Interview With Alex Yoder, CEO of WebTrends

March 30th, 2009 by Lars Johansson

Alex Yoder

I caught up with Alex Yoder, the CEO of WebTrends, to discuss the future of paid web analytics, the web analytics vendor landscape, and automated optimization.

Alex, Do you think the ambitious additions to Google Analytics may “force” companies like WebTrends, and all other paid solutions, to release a basic version for free?

I don’t. I believe that we actually owe Google Analytics a debt of gratitude. During this very difficult global economic contraction, we have not seen our business drop off like some sectors have experienced. I think that, in a large part, Google has helped to push web analytics to a new level in the maturity cycle wherein adoption is not even questioned—it is deemed a necessity. Furthermore, evidence has shown that the one beneficiary of this recession has been communication across the web as an inexpensive, scalable and efficient means of engaging with customers, prospects and key influencers. We all knew it was coming at some point, but the resistance to a generalized migration to the internet for advertising, public relations and engagement has lingered for a surprisingly long time. This recession has caused a rapid change in that behavior and therefore the dependency on measurement and optimization has become even greater.

Omniture has been very aggressive on the market, maybe particularly in 2007. That caused them to take the lead in many regards. How will WebTrends become the overall leader?

It depends on what you mean by “overall leader”. Right now, Google has the greatest number of tags across the internet—I don’t expect that to change soon. I actually believe that the market is now at the point in its lifecycle that is resulting in a settling phase, where customers are finding the appropriate vendor for their needs. Omniture acquired a large number of customers early in their expansion through aggressive pricing practices and then ultimately by acquiring other companies who brought customers with them. We are now seeing a period where many of those customers have more sophisticated needs and are requiring a higher level of service and support—they need a partner in this endeavor because making sense of all of this data is not easy—so they are coming to WebTrends. We provide the flexibility, depth, sophistication, power and true openness to access the data and use it elsewhere. Plus, we have the only solution that actually tracks all of the behavior of the individual at the center of the hub of the database. Customers can not get those things from mass market vendors like Google and Omniture and we will be there to help. When it comes down to the quality, flexibility and sophistication of the solutions, combined with best in class service, I think that we will lead the market in these areas.

Ad Director is an exciting solution–will we see new cutting-edge tools like that from WebTrends any time soon?

Absolutely. We are committed to continuing to expand our offerings through the most sophisticated and scalable solutions on the market today. When we were reviewing the market landscape at the time of the Ad Director acquisition, there were a number of bid management solutions available. It would have been easy to acquire one of those offerings and bring it on board; however, it is of vital importance that we continue to invest in the quality and leadership for which the WebTrends brand has been known for almost 15 years. We pioneered this space and continue to innovate. By including Ad Director in the WebTrends suite of solutions, we included the next generation of truly automated keyword optimization technology. There is not a product on the market today that can match the returns of Ad Director. In the context of cost efficient customer acquisition, it simply drives the best ROI and the highest conversions. We are very proud of this solution and the fact that no other web analytics firm possesses technology of this nature. You can absolutely expect us to take an aggressive position in similar adjacencies where we can continue to differentiate and maximize customer value.

Where do you think web analytics will be in a year?

Boy—that’s a loaded question! I’m almost hesitant to answer because I would prefer for us to be able to take advantage of some of these notions first. I do think that the breadth of analysis will need to be provided far beyond the website itself. As more and more information about customers is communicated in a broader variety of media, we will need to be able to support our customer’s interest in understanding how this impacts the brand and where value can be derived. I also am very focused on the general tone of privacy concerns that are being raised with consistent frequency. The FTC is beginning to make statements about the use of third party cookies, they are being asked to investigate Google. Advertising networks consistently track visitor activity across the web and outside of the domain of the owner of the website itself. In the web analytics world, we have always been very careful to never cross the line—all of the cookies that we track are strictly used on our customer’s own domain and nowhere else. We also promote the active use of a first party cookie for enhanced accuracy and privacy support. These same practices are not in place today with other segments of the internet community. Think for a moment about the information that Google has on one person based on their search activity, browsing habits, Gmail, Google Docs, etc—it’s scary. I think that the government is going to begin to take a hard look at these practices and it could change the way that we all do business.

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