A lot of us at Sitening are big fans of Google: their innovative products, their successes, their playful-yet-productive culture, etc. We happily use a lot of their tools and, for the most part, the tools are quite good. Even in a few cases (Gmail, Google Calendars, etc) best of class.
But when it comes to analytics and testing, I’ll admit it: I’m a snob. And it’s not because Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer aren’t good tools — they are good tools, to be sure, and especially so considering they’re free tools — but they’re entry-level tools. And that’s fine. For our entry-level clients — those just starting their businesses, or those with limited complexity — we will always recommend using GA and GWO.
Once a client gets to a certain level of business maturity, complexity, and/or sophistication of analysis though, it’s time to call in the world-class tools and honestly, from my perspective, that means Omniture.
(Full disclosure: Sitening is an agency partner of Omniture — i.e., we resell Omniture tools to complement our consulting services — and I am on Omniture’s Customer Advisor Board. In other words, this is not an unbiased perspective but we chose to partner with Omniture because we know what quality and real value they provide.)
That said, it doesn’t have to be Omniture. You can certainly evaluate other tools and come to a different decision. But in my experience using a variety of analytics and testing tools, Omniture always comes out on top.
I know you skeptics are out there reading this and thinking “even if those tools are the best, why on earth would someone pay for functionality they can get for free?” Let’s be honest: you know the answer already. You get what you pay for. More importantly, you almost never get what you don’t pay for. As in many areas of life, the best choice is not always the cheapest, particularly if the choice is a critical part of what you do.
While I don’t want to get into specific features of each of the tools (I don’t want to unwittingly reveal any of Omniture’s competitive advantages or intelligence), I can address generalities of what makes the paid choice worthwhile. For our bigger clients and especially our e-commerce clients, they’re faced with fast-changing market landscapes, broad product catalogs, multi-step conversion funnels, many types of customer personas, and not enough staff to keep up with it all. As we evaluate those sorts of situations, the need is clear: they must model their business as accurately as possible so that their capacity for future insights is broad and deep. If Google Analytics lets you take the pulse of your web operations, SiteCatalyst is like having an MRI.
Beyond that, when it comes to testing, flexibility is key — but it’s just as important to have a plan. It pays to be quick when testing, but it pays even bigger to think a few tests ahead. The more your tools cooperate with your testing roadmap, the more you’ll be able to build on your early successes.
Google Website Optimizer is a godsend for one-off A/B or MVT experiments in the context of a web entity that’s never been tested, but it doesn’t play well as part of a long-term approach. Test&Target, on the other hand, is a fully-committed partner ready to see you through to conversion bliss.
As a writer, my approach has always been “write poorly; edit well.” (Hey, you can disagree with my editing skills if you like, but my writing is spot-on target.) Similarly, my testing philosophy is “test your way to greatness.” You’re not going to get it right the first time, and you clearly don’t need more tool than you can use. But when it comes time to take analytics and testing seriously, you need both the skills and the tools to pay the bills. Because the right tools almost always pay for themselves many times over.
Filed under E-Commerce, Strategy, Web Analytics
