Paid Analytics Versus Google Analytics - Round 1 Google Analytics is free, but does it really stack up against its paid competitors?	Visited: 1907 5.0/5.0 (12 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by Brian Easter March 25, 2010

Google Analytics is a great tool with a great price (free), but does it provide enough data for your company? As online marketing continues to grow and change, web analytics has become a reliable cornerstone for marketing teams across the world, from mom-and-pop shops to Fortune 500 enterprises. Over time, a number of options have arisen to meet the needs of these marketers. In this article we’ll explore the pros and cons of the free Google Analytics offering compared to paid options such as Webtrends, Omniture, and Google’s own Urchin 6.

The Elephant in the Room - Social Media Marketing
Realizing the marketing potential in social media platforms, many companies are investing in the space, and making strides towards building lasting relationships with their customers. However, the lack of in-depth analytics (largely due to the “walled garden” approach of networks like Facebook) has proven bothersome for many advertisers, and a couple of paid analytics programs are attempting to capitalize on the opportunity. Both Webtrends and Omniture recently publicized partnerships with Facebook to provide rich, quantitative data.

Google Analytics, on the other hand, has yet to establish an analytical relationship with Facebook or other major social media players; whereas Omniture and Webtrends are strictly analytics-focused companies, Google is entrenched in a variety of web services, and it’s likely that the major social media players see them as competition.

If you spend a large amount of marketing efforts on social media, it could be in your best interest to use a paid analytics tool which provides valuable data consistent with your needs. Choosing to stay with a free option in this situation could allow vital information to slip through your fingertips. As social media networks continue to attract more and more of people’s time and visits online, its place within the analytics package becomes increasingly important. While a search-heavy marketing campaign would find little benefit in expanding to a paid package, Google Analytics leaves social media marketers wanting.

External Integration
As marketers continue to spend more online and market through an increasing variety of channels, the ability to track multiple efforts through one analytics interface has become highly prized. Thus, the integration of Google Analytics and Google AdWords is one of the biggest benefits of going with Google (besides the fact that it’s free). Google engineered the two products to be used together, so that PPC managers can easily and accurately measure paid search campaign efforts within Google Analytics. 

The benefits of integrating AdWords and Analytics are important, but the competing features of paid analytics packages shouldn’t be underestimated. For example, Webtrends offers the use of a fully embedded Excel spreadsheet so that marketers can perform calculations and analysis through a familiar platform.  Additionally, Webtrends offers buzz overlays (from news, sales, blogs, and other sources) atop their metrics data, allowing a more intuitive understanding of how and why visitors are coming to the client’s site.

In the end, both options have quality integrations that vary in value depending on the distribution of your marketing spend. Are you heavily invested in search? Then Google Analytics is probably the best option for you. On the other hand, if you have a high-powered social media presence, you may want to consider Webtrends.

Usability
It’s critical for analytics companies to make a great first impression, and there’s no better way than with an intuitive user interface. Sporting a sleek, simple design with effortless navigation, Google stays true to its orderly brand with Google Analytics, and has attracted a large number of users to its ranks. As of March 2010, Google Analytics has captured an amazing 54% of the web analytics market and shows no signs of stopping.

Obviously the dominant player in this industry, even Google has an Achilles heel, and it’s becoming more and more noticeable as time goes on. As mobile web access becomes increasingly common, especially among web professionals, Apple’s long standoff with Adobe Flash becomes more apparent. If you’re using an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad (lucky you), you won’t be using Google Analytics on the go. Because Google Analytics uses a Flash-based interface for its charts and graphs, the traveling marketer will only encounter the infuriating blue lego blocks that represent Flash objects on Apple devices. If your team is always on the go, you may want to consider one of the paid options that run on JavaScript or CSS until the feud between these two giants is extinguished.

Many paid analytics tools cater to bigger firms, and their interfaces reflect the complex needs of this customer. In order to be useful in the sometimes more complicated scenarios presented by these customers, some paid analytics providers have responded with unique interfaces for interpreting and analyzing large swaths of data.

For instance, Webtrends has recently introduced a “storyboard” feature which renders data into an intelligible story-like format. In regards to the user interface, paid analytics tools have a bit of a usability advantage; they are easier to decipher for someone who isn’t experienced with web metrics, and they are able to be used on-the-go by the iPhone, Pod, and Pad- wielding masses.

However, while paid analytics options have made advances in their interface design, they often require you to host their product on your own servers – a cost in time or money that you may not be willing to make. Google, on the other hand, hosts their product for you.

Last, but Not Least - Visitor Information
For the average campaign, the most important information available concerns the types of visitors your campaign is drawing. Although Google Analytics offers general information about unique visitors, average time on site, and other high level metrics, paid analytics packages offer more detailed data.  Use a paid analytics package like Urchin 6 or Omniture, and right away you’ll notice more granular, in-depth visitor information.  Urchin 6 offers visitor navigation pathway analyses that displays where each individual visitor comes from and goes to.  Webtrends includes the option to track visitors from social media ads, and Omniture allows user-customized visitor segmentation to compare and contrast group behaviors.

When it comes to retrieving and analyzing visitor behavior, paid analytics has the upper hand, for now.  Google may not have quite as robust an offering in this respect, but their incremental progress has been closing the gap for several years.

Things to Remember
There is no black and white answer when it comes to choosing an analytics package; what is right for one company could be wrong for another. When choosing an analytical tool, decide which features best suit the needs of your firm. If you have a smaller advertising budget, you might want to go with Google Analytics simply to cut cost; however, larger firms, or firms that invest heavily in social media might want to consider a paid solution like Omniture or Webtrends for the more robust interface and the social media insights.