Web Analytics – Year 2008 in Retrospection
I love to read predictions made at the beginning of the year and look back at those predictions at the end of the year in retrospect. Click here to take a look at what people were talking about web analytics at the beginning of this year.
As we approach end of the year 2008, I have put together a timeline representation below to give the readers a snapshot view of the key developments in the area of Web Analytics and the direction taken by key players in the industry in the past year. I have tried to provide references wherever possible but this post can be best received if you are familiar with the Web Analytics market dynamics.
(For the benefit of the readers the links for each of these announcements are provided at the end of this post)
Looking at this timeline, this is my take on the activities which spun off from this landscape in last 12 months. (Thanks to the readers of this blog for their comments. This timeline visual was updated with reader's comments).
Consolidation in the industry
• Last couple of years clearly belonged to Omniture. Omniture succeeded in capturing the market buzz with a series of acquisitions and leaving the end retailers worrying about migrating from one vendor to the other - from WebSideStory to VisualSciences to Omniture. It consolidated its position further in this space in 2008 by completing the earlier acquisitions and helping the clients with the migration efforts from earlier acquired vendors.
• At the end of the year, current economic conditions offered an opportunity for Omniture to acquire Mercado’s assets in a fire sale. In Nov 2008 Omniture acquired Mercado’s assets and expanded its capabilities in Merchandizing optimization by launching Mercado Ignition in Dec 2008.
• Yahoo’s acquisition of IndexTools in April 2008 - and subsequently launching Yahoo Web Analytics in the later part of the year deserves a special mention. This should present some competition to Google Analytics in coming days.
Pick of the Year
Focus for the year 2008 has been definitely on the expanding Mobile analytics capabilities. M-Commerce has started to pick up (Amazon and Sears launched their m-Commerce efforts this year and I expect many more to follow the suit in the coming year) and the web analytics vendors are just gearing up for upcoming anticipated activity in this space.
• Omniture expanded its SiteCatalyst offering on mobile devices like Google Android and iPhone; whereas on the other hand Tealeaf became first analytics provider to offer mobile session replay capabilities.
• CoreMetrics also announced mobile analytics capabilities with the roll out of CoreMetrics 2009. NedStat and WebTrends also joined in the mobile analytics bandwagon.
My pick of the year would be Mobile Analytics without doubt.
Other Notable Mentions
Other major announcements by key vendors were mainly related to Video Analytics and Social Media analytics capabilities. In general, Year 2008 belonged to social media but still vendors and retailers are still trying to figure out how best to measure the effectiveness of social media efforts. I expect to see more action in this area in the coming years wherein the Web Analytics vendors will partner with more and more social networks to figure out ways to measure and discover customer insights. I also expect vendors to continue their focus on further improving their Video Analytics capabilities since it has become a proven sales improvement channel in the recent years.
Predictions are great to know the way the industry minds think, but reality takes its own due course sometimes. I would be greatly interested to know your thoughts on how this space is likely to shape out in the Year 2009. Please feel free to use the above timeline or other content from this post to evaluate your ideas.
Reference to key events highlighted in timeline diagram –
- Omniture completes acquisition of Visual Sciences (http://assets.omniture.com/en/downloads/pr/vscn_close_press_release_final.pdf)
- WebTrends Offers Current HBX Customers Migration Opportunity To Buy One Year of Analytics and Get One Year Free Under "Easy Switch" Program (http://www.cmscenter.be/newsdetailuk.asp?Id=748)
- Google launches YouTube insights (Analytics for YouTube Videos) (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080327-005425)
- Omniture Gets Into Video Tracking (http://newteevee.com/2008/03/05/omniture-enhances-tracking-lets-ers-analyze-video-use/)
- NedStat Introduces Mobile Analytics (http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/en/rel/?342)
- CoreMetrics Secures $60 Million in Financing Led by 3i (http://www.thedeal.com/techconfidential/vc-ratings/vc-ratings/web-marketing-firm-coremetrics.php)
- Yahoo acquires IndexTools (http://www.computing.co.uk/itweek/news/2213938/yahoo-makes-web-analytics)
- Google Analytics Starts Measuring TV Ads (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/06/tv-meet-the-web-google-analytics-starts-measuring-tv-ads/)
- WebTrends Launches Video Analytics Engagement Service (http://www.centernetworks.com/webtrends-video-analytics)
- Omniture & Lithium Partner to Integrate Social Media into Web Analytics (http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=27899)
- Yahoo Launches Yahoo Web Analytics (http://mashable.com/2008/10/08/yahoo-launches-web-analytics-beta/)
- CoreMetrics 2009 supports mobile analytics (http://www.webanalyticsbook.com/coremetrics/coremetrics-2009-rolled-out/)
- Google Analytics Releases Advanced Segmentation (http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/10/google-analytics-releases-advanced-segmentation.html)
- Tealeaf Debuts Mobile Customer Experience Management and Bot Reporting (http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/tealeaf-debuts-mobile-customer-experience-management-and-bot-reporting)
- Omniture SiteCatalyst Now Available for Google Android-Based Mobile Phones (http://corporate.lexisnexis.com/news/marketing,tracking-measurement-tools/cat300004_doc889111871.html)
- Omniture acquires Mercado (http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=28105)
- Omniture Launches Mercado Ignition as Omniture Merchandising (http://www.internetretailer.com/pressReleaseDetail.asp?id=28760)
- Omniture Extends SiteCatalyst Measurement to Native iPhone Applications (http://www.cmscenter.be/newsdetailuk.asp?Id=960)
Comments
Great post Rockey. It's fun to look back on the year and see how much change has occurred in the industry. My pick of the year would be the IndexTools acquisition/Yahoo! Analytics events. Just thing they really alter the landscape in terms of the long-term growth of the industry. Along those lines, I'd also have to say that the enhancements made to Google Analytics, custom reports and segmentation, in November were also pretty notable. Thanks again for the read.
