weekly and monthly basis…just a bit more complicated and just another way to add to your cost of ownership.   The upshot of this: Data retention has real meaning for what “data ownership” is all about…or does it?

Data access- API or file extraction of core data tables for export to another system.

Before you get all excited about making a deal for keeping your data for 36 months, you have to think about how you’re going to export the data out of the web analytics solution. While it may be easy to pull old reports, what if you want to extract the unaggregated data to export to another database, or what if you want to use it with a business intelligence tool? How do you get it? Vendors that provide a data warehouse capability, are happy to sell you this capability and therefore your underlying data is available and extractable…typically through APIs. But if you don’t purchase a data warehouse capability or your vendor doesn’t offer one, you could get your unaggregated data in a state that is really hard to deal with…it could be unprocessed, meaning that the data is in a “log file” state, or it could be in a CSV format. In either case, you’ll have a lot of work to do to get the data in a state that is usable.

So, what’s “data ownership”? I think you have to figure out what elements of data ownership make the most sense. From my perspective, making sure that you can get your hands on your web data when you need it and with as little interference as possible are prime considerations. Security and privacy are paramount, but if you choose to go with an on-demand solution, you’ll need to be assured that the vendor meets your criteria, knowing that if there’s a data loss, you’ll have little recourse.

Whose data is it anyway? (Part 2)

I wanted to spend a bit more time on the subject of web analytics data usage per my post last week, or rather spend some time discussing the comments I received from Stephane Hamel and Jacques Warren.

Jacques makes the point about lack of transparency into “free tools”:

The fact that I can't have access to the raw data, the logs, has bothered me everytime I came across a problem. I just cannot accept that the only validation criterium of the numbers I'm seeing is... the brand! “It's right, because Google says so.”

Now, it is true that Jacques, who is one of the smartest web analysts out there, probably understands the intricacies and nuances of web data more than most people, but what I find ironic is that issues around data trust are common to many organizations, and it is often articulated by managers who have no background in web analysis. They simply don't understand how web analytics works. So, if you use Google Analytics, how do you address core data accuracy questions? Is it easier or more difficult to do than with a tool that has more apparent data transparency?

I also find it interesting that many organizations use Google Analytics to “audit” their fee based tool. I don't quite get the logic in this. How about doing an audit of the data collection for the fee-based tool that has already received investment?

In an odd turn of events, I have to wonder if companies' dual deployment of Google in addition to the fee-based solution has actually helped perpetuate poor implementations of fee-based solutions. Perhaps it is coincidence that it used to be that when organizations got frustrated with their analytics solutions, they'd be more prone to switch solutions, but it now seems that they simply use Google Analytics in tandem. I've got nothing other than anecdotal evidence to prove this, as well as using Stephane Hamel's WASP, but I'd be curious to hear what you have to say about this.

Stephane's comment makes a good point regarding the concept of web analytics maturity within an organization and use of the “right” solution. This is something we've sought to educate readers of the Web Analytics Report through the use of business and resource commitment scenarios. I also share Stephane's concern that “as the power of Google increase, the options are becoming scarcer.”

Then again, while this economy may impact companies well recognized in the analytics space, I think that there will be a growing number of organizations and analysts who will mature into appreciating the value of fee over free.

Whose data is it anyway?

One of the more interesting threads that I read over the last few months was on the Web Analytics Association Yahoo Forum. Called Why do we still need Omniture?, the discussion's starting point was based on how Omniture could differentiate itself in light of Google Analytic's new features.

The ensuing discussion had dozens of posts with most of the focus on reporting features and capabilities.

But it was what didn't get mentioned that caught my attention: no mention of data usage as a differentiator.

Google and Yahoo! use the data it collects from your web site as fuel to develop new products, services, offerings and marketing programs. Omniture and all other fee based vendors do not use the data it collects.

Both Google and Yahoo clearly state how they use the data in their Terms and Conditions. Then again we all know about carefully reading the fine print.

I just find it surprising that folks tend not to mention data usage as a differentiator in the many The World vs. Google Analytics/Yahoo! Analytics discussions or vendor evaluations that occur...maybe "free" makes that ok.

A Baker's Dozen of X Change Huddles

X Change is just over a month away, and the rush to sign up for Huddles is on. There's a ton of good stuff and it's hard to narrow down the choices.  Perhaps predictably, I'll be focusing my Huddle choices on two areas that I've been writing about over the last few years: new analytics tools and vendors (CMS Watch Web Analytics Report), and the use of voice of customer and audience research methods in conjunction with web analytics (The Executive's Guide to Web Site Measurement and Testing). But as I do more work with the Federal government, privacy issues are also becoming more prominent on my radar screen. So here's my X Change "short list" so far:

• Web Analytics and Data Privacy - Bob Page, Yahoo
• Emerging Trends in Online Video - David Cronshaw, MSN Video
• Justifying the Need for Advanced Visualization Tools - Dennis Bradley, Charles Schwab
• Managing Expectations: Panel-Based and Census-Based Methodologies - Jim Hassert, AOL
• Integrating Online and Offline (Market Research) Data - Rachel Scotto, Sony Pictures
• Measuring Web 2.0:Widgets, Gadgets and Social Networks - Rachel Scotto, Sony Pictures
• Integrating Customer Experience and Marketing Data with Web Analytics - Ron Pinsky, AIG
• Knowing When You've Outgrown Your Current Web Analytics Solution - Judah Phillips, Reed Business Interactive
• The Mobile Landscape: Challenges and Opportunities - Bob Schukai, Turner Broadcasting
• Mobile Technology: Development, Deployment and Measurement - Bob Schukai, Turner Broadcasting
• Using Real-time Survey to Improve the Customer Experience - Jared Waxman, Intuit
• Competitive Intelligence Tools and Methodologies - Jared Waxman, Intuit
• Measuring Social Media and Its Enterprise Impacts - Marshall Sponder, Monster

Well, that's a "baker's dozen." Won't be able to take them all in, but it'll help me arrange my dance card. Have you registered for your Huddles yet? With this many choices, it's probably a good time to start sorting it out. And if you haven't yet registered for X Change, it's definitely time. Go to
http://www.semphonic.com/conf/registration.asp and register now!