Lars kindly asked me if I could use the WASP Market Research feature to analyze a sample of 400 Swedish websites. WASP is the Web Analytics Solution Profiler, a specialized Firefox extension aimed at web analytics professionals who want to do quality assurance and understand how their web analytics solution is implemented. The Market Research feature lets you scan several sites to uncover web analytics market share information.

Here’s the insight we uncovered:

• 71% of websites analyzed (282) are using a web analytics solution. This is similar to results found in other markets.
• 19% (77) websites uses more than one web analytics solution. When two or more tools are used, most of the time it’s Google Analytics.
• The most popular web analytics solution is Google Analytics (131 sites, 32.75% of all sites, or 46% of sites using at least one WA solution)
• If we include GA and Urchin: 77% of sites using a WA solution (218). This is similar to other analysis where Google dominates with about 80% market share of the web analytics space.
• Other leading web analytics solutions are: Nielsen (62), Omniture (39), WebTrends (17) and then a number of local and smaller players. (Note: Some people consider Nielsen to be more of an audience analysis tool than a true web analytics platform. In most cases were Nielsen was found, Google Analytics was also present).

While GA dominates, Gartner analyst Bill Gassman recently published an excellent paper covering the pros and cons of this solution as an enterprise-level web analytics platform. Among the difficulties mentioned, data collection & integration are lacking, and reporting, while sufficient for most, lacks advanced capabilities. Terms of service and privacy are also raising some concerns for enterprises. But the free solution is also a good choice when web analytics requirements aren’t too high. The availability of a strong user community (over 1M sites uses GA) and local consultants are helping and GA has quickly become a de facto choice for anyone doing lots of AdWords campaigns.

What also stems from this analysis, when mapped on the Web Analytics Maturity Model, is the relatively low web analytics maturity of the Sweden market. More advanced analytics such as voice of customer, behavioral targeting, multivariate testing and offline data integration remains an exception. As is the case in other markets, qualified & experienced resources are scarce and localized training & education are even more difficult to find.

The Web Analytics Maturity Model can be used to asses the current state of your web analytics practice, your strong and weak points based on six critical success factors, and identify the gap with the sophistication level you would like to achieve. Rather than trowing the towel because web analytics is too hard, organizations needs to set realistic objectives and gradually work to improve their web analytics. This topic will be presented at the Internet Marketing Conference in Vancouver, Canada, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Washington and Infopresse in Montréal, Canada in the fall. Discussions are underway to present this topic at other conferences, including Europe.

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Stéphane Hamel helps businesses understand the value of online optimization. He has over twenty years of experience, and has been on both sides of the fence, including client and agency. Stéphane is an online tutor for the Award of Achievement in Web Analytics and Introduction to Business Analysis classes at the University of British Columbia. He is on the board of directors and treasurer of the Web Analytics Association. Read more about Stéphane.

During my vacation, I was visiting Paris (France) with my family. I was surprised and delighted to see a quick response (QR) code in a brochure/metro map (photo below). I got curious, mostly because I hadn’t seen these codes so much in Finland. We had a fast Wi-Fi connection in our hotel room, so I just had to download a bar-code reader to my phone.

First I did a Google search on my mobile phone and found a related post from a Nokia 5800 forum. On the next page, I found the download link, and very quickly I had a bar-code reader in my phone. Later on I found an even better reader called UpCode.

The QR code, which you can see on the right, guided me to Cinéaqua’s mobile site. I learned that Cinéaqua is not just a very big aquarium but also has a movie theater, workshops, and different kind of shows for kids. They almost converted us to customers, but this time we promised our kids the Euro Disney experience.

Unfortunately, Cinéaqua didn’t repeat the very good offers from their mobile site that they had on their “good deals” page. There are some really good calls to action, although some of the content is in French. These offers could have changed our plans so that Cinéaqua would get new visitors from Finland.

The company has two promotional codes on their website. I’m not sure if these codes are unique, but you should have unique and maybe campaign-specific promotional codes to track visitors from mobile or website visitors to physical point of sales. I couldn’t find (JavaScript) tracking code on either their mobile site or website. It would be very easy to add campaign tags for QR code and URL. Here are two examples of software/online services used to create QR codes: Morovia.com is free, and QR Stuff is very cheap.

