Forrester Wave Web Analytics Report Wipes Out

Last week, Forrester released their Web Analytics Q2 2014 Wave on: “the Six Providers That Matter Most And How They Stack Up”. The Wave report evaluates Web Analytics platforms against a number of criteria.

It was a busy week last week, so I didn’t get a chance to read the report till this weekend, then read some colorful reviews including this one and this one :).

My first reaction when reading the report was “Whoa!” and “Are you serious?!”

Why was this my reaction? From our own experience, some of the conclusions reached in the report just don’t add up. For example, we clearly find that organizations are consistently leaving many of the platforms that this report considers “leaders” for the tool that this report considers just a “strong performer” (not to mention any names).

Now, it might be assumed that we have a biased towards Google Analytics/Google Analytics Premium (not to mention any names :)), but in fact we are vendor-agnostic, working with Adobe SiteCatalyst and other analytics platforms. Yet what we see and hear from clients day-in and day-out, from the trenches, just don’t match this report.

Here are a couple of concerns with the report:

The Blackberry of the Web Analytics Industry

(Again, not to mention names) but one of the “leaders” of this report in our view is on it’s way to becoming the “Blackberry” of the web analytics industry. (When was the last time you saw someone check their Blackberry?) We are seeing a mass exodus from this one vendor.

And this is based on a good sample size of clients we’ve worked with – people are leaving [insert name of tool :)] due to a combination of high pricing, poor support and slow pace of innovation. Maybe this vendor will turn around in the future, but for now I’m not sure how they still even made it to the list, let alone a “leader”.

Not only have we seen this trend in the private sector, but also in government. And, speaking with other consultants in the industry, they share the same experience.

So, not sure how to reconcile what we experience to be true with this report’s classification of “leaders”. Maybe “client retention” wasn’t in the criteria (speaking with ex-clients probably would be a good idea to consider for the next report).

User Friendliness –> Adoption By the Broader Audience

Some of the vendors in the “leader” category leave much to be desired when it comes to their user interface. I think the report underestimates the impact of this aspect on organizations’ adoption of web analytics.

We’ve seen it first hand with customers – most people won’t adopt a clunky interface, not matter how powerful and feature-rich the product is. On the contrary, provide a user-friendly interface and your adoption goes through the roof, as evident in the reach and deployment of Google Analytics/Google Analytics Premium and the growth this product has experienced over the last few years.

A good chunk of the internet – large brands, successful businesses, and organizations with a lot of really smart people – have adopted Google Analytics. Forrester seems to be excluding the “vote” of people who are actually using tools to make day-to-day business decisions in order to increase profit. You’d think their opinions would be a top priority when when electing analytic platform “leaders”.

Don’t Get Tunnel Vision on Technology

Just at it’s core, a report from a respectable firm like Forrester may lead you to choose the “tool” or “technology” perceived to be a “leader”. However, when choosing a tool, technology should only be A factor, not THE deciding factor.

Although the industry has matured significantly over the last few years (we’ve even changed the name of our associations from web analytics to digital analytics!), we still see an over-emphasis on technology and hardly any substantial investment in process and people.

Having a lightning fast race car without someone who knows how to drive it (or without a team that knows how to maintain it, change it’s tires, oil it up) is a useless piece of expensive machinery.

My advice to those in the market for an enterprise web analytics solution is to define your requirements thoroughly and have a vendor selection phase (prior to implementation). And in that process ensure that you have the right talent that will do wonders with the technology.

PS. I noticed that Forrester is running both Google Analytics and Adobe/SiteCatalyst on their site. Two “leading” choices in my book! 🙂