Posted by: wheresitworking - Adam Ware | December 23, 2008 11:45 PM
Very nice post, Rockey. You have done a great job of consolidating the main events in the web analytics industry. Undoubtedly, Omniture has been dominating the past two years. In fact, they are the second largest pure play SaaS provider in the US. Here is an interesting article about that - http://blogs.zdnet.com/SAAS/?p=613
Thoughts for 2009
Large companies might move from paid web analytics tools to free ones like Google Analytics and IndexTools. I recently took a test drive of advance segmentation and custom reporting from Google analytics and it was very impressive. So the gap is narrowing. And at some point GA might actually chose to show data in real time. After all, Google manages thousands of servers. And when that happens, companies like Omniture could be in trouble.
Measuring the impact of social websites could be another big thing that might happen in 2009. There are already companies offering solutions in this space. But it’s still very raw. The metrics are yet to mature. And your website stops becoming the source of data. So the whole process of data collection changes drastically. The tool needs to have an efficient crawler to collect data. In traditional web analytics, user input to configure the tool is not very extensive. You set the filters, goals and you are ready to go. But measuring social metrics might require user to give a lot more input. For example, we were recently using Radian6 for a customer who makes medicines for high blood pressure. We had to spend a lot of time trying to give a context to the phrase “blood pressure” before the data became sensible. We had to use associated words like “medicine”, “medication”, etc to tell the tool what exactly we were looking at.
Another possible trend for 2009 is tools that would allow users to aggregate data. If I’m using 5 different tools for various metrics and if I need to see them together, the only choice is an Excel sheet or a BI tool. Someone might make an online tool that would allow users to import data from various tools, stitch them together and give customer a single view.
Posted by: Seby Kallarakkal | December 24, 2008 11:03 AM
Yes, a really good visual of the year in review. I also agree with Adam's comment, the Google Analytics announcement at eMetrics in DC in October regarding custom reports, advanced segmentation and an API should be added to the timeline (See Phil Kremlor insights at CMS Watch http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1415-Google-Analytics-eMetrics-Surprise). What becomes really clear is the WA vendor focus on building out analytics for emerging technology, along with more and more data integration. They strive to keep ahead of the curve, remain unique, develop new markets. So, what's up for 2009? I anticipate we see a new juncture for web analytics, between online marketing optimization and business optimization. In other words, marketing analytics and business analytics and intelligence. I anticipate we'll continue to see integration of new technologies on the marketing/communications/media side of the juncture; but as importantly we'll see web analytics start to integrate at the enterprise level with business optimization.
Posted by: Andrea Hadley | December 24, 2008 11:43 AM
Thanks everybody for your comments. I have added Google Analytics announcement to the diagram to make the list complete.
Posted by: Rockey Nebhwani | December 29, 2008 02:11 PM
Thanks very much for an excellent infographic. Seeing data like this plotted over time is always a wonderful treat.
Posted by: Amber Case | January 2, 2009 02:49 AM
It is great that you put the work into this, thank you.
Maybe I've just been around too many emerging industries for too long, but this timeline looks a little stagnant to me. There are a lot of add-ons and tweaks (analyzing mobile and social are tweaks) and some predictable acquisitions and corporate moves, but nothing actually Changed with a capital C. The underlying approach for our profession is about the same as it always has been - tabulations, lists, trends, simple comparisons, yawn.
Sorry for being a grinch. 2008 was another year when I didn't see anybody working at a high level ... like what was taught in the first year of graduate school back in the stone age!
Posted by: Chris | January 4, 2009 02:46 PM