Other things to think about when selecting a web analytics system

This post originally appeared on Applied Insights’ blog. Foviance acquired Applied Insights in November 2008, with Neil Mason joining us as Director of Analytical Consulting. As part of this acquisition, we’ve incorporated Applied Insights’ blog into our own.

In various articles and other places, I have shared thoughts about how to go about selecting your web analytics system. I believe it’s important to have a process but not to be over procedural about the whole thing. I think it’s a good idea to be very clear about what you want to measure rather than to become a victim of paralysis by analysis or “death by report overload”.

I’m also thinking that there are some other issues that you should consider when thinking about which system is best for you, particularly in the UK at the moment. It’s nothing to do with KPIs, funnels and the like. It’s about “fit” and “partnership”.

Let’s have a look at what’s going on at the moment. In the US, the web analytics systems market is beginning to mature. Most companies who are doing any serious business online have already invested in a web analytics system. In fact they may be on their third or fourth. As the online business has become more important, the web analytics system has become a bit more “mission critical”. Efforts have begun to integrate the web analytics system with other corporate systems. So, the cost and pain of switching from one system to another is getting higher and higher. The net result, as I see it, is that in the US, more companies have a system in place and organisations are becoming increasingly reluctant to switch and so growth opportunities for the vendors are diminishing.

This is not the case over here in the UK and the rest of Europe. Many organisations are still in the process of sorting out their online channel measurement strategies and are looking to upgrade their capabilities. Across Europe existing localised solutions are being centralised to help manage costs and enable consistency of measurement across markets. There is a lot of “buzz” in the market and the various vendors are busy responding to proposal requests, doing pitches and making the sale.

This is all great but the trouble is there aren’t enough people around to satisfy the current demand and I think that this is having an impact on service levels in the industry. Going back to my comments about what else to look out for when choosing a vendor, most of the main systems these days are basically functionally equivalent. One system might have some “bells” and another one might have some “whistles”. Or you might prefer the way that one system does its conversion funnel over that of another. These may be big enough differences from which to make a decision but they also may not. So how else can you decide? Well, it might be on price or it might be on service.

If you’re making serious investments in your web analytics capabilities, both in the system you’re buying and the resources to manage it, then I think you need to look at the kind of service and support you can expect after the salesperson has done the deal. I don’t think that’s it just about whether they have extensive online support capabilities or whether they have a department called “client services” or “best practices”, it’s more about whether they seem interested in you as a business rather than you as a sale. Ask to meet the people who are going to be managing your account before you sign the deal and see what you make of them. Are they people you want to do business with?

For all the reasons that I mentioned earlier about the current market situation in the US, if you are going through a vendor selection programme now, you don’t want to find yourself in the positron of wanting to make a switch in 18 months time. So it’s important to get it right this time round and that means not only making sure that the system is functionally fit-for-purpose but also that the vendor is a company that you feel comfortable working with for a number of years.