Avinash Kaushik recently wrote an interesting response to my original post and request for comment from Google. I asked Avinash or Brett Crosby if they wanted to comment on the “Enterprise” nature of Google Analytics in one of the comments. Avinash didn’t want to answer that question, but he did offer some interesting thoughts on the definition of “Enterprise Class”.

In his post, Avinash says:

“Definition of an Enterprise Class vendor :

1) The Vendor has been around for more than 18 months, the longer the duration the better but beyond 18 months you the client decide what you are comfortable with.

2) The Vendor can scale its ASP infrastructure (or in house software solution) to A] capture the number of page views required by the client and B] process that data on a nightly basis.

3) They have a support infrastructure to assist the client in need at reasonable price. If you are willing to pay for support, you should have to pay a reasonable price and expect solid support from the Vendor or their Partners.

That’s it. Nothing else matters. You need to know it has been around and that it’ll be there. No other golden rules.”

While I like Avinash a lot, I think this definition is way off the mark for what most companies are looking for when they say “We need an Enterprise-class analytics solution.” I think what Avinash has described is the core qualities of every analytics vendor in the market today (at least when he includes “or their Partners” in item #3 which picks up Google Analytics and a few others.)

The problem with this definition is that it does nothing to differentiate hundreds of vendors from one another. Kind of like a vendor constellation where every company is stacked on top of one another … So I propose that Avinash’s definition of “Enterprise Class” is incorrect, and instead point to the definition of “Enterprise software” found in the Wikipedia. Some relevant excerpts:

• Enterprise software is software that solves an enterprise problem (rather than a departmental problem …
• Enterprise software is often available as a suite of programs that have attached development tools to modify the common programs for the specific enterprise.
• Mostly [enterprise software] development tools are complex programming tools that require specialist capabilities.

I personally can only think of one currently available web analytics solutions that would qualify as “Enterprise software” using the Wikipedia definition. Remember: Marketing is a department, not the entire business! This definition implies that the solution can be used throughout the organization to solve a variety of problems (for example, online and offline data analysis using the same suite of tools.)

Most interesting to this conversation are these criticisms of the use of the term enterprise (again from Wikipedia):

• Often the term is used to mean virtually anything, by virtue of it having become the latest corporate-speak buzzword.
• Some enterprise software vendors using the latter definition develop highly complex products that are often overkill for smaller organizations, and the application of these can be a very frustrating task.
• Sometimes “enterprise” might be used sarcastically to mean overly complex software.

Ah ha, now the truth comes out! Perhaps the use of the term “enterprise” in web analytics is just a marketing ploy, designed to sound good but not really say anything at all about the sophistication of the solution.

Hmm …

Avinash goes on to offer a “not so humble rant” (his words):

“The reason most of corporate America is saddled with billions of dollars of sub optimal software is that companies judge tools/vendors on this vague quality called “enterprise class”, while completely ignoring what they actually need.”

While not necessarily untrue, Avinash incorrectly assumes that most companies know what they actually need. If most companies were able to “look deeply within themselves and figure out exactly what they need and then go get it” (his words) there would be no need for the vendor constellations that Forrester, Gartner, JupiterResearch and others produce every year. But these vendor assessments are reportedly among the most valuable of all analyst documents; for good or ill, they simplify the problem of differentiating hundreds of vendors who largely all say they do exactly the same thing.

So maybe, just maybe, corporate America has been fooled into buying solutions that are good but aren’t really “Enterprise class software” after all. But maybe they were only doing what they thought was best? As someone commented in Avinash’s post: “Nobody was ever fired for buying Enterprise class software …”

And maybe when the analyst firms call something “Enterprise software”, at least in the web analytics market, they’re simply looking for something that will let them write about a reasonable number of companies, not the 100+ vendors that Sebastian documents at web analytics book? Having written a constellation in the past, I can attest to the complexity involved in covering even a dozen vendors, much less 100!

Perhaps the best possible outcome from this conversation would be that all of the vendors stop calling themselves “Enterprise-class” altogether and instead work to differentiate themselves along other, more substantial lines? I can think of dozens of other good points of differentiation … cost, support strategy, approach to data integration, etc.

In the end Avinash comes closest to the truth when he reminds us that:

“Smart people with crappy tools can move mountains, without smart people even the most expensive and expansive tools can’t help a company move beyond measuring Visits.”

Which I would modify to say:

“Smart people leveraging good business process, despite crappy tools, can move mountains, without smart people and good process, even the most expensive and expansive tools can’t help a company move beyond measuring visits.”

