A new Econsultancy report, the ‘Online Measurement and Strategy Report 2011' examines the extent to which companies are using Google Analytics, paid for analytics tools, and which tools they are using for specific reporting requirements. Questions in the report and the main responses are summarized below:
Who's using Google Analytics (GA)?
A total of 44% of companies surveyed used Google Analytics exclusively for web analytics compared to 38% in 2010. 49% said they used Google Analytics but not exclusively, compared with 42% in 2010.
What are companies using GA for?
87% of companies exclusively using Google Analytics use it for understanding traffic and conversion KPIs, 68% for campaign tracking, and 60% management reporting. Just 17% of client-side respondents use GA for product and cross sell analysis, and 9% for rich media, Flash and video tracking.
Why do companies use paid analytics tools along with GA?
The main reason given here (by 28% of respondents) is that Google Analytics is not sophisticated enough for their requirements. Other reasons given included the fact that Google only promises to keep data for up to a year, as well as security and reliability issues.
Reasons for not using Google Analytics
42% of companies say the main reason they do not use GA is because they're happy with their existing web analytics supplier, while 19% aren't happy about Google having access to their site data, and 15% say it isn't sophisticated enough for their requirements.
Paid analytics are cited as having a number of advantages: the ability to dive deeper and analyze data further (advantages that are both offered by Prospectvision), and the ability to get a better view of customers. Other reasons that are cited include the faster speed of some paid analytics tools, and greater accuracy of retrieved data.
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