Comments on: Why Google Analytics?

By: Adcuda

Adcuda — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:04:30 +0000

I’ve been using Clickable for my Analytics and haven’t really had any roadblocks to speak of. I’ve never heard of ClickTracks and might consider it down the road if I ever start having problems with Clickable.

By: Mike Due

Mike Due — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:47:54 +0000

I would like GA more if it could track the most popular downloads. I manage a number of sites with tons of PDF files and GA has no way to tell me which one’s downloaded most frequently. Actually, someone sent us some Javascript to do it, and it works under certain situations but not all. The Javascript approach also required invasive coding on our web pages, just to get GA to track the files. I’d love to know if anyone has ideas on how to do this more easily…I’d be a GA fan for sure.

By: Ben Bailey

Ben Bailey — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:02:29 +0000

Bob, I preferred using Clicktracks for a long time. What really changed it for me was when Google added Custom Segmentation abilities. Then there was the custom reports, the Intelligence; and now with all the Greasemonkey scripts and Firefox add-ons there are so many more ways to find the information I need and drill down into the data. Also the new Annotations in GA is amazing. Now I don’t have to ask around the rest of my team (development, SEO) if they did anything when I see a spike or a drop. I have them leave a note on the day about what they did, and it shows up right in the dashboard graph. That is fantastic!

Ben

By: Erik

Erik — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:30:26 +0000

Now around 50% of the websites around the globe use google analytics for various reasons. It became very integral part of an online business. I own a couple of sites and I made google analytics ready before content.

By: Matt Bailey

Matt Bailey — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:46:54 +0000

I’ll jump in now and defend my analyst, as the Omniture statement may have been very general, but in the basic product, the segmentation capabilities are a bit “useless” in my opinion, especially when it comes to organic search segmentation. When i teach analytics segmentation concepts and practices at conferences and seminars, there are always a group of people that are amazed at the segmentation that they can’t do – and i know which programs they are using before they say it.

I’ll admit – there are SOME segmentation capabilities in Omniture, it really depends on this flavor you are using. The Visual Sciences product probably has the best, but it’s completely out of the range of most companies. However, in the basic program the segmentation of organic search terms leaves a lot to be desired.

Segmenting by county, search engine and PPC are all things that I would expect to see, however when segmenting organic search data and behavior based on search terms, Omniture comes up sorely lacking.

In order to get segmentation, its an upsell – which I find insulting. Discover Data Warehouse Version) Gives this capability, i just wonder why it would cost extra to get very basic data such as this?

As powerful as Omniture is, even with the data warehouse it still cannot create advanced segments-on-the-fly, which I find critical to gaining a jump on trends before they become a surprise.

Join that with the main issue that site managers have of ensuring that the tagging is on every page and maintained correctly – It becomes a very powerful, yet difficult to use program. Very few companies are using it at its potential, mainly because of the difficulty of properly installing or not maintaining the tagging.

When comparing segmentation capabilities – it’s GA. Hands down.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:47:53 +0000

Omniture doesn’t have segmentational capabilities. Really.

That just made me skeptical about the quality of your judgment in everything else because you clearly know nothing about Omniture.

By: Bob Gladstein

Bob Gladstein — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:05:31 +0000

I have to admit that I still prefer ClickTracks, but I’ve been using GA more and more lately.