Infidelity Rate and Google Infidelity Share for Web Analytics Vendors

Stéphane Hamel was kind enough to let me have a look through the raw WASP data from his study of 400 Swedish websites.

Based on that data, I’ve calculated two new KPIs for analyzing web analytics vendors: Web Analytics Vendor Infidelity Rate and Google Analytics Infidelity Share. The former measures to what extent users of a tool also use additional tools, and the latter measures to what extent Google is responsible for that user infidelity.

Vendors not mentioned had too few installations to be included.

Some findings:

• More than half (55%) of all websites using a paid web analytics tool also use one from Google.
• Half of all websites in this study using Omniture’s tools are unfaithful.
• One in seven of websites using Webtrends with JavaScript tagging is unfaithful. This study does not cover log file analysis, meaning that potentially not all Webtrends users are included. In other words, Webtrends’ figures may be skewed.
• Three out of four websites using Nielsen’s tool for web analytics are unfaithful. The reason for this is likely that many website owners started using Nielsen Online’s SiteCensus years ago, when it was one of just two tools approved by KIA-index, a list comparing the traffic to Swedish websites. Many have kept SiteCensus despite moving on to other tools for analysis.
• The Google Infidelity Share tells you to what extent Google is the home wrecker in the vendor-website owner relationship.
• Google is not immune. However, the simple fact that Google Analytics is the easy (no pun intended) and cheap (no pun intended now either) additional choice makes it likely to co-exist alongside a primary (or secondary, for that matter) tool. Therefore nearly one-third of website owners using Google Analytics are cheaters.
• Of all websites using at least one web analytics tool utilizing client-side data collection, nearly one-third (30 %) are in bed with at least a second web analytics vendor. Log file analysis tools are not included in this study since they can’t be detected.

The vendors mentioned above were not singled out for any other reason than having enough data to be mentioned. For instance, out of the 400 websites in the study, only one used Nedstat, and only one used ClickTracks.

I believe it would be interesting to expand this study to include all, global, data collected by WASP and trend it. Over time it would become apparent which vendors are gaining, and which are losing, ground. No more relying on retention rates reported by vendors.

What do you think? Can Infidelity Rate be used to predict the growth of a vendor? Any caveats?

Share the love:

Close Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl Google

Hugg Jamespot Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinkedIn LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Worlds Movies Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed or Email Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »

Tweet This Post