Anyway, with all this in mind I suppose I don’t care if Google believes that GA is “high-end” or “Enterprise class” or whatever. I’m just happy that they’ve raised the bar on the online visualization interface and are continuing to drive interest in web analytics in general. Again, thanks Google (and thanks Avinash for picking up the conversation!)

As always, I welcome your comments and criticism.

Today in Holland I am announcing Web Analytics Demystified’s partnership with the Belgian firm OX2.
The first partnership we announced, you may recall, is with Aquent–the world’s largest marketing staffing organization–and is designed to let Web Analytics Demystified help companies find, train, and hire web measurement staff while establishing a strategic road map for web analytics success.

But in my experience not all companies wanting to think strategically about web analytics are able to immediately tackle the organizational hurdles associated with hiring staff or managing teams of consultants.  In situations like these, the approach we will take is to bring in business partners who have strong, demonstrated experience providing long-term web analytics consulting.  Our partners will then help implement the shared vision of the client, Web Analytics Demystified, and the partner on an ongoing basis.
In central Europe the team I believed to be best suited to that work was Rene and Aurelie’s team at OX2 (the “Web Analytics Dream Team”.)

Please read the press release and if you have any questions about this announcement please contact me directly.

I know I’m going to get shit for saying this, but I think that my good friend Judah Phillips and the fine folks at CMS Watch may have too high an expectation about what Google Analytics is supposed to be. Not that Judah or Phil Kemelor are incorrect in their assessment that G.A. is missing a lot of functionality you expect to find in “Enterprise class” web analytics applications—stuff like APIs, data warehouse query, advanced visitor segmentation, look-up tables, data loading, etc.—all of which appears to still be lacking in the new version of Google Analytics.

The thing is, I’m not sure anyone at Google ever said it was supposed to have all that functionality.

Now, I don’t read every word Googler Avinash Kaushik writes (much as I try Avinash, I’m waiting for the book!) so maybe he said something like “Google Analytics version 2 eliminates the need for any investment in web analytics technology, period!” I kind of doubt he’d say something like that, partly because that doesn’t sound like Avinash, but mostly because it’s ridiculous.

Even with Kaushik’s whole 10/90 rule, it’s hard to imagine a thoughtful guy like Avinash saying something like “You should dump your existing million-dollar, multi-year investment in Visual Sciences for Google Analytics and spend the money you save on analysts.”

And I don’t think I’ve ever heard Brett Crosby talk about Google Analytics replacing the other vendors. Again, maybe I’m wrong, but Brett (and Google’s) goal for Google Analytics has always struck me as being basically “great web analytics at the best possible price” not “the only web analytics platform you’ll ever need.” Granted, I kinda stopped paying attention for 17 months there, but given the media fascination with all things Googl-y I bet someone would have said “Hey Eric, did you read what Google said about dominating the web analytics market and destroying the other vendors?”

Judah pointed out this language at Google extolling the virtues of Google Analytics:

“Google Analytics has all the features you’d expect from a high-end analytics offering.”

Yeah, this is wrong, but this is clearly marketing and kind of hinges on the words “you’d expect” doesn’t it? In a high-end analytics offering, I personally expect a high-end analytics offering to provide visitor-based analytics with unlimited real-time visitor and session-level segmentation over the entire data-set plus the ability to define as many data dimensions and custom metrics as I like, combined with a flexible ETL tool that allows me to combine multiple disparate data into a single combined view of my site visitors and marketing campaigns.

Maybe my expectations are too high?

Personally I think that the new version of Google Analytics is one of the best things to ever happen to our industry.

Yep.

Even though Google Analytics still lacks some core functionality that most companies absolutely need when they get really serious about web analytics, the new release does one thing that the industry absolutely needed to push it to the next level: The new Google Analytics interface encourages exploration and supports drilling-down by allowing the user to maintain their inquisitive momentum.

This is HUGE and is one of the things that really excited me about Visual Sciences Visual Site a few years ago. Now, don’t get me wrong, GA2 is no Visual Workstation, but the AJAX and pre-loading they’re doing allows me to quickly change tabs, re-order columns, etc. without having to waaaaaaaaiiiiiiitttttt for the page to load. I am probably the world’s antsiest analyst and I totally hate waiting for data to appear and reports to be generated. GA2 hasn’t done away with that, but it is clearly heading in the right direction.

On this I think Judah, Phil, and I all agree.

