Web Analytics Usage Statistics

14 12 2010

I have always been interested in Web Analytics.  Most of the tools claim to solve world hunger, but which of the literally dozens of Web Analytics tools do people actually use out there?  I stumbled across one pretty interesting analysis of who is using what today.

Here are the Top 5 Web Analytics tools used according to this survey:

  1. Google Analytics.  (57%)  Not surprising.  It’s free to use.
  2. Quantcast Tracking. (18%)
  3. Google Analytics Asynchronous (14%) Also free to use.   More about what this is.
  4. Omniture SiteCatalyst.  (14%) Recently acquired by Adobe.
  5. comScore.  (9%)

The number six tool is down around 3% share.

This is just the beginning of a long analytic tool war.  With the data on the Internet fragmenting (see my previous 12/13/10 blog post) they tools makers will have to move quickly to be able to track and measure activity on the Web.

See Full Report


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Categories : Enterprise Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Plan, Social Media Data, Social Media Marketing, Technology, Web Analytics

The Future Direction of Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

13 12 2010

SEM is pretty straightforward, right?  You use some analytics software to figure out the search terms that customers are using to find your product or service and then you bid on the right to place ads with those terms.

A new white paper from Forrester looks at the future trends in SEM.  Like a lot of things, the searchable Internet is fragmenting  in many ways:

  • Into new forms of content.
  • Into new uses: Mobile/Social and GoogleTV are examples.
  • Into communities and platforms that are opaque to traditional search engines.  Examples include the Apple iPhone, Android phones, and social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.  Search engine technology is going to adjust.  In fact, Bing and Google are already making changes.

But, the bottom line is that search engine marketing techniques and analytic approaches must change as well.

You can download the full Forrester report for free from Omniture (owned by Adobe):  The Future Of Search Marketing

It’s well worth reading.


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Categories : Enterprise Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Plan, Social Media Marketing, Technology

Free Web Analytics: Quantcast

8 07 2010

I am always on the lookout for free tools to use in marketing and social media marketing campaigns and just ran across a good one the other day: Quantcast.com.

If you need to put together a preliminary marketing plan that includes the Web and social media (and who doesn’t?) here is a great way to get started and get the data you need to justify your plan.

Some of the available Quantcast features:

  • Input a Web site and they will give you a profile of traffic and demographics of the site users.  This did not work on sub domains that I tried.
  • Compare the traffic graphically on two different sites.
  • Input your own Web site and information and get a free more detailed analysis of the traffic and demographics on your site.

Example: I input Cisco.com and got the following information:

  • Estimated monthly traffic to the site
  • Demographics: M/F, Age, Race, Kids, Income and Education
  • Affinity: Quantcast shows other categories of sites that visitors to Cisco.com are likely to visit.

This is some pretty useful and powerful stuff for free. My take on this is that the free services actually look very useful.

  • Quantcast Publisher: copy the Quantcast tags into your published Web pages and they will do detailed analysis and reports for your site.
  • Quantcast Marketer: Profiles your current Web site audience.  Can recommend similar user audiences to market to in campaigns.
  • Quantcast Planner: Search Web properties in realtime, analyze them, and purchase buy the audience that most closely matches yours.

Note that the service is for USA sites only – at least for now.

Quantcast Top 20 US Sites

Rank Site Description
1 google.com 159M+ U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a more youthful, more affluent, more educated audience.
2 facebook.com 145M+ U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a younger, fairly wealthy, slightly female slanted audience.
3 yahoo.com 122M+ U.S. monthly people. The site appeals to a more affluent crowd.
4 youtube.com 109M+ U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a younger crowd.
5 msn.com 77M+ U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a more educated, fairly wealthy audience.
6 wikipedia.org 75M+ U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a more affluent, slightly male slanted, younger, more educated group.
7 live.com 74M+ U.S. monthly people. The site appeals to a more educated, fairly wealthy audience.
8 amazon.com 72M+ U.S. monthly people. The site appeals to a more educated, fairly wealthy crowd.
9 microsoft.com 71M+ U.S. monthly people.
10 ebay.com 59M+ U.S. monthly people. The site appeals to a fairly wealthy, very slightly male biased audience.
11 aol.com 59M+ U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a slightly female slanted, more affluent, youthful audience.
12 blogspot.com 58M+ U.S. monthly people. The site appeals to a fairly wealthy, more educated, slightly male slanted audience.
13 weather.com 55M+ U.S. monthly people. The site appeals to a more educated, more affluent audience.
14 blogger.com 52M+ U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a fairly wealthy, more educated, slightly male slanted crowd.
15 ask.com 50M+ U.S. monthly people. The site is popular among a slightly more female than male audience.
16 craigslist.org 50M+ U.S. monthly people. The site appeals to a slightly male slanted, more affluent following.
17 bing.com 48M+ U.S. monthly people. The site is popular among a more youthful, fairly wealthy following.
18 myspace.com 46M+ U.S. monthly people. The site appeals to a teen and young adult, slightly female slanted audience.
19 about.com 45M+ U.S. monthly people. The site is popular among a very slightly female biased, more educated, fairly wealthy audience.
20 ehow.com 44M+ U.S. monthly people.

Compare the Quantcast service to Amazon.com’s Alexa which also provides free Web site analytics.


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Categories : Social Media Marketing, Technology, Web Analytics

The Demise of Newssift

21 04 2010

The Newssift Web site has been quietly shut down by the Financial Times in March 2010.  The reason given was the slump in the online advertising business, but is seems more likely that an additional culprit was the cost of the underlying technologies from Endeca, Nstein, Reel Two, and Lexalytics.

This is really too bad.  As I blogged earlier, Newssift was a great way for companies to do some free Web analytics on the power of their brands in the news.  Even if you were going to use a professional analytics tool, and you should, it was a great way to do some basic research before launching into a bigger project.

I hope another similar replacement service comes along soon.  It was a great idea and a useful tool

I previously blogged about Newssift on 9/16/09.


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Categories : Social Media, Social Media Data, Social Media Marketing, Technology

Adobe Offer to Buy Omniture

16 09 2009

CNET reported this morning that Adobe has offered $1.8 Billion or $21.50/share to purchase Omniture, a leading Web Analytics company from Orem UT.  CNET Article. A check of the Omniture.com  Web site shows the reported acquisition by Adobe as the top news item of the day.

Later in the day, the Wall Street Journal reported the rumor that Microsoft (Bing) and/or Cisco may be interested in Omniture as well and that this story may be far from over.   WSJ Article.

Whatever the final outcome, this activity shows two things:

  • Web Analytics would be a nice fit with Adobe’s Web creation and management tools.
  • Web Analytics is rapidly becoming a very hot space, particularly for companies that can extend their analytics products or services to include social media.
  • Prediction: We will see more acquisitions of Web Analytics companies this year.

For Marketing Professionals: Watch this space.  Your choice of a Web Analytics tool or service has never been more central to your marketing strategy.


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Categories : Social Media Marketing, Technology

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