Analysts largely agreed last year that web analytics solutions offered on an ASP basis were set to overtake the server-side (mostly log file analysis) versions which had previously dominated (Webtrends being the old stalwart most people know).

For example:
Have a look at this article = http://www.aspnews.com/news/article/0,2350,4191_1183081,00.html about this Aberdeen report - http://www.aberdeen.com/ab_company/hottopics/webanalytics2002/default.htm (table of contents gives more detail)

These ASP solutions, provided by people like Clickstream, Intellitracker, Redsherrif, WebtraffIQ, Webtrends NetIQ, Digimine, Manticore, Nedstat and Webside Story, use "browser-based" or "client-side" technologies ranging from simple remote calls to another server for an image through javascript to java code inserts. The data is recorded to the ASP's servers and access to reporting and analysis provided by a web interface to those servers.

2 things I'd have to say on the above:

1. Do people agree that ASP solutions will emerge as the way to do web measurement and analysis? I think they will as they are preferrable for a number of reasons....

2. Anyone used SpeedTrap? They're interesting for a number of reasons (video replay of users' visits among others) but, with reference to the above, they appear to be a kind of hybrid of 'browser-based measurement' - using a java applet installed on the user's machine - but NOT an ASP. They deliver a server to their customers which collects the data and provides the platform for reporting and analysis. But this server/infrastructure is then the customer's responsibility not them as an ASP.

Interested to hear any views.

Ashley

Ashley,

I think you're right to identify ASP web analytics solutions as an important part of the industry, indeed, WebAbacus offers a hosted solution alongside our more traditional software licence sales. Customers benefit from reduced set-up costs and quicker access to business intelligence. But I would make the following points:

1. ASP solutions don't necessarily mean client-side technology solutions. I don't have a particular axe to grind here (we offer both server- and client-side analytics), but several of our hosted customers do use log files as the basis for their analytics. Debates about the accuracy or otherwise of log files notwithstanding, this does offer a very quick (arguably even quicker than a tagging-based solution) route to analytics. The client makes the logs available over an FTP or HTTP connection, we retrieve the logs automatically and process them. Set-up time can come down to a couple of horus, after which full historical data is available.

2. Hosted or outsourced solutions don't suit everybody. Whilst we have plenty of customers who are happy to have their web analytics hosted for them, we have plenty who could never go down this route. This latter group tend, in fact, to be our more sophisticated customers. They want to perform back-end data integration with their CMS or customer database to enhance their reporting; they also want complete control and ownership over the data (many of our customers consider web usage data to be company confidential material). Additionally, many of our customers are performing analysis of internal company networks - i.e. Intranets - where a 3rd-party-hosted solution would not be appropriate, again for security reasons.

As I said, we offer both licensed and hosted models to our customers, so I don't have any vested interest. I think the most important thing for us has been to be able to offer the customer a choice.

Ian

I agreee, an ASP will continue to make ground from the server-side solutions. The main driver is that people are realising that web data is complex, to do it well takes a lot of time and money. An ASP can deliver economies of scale (the development work is spread over their Client base) and reduced risk.

Regarding SpeedTrap my understanding is that it is primarily a usability tool. Good for understanding one visitor's experience at a time.

One of the problems with tracking is that a diverse number of tasks are covered by one name. I belive tracking will diverge into distinct areas of speciality, two of the most important being:
1. Those develivering database solutions (the abilty to improve the targeting of outbound communications based on form data, purchase and viewing history)
2. Those that focus on path analysis and usability (often using agregrate, unpersonalised data)

On 11:20:39 28 January 2003 Ashley wrote:
>Analysts largely agreed last year that web analytics
>solutions offered on an ASP basis were set to overtake the
>server-side (mostly log file analysis) versions which had
>previously dominated (Webtrends being the old stalwart
>most people know).
>
>For example:
>Have a look at this article = http://www.aspnews.com/news/-
>article/0,2350,4191_1183081,00.html about this Aberdeen
>report - http://www.aberdeen.com/ab_company/hottopics/weba-
>nalytics2002/default.htm (table of contents gives more
>detail)
>
>These ASP solutions, provided by people like Clickstream,
>Intellitracker, Redsherrif, WebtraffIQ, Webtrends NetIQ,
>Digimine, Manticore, Nedstat and Webside Story, use
>"browser-based" or "client-side"
>technologies ranging from simple remote calls to another
>server for an image through javascript to java code
>inserts. The data is recorded to the ASP's servers and
>access to reporting and analysis provided by a web
>interface to those servers.
>
>2 things I'd have to say on the above:
>
>1. Do people agree that ASP solutions will emerge as the
>way to do web measurement and analysis? I think they will
>as they are preferrable for a number of reasons....
>
>2. Anyone used SpeedTrap? They're interesting for a number
>of reasons (video replay of users' visits among others)
>but, with reference to the above, they appear to be a kind
>of hybrid of 'browser-based measurement' - using a java
>applet installed on the user's machine - but NOT an ASP.
>They deliver a server to their customers which collects
>the data and provides the platform for reporting and
>analysis. But this server/infrastructure is then the
>customer's responsibility not them as an ASP.
>
>Interested to hear any views.
>
>Ashley

Hi Ian

You make some very valid points. On point 1, it is true that log files are often the best place to start in order to quickly get some usable data, and, as you say, have access to historical data which is not possible with the ASP approach. I guess I’d still say they were a good place to start for a ‘quick and dirty’ piece of insight but quite possibly not the best longer term solution. A dual offering, as you have, makes absolute sense, particularly if you do want to migrate from one to the other.

Your point 2 is valid, though I have found recently that companies seem to be relaxing somewhat on their outsourcing fears. Transactional data and customer data are, understandably, very carefully monitored and guarded. Site activity data companies are less precious about now. With the advent of web services and the like I think this trend will continue – people will get more used to (and more comfortable with) outsourcing services where there is a good SLA in place and the firm is reputable, has a good track record, good clients etc.

I understand your point about the sophisticated guys wanting to keep control of the data in order to integrate with other sources - typically into a data warehouse for subsequent reporting and analysis etc. However, all the ASP solutions that I know of offer the raw data back to the client if they want it (as CSV, Excel etc.). I know of several instances where the more sophisticated organisations you mention use the ASP basically as a way to collect and ‘clean’ data for them. They see the ASP data as more accurate and more usable and more structured than log files (rightly so I think), so easier to integrate with their other systems. Although they buy the reporting and analysis functions with the service that’s not actually where the value lies for them.

Ashley,

It's certainly true that any self-respecting ASP will offer data download, though the data volumes can be very large, particularly when delivered as a CSV or Excel file. And whilst organisations are increasingly bringing clickstream data into their data warehouses, and using BI and analytical CRM tools to analyse this data, online behaviour analysis remains a specialised discipline, where specialist tools are needed. So really the reporting needs to remain in the analysis tool, and the extra data (such as customer records, or CMS data) needs to be imported in on demand. Apart from anything else, using an outsourced model for this would necessitate live database links over the Internet, which, whilst perfectly techincally feasible, is usually a bridge too far for most of our customers.

Cheers,
Ian

www.webabacus.com