I tested Morovia’s services, and if you have a reader in your mobile phone, you can scan the QR code below. It should open my blog’s URL with campaign code (for Yahoo! web analytics system). And yes, you probably know that all mobile devices don’t execute JavaScript, so if you want more accurate data, maybe you can use Bango or another mobile analytics vendor.

Even if you don’t have a mobile site, you can test this hyperlink in your marketing. Maybe you can have a landing page designed for mobile users on your website? Then create a QR code for print ads/magazines, business cards, signs/outdoor ads, and even shirts to guide people to this landing page. The possibilities are endless.

If you’re selling (big) products in a physical store, you could have a code next to price information, perhaps guiding the customer to a mobile site or website to get more information and a value proposition such as free delivery. Then you may want to know how people are moving from offline channel (store) to convert online.

Or let’s say you see an interesting outdoor ad and you want to find the closest store where you can purchase the advertised good. You scan the code, go to mobile site/website, and use “find the closest store” feature. Maybe you can have a mobile coupon or discount code, so you can learn and measure outcomes from each campaign?

One nice example of using QR codes is from the city of Helsinki. Some public transportation stops have a QR code, and scanning gives you real-time information about next trams (in this case – picture below). In addition, you can see if there’s extra news about traffic (white text on red background). Convenient, isn’t it?

This technology has been around for several years, and I’m just wondering why I haven’t seen these codes in Scandinavia and Europe that much. Feel free to leave a comment if you have seen or used these codes somewhere. Please also let me know whether this post gave you an idea of how and where to use these kind of codes.

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Petri Mertanen has worked in the Internet industry for 10 years. Clients for which he has worked vary from small to large international companies. Currently he is the managing director of Naviatech, an Internet marketing, web analytics, and concept design company. He is also chairman of Web Analytics Association Finland.

How can I access my market on the internet? In one form or another, I get asked this question almost every day. My answer is simple.

Conversations are markets. To access a market, you have to participate in the conversation. The trick is to find the right conversation and then participate in an effective (and profitable) way.

Twitter is one massive conversation involving millions of people. It’s like a huge river. You can put your toes in when you want to. You can take your toes out when you don’t. Either way, the river keeps flowing. The conversation continues whether you’re participating or not.

Creative people are constantly finding new ways to leverage Twitter. The innovation will never stop. But at the time of this writing, there are four powerful ways to find the conversation in your market and participate in it. Done properly, it can completely change your business.

Contact. The most powerful aspect of Twitter is search. By using Twitter Search, you can find individual people tweeting about your industry in real time. Select a few keywords that relate to your product or service, and then search for those words. By doing so, you engage targeted prospects at the exact moment they might need you. Make a habit of searching for your keywords twice or three times each day, and reply to their comments with your value proposition.

Connect. When you find Twitter users who are discussing your keywords in a meaningful way, begin following them. There is a culture on Twitter where people you follow have an incentive to follow you back. By proactively following those discussing your keywords, you’ll build a following yourself; one made up exclusively of targeted prospects.

Community. Use a platform like Twellow to find Twitter users who use certain keywords in their profile descriptions. Be sure to select keywords that identify your ideal customers, not your competition. If you’re a Financial Advisor, don’t look for people using words like “finance” and “investment” in their profile. Instead, look for those who use “ceo” or “executive” or “director”. Proactively follow those people to surround yourself with qualified prospects.

Contribute. Add value to the conversation. There are four reasons to write a tweet. Wisdom – demonstrate your expertise with tips, tricks and tools. Personal – show your followers that you’re a person, not just a business. Engagement – retweet (RT) useful tweets, reply to user comments and use hashtags regularly. And Business – tell your followers how your product or service alleviates their PAIN.

Conversations are markets. Twitter is one huge conversation. By following these simple steps, you can engage your community, participate in the conversation and build trust with your prospects. And trust is the immediate precursor to a purchase decision.

Patrick Schwerdtfeger is the author of “Webify Your Business, Internet Marketing Secrets for the Self-Employed” and is available for interviews and speaking engagements. Please call 510-282-4115 for fees and scheduling details.