I don’t personally think that Google Analytics is high-end or Enterprise-class, and that’s okay. But I do think the new Google Analytics does create real pressure on other vendors to re-evaluate their UI and perhaps places some increased pressure on everyone else to further differentiate their product and solution offerings. Especially if you believe we’ll see an integrated Google Analytics + Website Optimizer + Feedburner (which Ian would probably call the “Fondleburgerwizer”) sometime in the near future …

Not that this should be a problem, since each company has different goals for their application in the marketplace. But it is worth noting that Google Analytics is showing up all over the place. Have a look at this snapshot from the unreleased update to the Vendor Discovery Tool:

What this says is that of the 9,181 URLs tracked by the system, the tool found Google Analytics code on 25% of them. More importantly, both GA and WebSideStory code were found on 6% of tracked URLs, GA and Omniture on 4% of tracked URLs, GA and WebTrends Hosted on 4% of tracked URLs, etc. Personally, if I’m any of these vendors, I really don’t want to see Google Analytics on my paying customer’s web sites.

I’m not trying to be obtuse, but I think it’s only fair to take the recent update for what it is: a really thoughtful overhaul of the primary integration point for most people with their web analytics data. Faster access to data, more relevant metrics tied to dimensions (”bounce rate” against campaigns and search keywords, how freaking cool!), and a brilliant UI built by some of the best in the business.

Nice work, Google.

I wanted to quickly share a nice piece of feedback I got from Keili Glynn, a recruiter who used my job board:

“I was responsible for finding two experienced Web Analytics Systems Analysts. A candidate I contacted suggested I post the open position on www.webanalyticsdemystified.com. The job board on this industry site is user-friendly and inexpensive compared to many other job boards, but the greatest benefit was that it targeted the exact population of analytics professionals we hoped to reach.

I also contacted Eric Peterson in hopes of getting advice from a known industry expert and he graciously agreed to speak with our team. During our call, he provided very useful information to help us market our open positions. The tips he gave us were invaluable in attracting the right candidates; he helped us see what was enticing about the position from an industry perspective and target our search to those that would best fit the role. Additionally, Eric offered to post information about our open jobs on his blog, which helped generate more candidate traffic and interest in our company. Eric’s guidance, knowledge and support were hugely beneficial in our recruiting effort. His commitment to the web analytics field and its community are remarkable. Eric’s advice, support and continued follow-up are a testimony to his dedication and professionalism.”

You cannot see me blushing, Keili but thanks for the great feedback!

Keili highlights what is likely the primary advantage my job board has over those at Monster, Yahoo!, etc. You can actually talk to me about the position and I’m more than happy to provide feedback and guidance as I’m able.

One recruiter asked me why I do this and the answer is simple:

1. Because I’m honestly interested in helping companies find people to manage web analytics systems, knowing firsthand (and secondhand, and third-hand) how much smart people mean to the success of analytics efforts.
2. Because I’m excited to hear about what companies and recruiters are hearing in the marketplace regarding available talent, salary considerations, and the overall level of experience they’re seeing.
3. Because I’m interested in helping companies with the entire process of staffing for analytics through my Web Analytics Staffing Support strategic engagement.

If you have an open position for someone with web analytics experience, please consider my job board and if you advertise, I look forward to speaking with you soon.

UPDATED: Geez, I totally forgot I am presenting at the Business Marketing Association annual conference in Las Vegas on June 14th! My friend Aaron Kahlow of BusinessOnline hooked me up with this event and I’m excited about presenting on KPIs.
Phew, it has been kind of a crazy two weeks. Nobody told me that starting a company would be this much work (or this much fun!) I’m pretty excited about a handful of things I’m not quite ready to talk about yet but I’m heading out into the world and would love to get together with any of you reading my blog who might like to catch up.

Here’s where you’ll find me:

• Next week I’ll be just outside of Amsterdam in Zeist at the Webanalytics Congres. I was invited by Marco Derksen from the Marketingfacts.NL blog and Upstream.NL and he who referred to my visitor engagement metric as “the mother of all KPIs!“
• On June 1st, Rene and Aurelie and I will be gathering folks for a dinner in Amsterdam. Details are still being worked out but if you want to join us either email me or comment to Rene and Aurelie on their blog post.
• On June 19th I’m flying into Boston just in time for a very special Web Analytics Wednesday hosted by my good friend Judah Phillips, my business partner Aquent, and the kind people at Unica (hi Rand!) I am going to present some research I’ve done and the drinks are complimentary.
• On June 20th I’m presenting at the Visual Sciences ActiveInsights conference (details TBD but contact Visual Sciences for more information)
• On June 21st I’m in New York doing a special Jim Sterne event that I’m not supposed to talk about yet but please let me know if you’re in New York and are interested in seeing some very bright folks (and me) talk about web analytics and I’ll get you the 411.

It’s more of the same through the summer and I’ll try and keep my schedule up-to-date. You can also see where I’ll be out presenting by checking my presentation calendar on the Web Analytics Demystified web site.