Staffing is one key to effective use of web analytics, Jupiter says
Staffing adequately to support web analytics use lets e-retailers and others make the most effective use of analytics, a Jupiter report finds. But that’s only part of what makes the deployment of analytics successful – a big part of the rest is choosing the right vendor, package and pricing model, according to Jupiter Research.
A significant number of companies surveyed by Jupiter for the report, “Web analytics: Spending, staffing and vendor selection,” will face that decision in the coming year as they prepare to switch their web analytics vendor. That’s particularly likely among companies with less-expensive analytics packages in place: 19% of companies surveyed that had analytics budgets in the $10,000 to $50,000 range said they definitely planned to switch vendors, compared to only 9% of those with analytics budgets greater than $50,000.
E-retailers and other analytics users should know that current competition in the web analytics marketplace gives them leverage on pricing, according to Jupiter analyst Eric Peterson, the report`s author. “Vendors are getting into price wars with every deal,” says Peterson. “When vendors know it’s a competitive situation, they will do whatever they can to win the business, and oftentimes, one thing they can do is lower the price.”
The report, which reviews the offerings of several web analytics vendors, notes that picking an analytics provider should start with a clear understanding within the company of the business objectives it wants analytics to measure. Supporting that, companies should identify reporting needs, the extent to which staff has familiarity with web analytics, and the extent to which price sensitivity is a driver.
That knowledge simplifies the process of picking an analytics vendor by matching those requirements to the strengths of different providers, according to Jupiter. For example, companies having less experience with web analytics would benefit from working with a provider that has a track record on strong customer support, while companies having more experience are in a position to make use of complex applications that dig deeper into customer behavioral data.
Another consideration is the higher upfront cost of a perpetual license that’s attached to a smaller annual maintenance fee vs. the fixed cost of hosted web analytics. For the most cost-conscious companies—and those with IT staff familiar with web analytics already in place—the license model may be more appealing, Peterson says. That’s because if major insights leading to major web site changes in the first and second year of using analytics slow down in year three or four, the overhead cost of the hosted service remains constant, whether or not the site is driving the same high utility from the service that year.
By contrast, “If you own a software license, and in the third year you are just using analytics to tweak your original changes, if your annual maintenance fee is only 20% of your original cost, the cost/benefit analysis is still good,” says Peterson. On the flip side, the benefits of the hosted model of analytics are speed of implementation and the more frequent release throughout the year of new functionalities.
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