Mambo number 5

 As I was finishing up my meetings with René in Amsterdam on Friday afternoon – we are finally back in Brussels, after 2 weeks of France & The Netherlands – I read a mail coming from Mehdi on my BlackBerry, proudly announcing Avinash Kaushik had announced his Top Ten Web Analytics Blogs for July 2007 and our little pan European effort had ranked number 5. Lou Bega started singing in my head.

Mehdi’s enthusiasm was very touching as well as he joined us a couple of months ago, as young Google Analytics Jehdi apprentice. It’s refreshing to work with Mehdi as he is curious and being a former controler, has a different perspective on things. I am happy to discuss monetization of Web Analytics with Mehdi, while he gets his technical apprentiship from master Julien. Mehdi is also a natural communicator and loves to pass on knowledge. He will thus take over Google Analytics workshops from Julien, with some more support than Siegert and I had in our early beginnings 😉
While Siegert is still enjoying the Italian country side, Guillaume came back from France to upgrade our Unica installation, allowing me to play around with it some more. Fun!

Julien took a look at a Xiti account and we further discussed our interest to meet some Xiti people…
Yes, this is an open invitation: our position remains vendor independant and we are always open to discovering new, interesting, foreward thinking web analytics tools. It’s most of all about convincing my little business unit of the interest and added value of the tool in order to answer business questions, in a return on investment perspective for a web analytics project that would incorporate processes, analysis and results.
And René is of course setting up our Web Analytics Day that is set-up to take place in Brussels, on September 14th 2007, at the Federation of Belgian Enterprises.

Between that, a couple of clients and revered partners fill my days. Eric Peterson is one of them and he has things to say about Technorati rankings, upon which Avinash’s list is partially based.

Les solutions gratuites: applications… et limitations

Après l’annonce de notre partenariat avec Web Analytics Demystified, nous sommes heureux de partager avec vous une étude d’Eric Peterson publiée le 24 juillet. Cette étude porte sur l’utilisation d’outils gratuits de web analytique, tels que Google Analytics ou le futur “projet Gatineau” de Microsoft. Malgré l’adoption grandissante de Google Analytics par des entreprises de toutes tailles – qu’elles fassent partie de l’index Fortune 500 comme Chevron, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Dell ou Dupont, l’étude d’Eric montre que les entreprises qui adoptent et implémentent des outils gratuits de web analytique sont moins susceptibles de mettre en application des best practices et donc de tirer le meilleur parti de leur investissement web analytique.

Les points d’orgue de cette étude sont les suivants:

• Les entreprises qui adoptent un outil gratuit ont davantage tendance à traiter les web analytics de façon un peu cavalière. 35% des entreprises interrogées qui utilisent des outils gratuits s’en servent de façon ad hoc, contre 20% chez les utilisateurs d’outils payants.
• Les entreprises qui utilisent un outil gratuit manquent cruellement de ressources dédiées aux web analytics. 42% des entreprises interrogées qui utilisent des outils gratuits déclarent n’avoir aucune ressource dédiée, contre 18% chez les utilisateurs d’outils payants.
• Les personnes qui utilisent des outils gratuits ont en général moins d’expérience des web analytics: 64% des utilisateurs d’outils gratuits ont moins de deux ans d’expérience dans le domaine, contre 32% chez les utilisateurs de solutions payantes.

Comme pour la plupart de ses études, et dans le cadre d’un effort éducatif et d’évangélisation, Eric publie ce rapport sur le site de WebAnalytics Demystified, Inc., dont le “Conseil des Sages” comprend Aurélie Pols.

Le rapport est disponible sur: http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/research

Un facteur de poids pour des outils gratuits, et notamment avec ces produits récemment arrivés sur le marché, est bien entendu le manque d’expérience et de recul par rapport au reste de l’industrie.

Comme le souligne Eric dans son étude, avec l’arrivée sur le marché d’outils gratuits, on observe d’importantes différences dans la façon dont sont utilisés des produits gratuits ou payants.

Free Analytics tools, what could be the consequences of such a choice?

I met today with Google’s recently appointed country manager for Belgium, Erik Portier. We had a good discussion and it was a pleasure to meet in order to discuss our position as Google Analytics Authorised Consultants (GAAC). I was just a bit sad we couldn’t be of more assistance to help him promote his chair with 3 legs, as he calls it, SEO+GA+AdWords=how Google Belgium can be of service.
On top of that, his interest goes out to “Geo products”, Google Maps and Earth.
Thank you for your time, Erik, it was a pleasure.

In the mean time, another Eric on the other side of the ocean published an interesting free report entitled “The Problem with Free Analytics – July 2007“, which is now available for download. I read the report some days ago while we were spending some fabelous days in the Sarthe region in France and basically agree with Eric about his conclusions. You can read more about his opinion and reflections on his blog.

The coincidence of events is interesting as we also discussed with Erik (that’s the one based in Belgium) about how we could help each other, by collaborating on client needs and support. We’ve seen a recent increase in interest from companies using free tools in order to get the most out the data collected. Indeed, without human resources, any tool won’t miraculously spit out insights. And being an Authorized Google Analytics Consultant, we’re happy to help. I would actually encourage you to contact Julien and Mehdi if you have any questions and please, challenge them! Even though I’m also GA Certified, I must admit I haven’t really stumbled upon a question I couldn’t answer and am happy to help spread the usage of such a great tool.
I’m convinced there’s still lots to learn ad share in order to make online communication more efficient.

