I’ve been working quite a bit with the Omniture web analytics tool lately and although it is very very powerful, I also find it extremely frustrating at times. I’m sure this can be said of any tool you feel that you don’t know 100%. You always compare it to what you know best and my comfort zone lies with Google Analytics. But I know other analysts who swear by Click Track, Omniture and even Stats-Counter, purely because they feel comfortable with it. So should one step out of their comfort zone?
I don’t actually think the issue lies with the tools we are using to measure our stats but rather in what we are measuring. Forward thinkers in Web Analytics such as Avinash Kaushik have been professing for years that the majority of people are measuring the wrong things. What do things such as page views and top page exits actually tell us?
Lots of page views could mean a poor navigation – people clicking around to try and find what they need, not necessarily clicking around because they love the site.
The site page that has the most exists doesn’t mean it is the page that is turning everyone off your site. They might be leaving because they have got the info they need and will now use another channel such as telephone to complete the order. They may not even want to order anything in the first place.
Analytics should not be about the numbers it should be about customer behavior. One of the best tools on Google Analytics (that surprisingly most people ignore) is the site overlay feature.
This helps you to see what people are actually doing when they hit a particular page on your site. Do they click where I want them to click? If not what are they clicking on? Are the people coming from Google clicking on different things to those who come from Yahoo? If so, why? Its not about reports of data but actually seeing what your visitors are doing.
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Hi there -
I run product marketing for Omniture and I would love to speak with you regarding any frustrations in using SiteCatalyst to either 1) provide guidance, and/or 2) gain your insight into usability improvements.
Thanks!
CP
Hi there
Even more useful than the site overlay is the click data you can get from the Crazy Egg tool, in my opinion (www.crazyegg.com). As I understand it, Google will aggregate clicks going to the same URL, so you won’t be able to tell whether it is the image or the copy that is attracting the user, if both go to the same URL, for example. I think this blog post describes it better than me: http://microisvjournal.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/crazyegg-vs-google-analytics/
Hope that’s useful!
Sarah
Big time. Crazy Egg rocks. A few colleagues of mine swear by it and I suppose its time I got off my backside and gave it a whirl. The usual scenerio of finding time.