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Head of Marketing at National Car Parks
05 March 2007 11:24am
Has anyone been through the process of benchmarking Google Analytics against analytic providers and what they offer? Can Google Analytics really provide marketers with the functional reporting required for drop outs, usability testing etc?
Thanks
Sean
Digital engagement & Social Media expert at Bertie.fr
05 March 2007 12:25pm
I have used logs analyser tools in the past, paying up to £8,000 per year.
We have been using Google Analytics at Breast Cancer Care for over 9 months and we are very pleased with it. Personally, I don’t trust web stats. We use it to spot trends and analyse user journeys. With Analytics, you can set up goals, see drop outs, precise locations of visitors etc. etc. and it integrates with Adwords so you can see a precise cost per click and ROI.
Recently, we tried to find a product offering the same level of features for a reasonable price and considering Analytics is free… We didn’t find anything suitable. And they also have a very efficient technical support.
I know there have been some concerns around their privacy policy but I'm not sure something can stay private on the internet anyway.
In terms of usability testing, it’s easy to set up different routes on your website and compare both; at least that’s what our web analyst tells me. She’s organising a Google Analytics training in the summer with the Institute of Fundraising Analytics Group for a few charities. She’s on leave this week but if you want her details let me know, I’m sure she will be able to answer your questions and tell you which other products she looked at.
Hope this helps,
Bertie
E-Business Consultant at Dan Barker
05 March 2007 13:03pm
hi, Sean, how are you?
It very much depends on what you want to do & your particular requirements (budget, multi-user, etc). If you've got a decent set of requirements put together, you could always:
- Research whether Google Analytics comes close to your needs from all of the info that's already out there on the web
- Sign up for an account & give it a test run
If the alternative is one of the big 4 or 5 providers, then the little bit of effort you'd have to spend figuring out whether Google Analytics meets your needs should be miniscule in comparison to time/effort/money spent implementing the alternatives.Monitoring Drop Outs
You can quite simply use Google Analytics for monitoring where people are dropping out on your site, benchmarking that & tracking it over time as you make improvements. It includes the following tracking you'll find useful here:
Usability Testing
If you're using a set of defined KPIs to measure usability there should be no problem with this. If you're talking about using web analytics as part of usability testing in another way, perhaps you could specify how you intend to use it?
With KPIs you can do all of the basics. You can also export in numerous formats, so you should be able to set things up how you want to. Google Analytics also makes it very easy to compare two date ranges, so if you are doing pre/post-change comparisons it should do what you want.
Summary
As with all analytics processes, the suitability of a particular tool is very dependent on what exactly you want to do & how much time/effort/thought you're willing to put into that.
If you're using an analytics package at the moment, or you know what you're planning to do, you should definitely put together a list of your requirements/ideals & decide on a system based on that.
I hope that's of some use,
daniel
Managing Director at True Clarity
06 March 2007 06:43am
Sean,
I'd agree with Daniel, it is really going to depend on your specific requirements. That said here are my experience of when and when to not use Google.
We use Google on our own site. It is our prime source of leads and for this Google works really well. Of course if you use Google AdWords then the integration between the two tools is very nice. For monitoring referrer information then Google is great you get a wealth of information not found in more expensive tools. You can also set up goals and funnels that allow you to track activity based on users completed tasks. Take a look at our site to see the type of website Google works well for.
http://www.trueclarity.co.uk/
However once you start doing more ecomerce focused activity you'll quickly start finding Google limiting. Our clients who run large ecommerce websites find Google lacking in detail and need a more capable tool.
As it is free my best advice is suck it and see, within a week you should be able to tell if Google is going to fit you business needs.
Regards,
Andy.
Head of Marketing at National Car Parks
06 March 2007 10:08am
Hi Daniel
Thank you for replying to my query, its incredibly appreciated. I’m beginning to sway towards giving Google go before embarking on financial spend of an analytics provider. Its like anything we want to know everything about website traffic right now and increase conversions immediately!
I think the approach of a marathon rather than a sprint needs to be adopted. The test run is the best approach and see what Google can do for us and I’m sure it should be able to provide the answers we require for the foreseeable future.
Many thanks again for your reply.
Kind regards
Sean Sewell
On 13:03:06 5 March 2007 danielb wrote:
Head of Marketing at National Car Parks
06 March 2007 10:20am
Hi Andy
Thank you for your reply. I think we will try Google Analytics and see what it can do for us. The short term cost will be time invested form myself, but that could save us in the long run rather than going down the supplier route just yet.
Although our website is transactional based and we have every intention of aligning our e-commerce activity with analytics it may just be the case of walking before we run.
Taking everyone’s comments into consideration the Google analytics approach will be our first port of call. If I get to the stage in 3/6 months and think I need more analytics, (God I’d be impressed with myself if that was the case!) we’ll go back to the supplier table.
Many thanks for your reply it’s greatly appreciated.
Kind regards
Sean Sewell
On 06:43:09 6 March 2007 Andy_Davies wrote:
Managing Director at True Clarity
06 March 2007 10:23am
Sean,
You make an excellent point. Google will help you find out exactly what it is you need from an analytics tool before making the investment later on as required.
I hope it works out for you,
Andy.
Senior Partner at Impression Media
06 March 2007 13:44pm
Hi Sean
It looks as if you've had plenty of feedback on your original posting, but for what it's worth I was also dubious of the benefits of a free service over the more expensive choices on the market. I can do do slightly more with Web Trends for instance and their report creation is a little slicker, but apart from that Google Analytics offers the vast majority of the tools we need for our clients and it seamlessly links to the the Google Adwords tools.
If my clients want to take care of their own Adword and Analytics, it's also very easy for us to set them up and train them with the Google option. Give it a try, I think you'll find it does a good job and as one reply mentioned, it's a great way to test the water and see what your clients needs really are.
Regards
Mark
Impression Media
On 11:24:32 5 March 2007 SeanSewell wrote:
Freelance Web Consultant at architxt.net
06 March 2007 14:33pm
The only problem with this approach is that if you switch tool 6 months down the line you've lost 6 months of very valuable data. You can save reports and key metrics, sure, but you will only hold a limited archive of info.
I've deployed IndexTools across 9 websites and have tested Google Analytics to the point where I am happy spending $500 a month for what I consider a much better product.
Managing Director at True Clarity
06 March 2007 15:15pm
Loz,
I'm not sure I understand you argument? You won't have lost data if you choose to switch provider as all the Google data will still be available. It will just mean looking at two providers.
But I do agree that IndexTools is a great system, and would work well for Sean if Ecommerce tracking is at the top of the list.
Regards,
Andy.