As a KPI for Google Analytics, following this report and the discussion with both Ericks, I would suggest a view upon the number of Goals set by profile… if I may humbly suggest…
I wonder if the average would be closer to 0 or to 4, and if it’s moving up or not, taking into account the number of profiles created, of course. It would, for us as a GAAC, at least show wether we are doing our job well or if, compared to other countries, we might need to continue providing human resources in order to get more out of the tool and help companies set-up the processes required to assure success in their Web Analytics project.

My 5 euro cents before heading off to Amsterdam. Thoughts are welcome, please don’t hesitate.
Kind regards,
Aurelie

Analytics University

Aurélie and I just got back from a little break in France were we enjoyed the pleasures of the nature and good food after months of hectic work. I was catching up my emails and I saw on a Google Alert that Aberdeen Group had issued a Research Study on Web Analytics, more precisely on Web Analytics knowledge and education.

Dennis from IndexTools has already blogged about the subject, but I wanted to add my little contribution to the spread of this research. This study is the result of a survey in which one of the findings was that the main frustration of the respondents is not having enough ressources to manage Web Analytics. After explaining the results of the survey, John Lovett presents what can be done to increase the knowledge about Web Analytics. He divides the possibilities in four main groups:

Le CAC 40 & Web Analytics : mise à jour 2007

Après l’étude sur le CAC40 de décembre 2006, je remets le couvert 7 mois après pour voir si les choses ont changé.

Pour rappel: en décembre, le CAC40 enregistrait un taux de 28% de non-adoption d’outils Web Analytics visibles. soit environ une entreprise sur trois.

Nous avions vu également que même si la plupart des sociétés listées dans cet index ont principalement des sites qui s’adressent à leurs actionnaires, ce n’était pas une raison suffisante pour ne pas mesurer ces sites et prendre les décisions qui s’imposent sur base des résultats. Cette étude de juillet 2007 apporte quelques changements.

Do you wonder where Web Analytics is/was Hot?

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at some BBC program about Paris and I was surfing through our blog in paralel when I stopped at the Google Trends post I wrote last year. Then I went back to the tool and I was intrigued to see the evolution of the trends of certain terms.

Follow this link: Google Tends search about Web Analytics (red), WebTrends (blue) & Omniture (orange)

Mesurez votre popularité politique sur Internet

Après mes précédents billets sur les élections présidentielles et les partis politiques en France, où on a vu que les écarts en termes de Web Analytics étaient surtout fonction de la popularité existante des partis et de leurs budgets dédiés aux Web Analytics, je m’intéresse aujourd’hui (en fait depuis plusieurs années) à l’élection présidentielle de 2008 aux Etats-Unis.

Dans ce pays qui ne cesse de nous surprendre, la campagne présidentielle commence deux ans après l’entrée en fonction du président élu. Et il se trouve justement que pour cette édition 2007-2008, on parle de plus en plus du phénomène Ron Paul.

NOTE: Ce billet ne reflète aucunement l’opinion politique d’OX2 ou de ses employés 😉

Aurélie’s recent Podcasts

We’ve been very busy these past weeks, sorry for the few posts. I just wanted to highlight a couple of podcasts that Aurélie has done recently:

Eric from Jenerous, did an interview of Aurélie where they discussed different topics about the future of Web Analytics. You can listen to the podcast here.

The second one was organized by Lars and gathers 6 European specialists (Lars Johansson, Steve Jackson, Dennis Mortensen, Neil Mason, Oliver Schiffers, Marc Sarde & Aurélie). They discuss about different Web Analytics topics during 75 minutes. A must listen if you’re in the Web Analytics business in Europe.

Interactive Agencies and Web Analytics

As I was discussing an e-Commerce Google Analytics project last Thursday with Julien, I saw the ZAAZ’s Web Analytics book lying on his desk. I quickly gleaned through the index as Julien was finishing up his emails to Omniture and noticed in the last chapters a mention of Interactive Agencies.
Julien promised to hand the book over as soon as he’s finished as I’m quite curious to read what the ZAAZ boys have come up in their position as an Interactive Agency and long term Web Analytics professional consultants. Jason Burby has always been a beacon of light in my web analytics journey, ever since his first presentations landed on my desktop through the help of WebTrends. So, I’ll have to be patient until Julien finishes the book and I’ll keep on reading Naom Chomsky’s Failed States, which seems to be costing me some sleep lately.

In this post, I just wanted to share my experiences over the past couple of years as a web analytics consultant, through different projects, within multiple sectors and using different tools as well as multiple actors, ranging from IT to marketing, including other Web/Interactive Agencies. Please don’t worry, clients and vendors, I won’t get specific as I do respect confidentiality.

Vous cherchez des experts Google Analytics?

Vous êtes peut être déjà au courant mais OX2 est désormais le seul Google Analytics Authorized Consultant en Belgique. Notre politique est faire connaître les Web Analytics et de promouvoir l’utilisation des outils WA. C’est pourquoi, depuis la création d’OX2, nous apportons conseil et assistance sur Google Analytics.

Afin d’aider les entreprises dans leur utilisation de Google Analytics, nous avons créé deux packs dont j’explique le contenu ci-dessous: