Google's Killer App

We've been running a comparison of Google Analytics with WebTrends (using script-based collection) and traditional log file analysis. Let's forget functionality for a second, GA fails at recording the raw traffic accurately. I've been discussing this with many colleagues across the industry and they all see the same issue. GA is underreporting traffic by nearly 50% in some instances. We have our thoughts on why this is, but without accurate inputs, a pretty interface is meaningless. As to the functionality, I'd agree with many of the posters here. This probably works for entry level sites where they're interested in page counts/directional data. I haven't seen anything that would make me want to switch, and there are many features that GA doesn't offer. We're using WebTrends to run our business, not a hobby site. GA just isn't ready for primetime.

dh wall - To be fair, Brandt does not work for iMedia Connection. And "The website you write for appears to be using a log file based solution" is wrong. A very quick look and it is obvious that iMedia is using HBX from WebSideStory (Visual Sciences)

If GA is so great, why isn't iMediaConnection using it? I don't see anything in the source code. The website you write for appears to be using a log file based solution. You see, the cost for an enterprise web analytics solution really isn't that expensive for a multi-million dollar company that relies on the Internet. The prices for enterprise solutions range from $10K to over $100K. In my case, I paid only around $20K for an enterprise solution that has more than met my needs. This was pocket change.

This is a joke, right? While Google Analytics is a good service for smaller businesses and personal websites, it is virtually useless for organizations that want to do true analytics and not just some pretty reports (kudos to Jeffrey Veen and team). You stated "What Google has done is simply take every feature in every product on the market and put them all into one system, and then make it available for free" I'm sorry, but does Google Analytics offer custom reporting, or data warehousing just for starters? And tell that to the 1000s of organizations using Omniture, ClickTracks, WebTrends and Visual Sciences and all the other web analytics providers. The number of features and functionality in Google Analytics are a good primer for those getting their feet wet in the space, but there are so many features and functionality that are not part of Google Analytics, it would never make it past the first round of a vendor selection process. Additionally, no organization that is serious about privacy related matters will use Google Analytics. As part of their TOS, the data collected and analyzed by Google is their data not the site property owners. Brandt, with all due respect, you sound like a paid salesman for Google doing an infomercial "But wait there's more!"

oh please..... it is lousy -- we are now going to move to Omniture because of all the deficiencies in 2.0 -- this kind of post must be paid by Google because people who use it for major adspends (Over 1m for us) know what a lousy move this was for us.. hey but I know the bloggers are excited.. while it has a few nice additions the removal of so many key features and the inability to see metrics together that previously were easy to compares are serious detriments.. plus it is not nearly as sophisticated as it once was.. stop drinking the kool-aid ..

So many bodies, so little time! I've been told on various occasions over the last 15 years that email is dead, along with banners, forums, landlines, forms, html, SEM, SEO, affiliates, aggregators, Flash, UGC and now web analytics. It should be getting pretty whiffy in here with all the rotting corpses, but surprisingly it's not. GA is a great introduction tool; it gets people thinking about what they want their online presence to achieve and how they can measure it. Where dedicated WA providers add value is in enabling site owners to ask more relevant questions of their online performance in a way that is tailored to their needs. Those needs tend to be based on an understanding that 'digital' is much more than just adword integration, and that as customers interact in more varied ways (blogs, social networks, streaming media consumption, mobile etc), site and brand owners need to have the ability to view this activity in a coherent and timely manner. A leading WA service will be able to provide marketers with a 360-degree view of the consumer, enabling this information to be converted into insight which can then be seamlessly integrated with other mission critical data (be that MI, CRM, CustSat etc). I'm not convinced that free tools can offer this. So I think that there is life in the old WA dog yet, GA and the soon to arrive Gatineau will simply make that life even more interesting for all us.

Wasn't it Mark Twain who was quoted as saying something along the lines of, "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”? That applies in spades for the Web analytics industry, in the wake of Google's recent moves. While we at ClickTracks admittedly have a vested interest in the subject, there's no denying that it's one we know quite a bit about. So trust us when we say that Google hasn't killed an industry—in fact, it's helped it grow. The web metrics business has been moving away from standalone analytics for some time, because marketers have been demanding that we do so. Google certainly has made a play for the lion's share of the low end, but in doing so, has been bearing the cost of educating the market and actually increasing demand for more sophisticated analytics tools, like the ones we happen to offer. So watch this space—not for signs of life, but for signs of change and growth. We think there'll be a fair amount to see. Dan Robbins, Director of Marketing, ClickTracks

We use GA over in the UK for a number of our smaller sites and it while it appears to be doing an excellent job at absolutely no cost to us, we've disovered that for auditing purposes GA is not recognised by our industry body, the ABCe. As a result we've had to start looking at other analytics providers. Once this hurdle has been overcome, which i'm sure it will, I can't see why anyone wouldn't use GA. The only thing lacking is the service element which has Brandt states, will come in time from GA's current competitors.

I have to disagree with your statement that 'the competition is dead'. GA is a great tool comparing to other free (and some paid) web analytics software, fitting the expectations of small/medium businesses with simple requirements, what i call "good to know"; however for professional analysis there are a bunch of powerful web analytics tools that offer much deeper research abilities than GA,and they are way too far from being killed. Daniel

Google analytics is ok- I use it for some of my personal sites. They use it at work (because its free!), but there is a lack of real time tracking that at times, is wanting. I would prefer to tell an ad agency that I have some other web tracking software (webtrends, omniture), because, to me, free and open source somehow imply 'cheap' and 'low value'.

Google has certainly shaken things up but the market is certainly not dead. As the internet matures and evolves there is a requirement to look at user behaviour and campaign performance in different ways. Integration of this data with 3rd party systems whether they are ad servers or CRM systems or internal apps is going to become more important and GA can't offer this level of service or integration. Google have certainly made web analytics companies wake up, and those out there who aren't innovative and up for a fight are going to struggle. At DC Storm we finding our clients need more than what GA has to offer particularly when you actually want to use the data for more than just reporting!

I believe the competition might be dead, based on current product offerings. the GA 2.0 tool set has a nice feature set compared to other web analytics tools. I use GA 2.0 for all of our small sites. But as soon as a website grows and becomes active in the adsense/ppc market, we move it to a GA competitor. We decided it was an unacceptable business risk to allow one company to have that much data about our businesses. There will be a market for competitive products, but will probably be sold on the fear factor versus the product capabilities.

How in the world can you say "the competition is dead"? The Big 4 analytics companies are adding a combined 500 to 600 new customers a quarter and have been for a long time. Read OMTR's or VSCN's quarterly earnings statements if you don't believe me. GA may work fine for the hundreds of thousands of small websites out there but when you are talking about enterprise-level companies, or even companies with sales above $5M annually, GA is not going to cut it for a host of reasons.

Brandt, A good part of the total cost of Web metrics software is the implementation, especiaslly the coding required through out the site. While Google is "free" might not it be worth considering and sharing your opinion on TOTAL cost of ownership. Does your company, like Omniture, provide professional services and support that figure in to the equation. Ralph