The best things in life are free
Sam Cooke once said that the best things in life are free- the flowers in spring, the robins that sing, and free analytics software… okay, maybe not that last one.
The 2009 Online Measurement and Strategy Report is out and it reveals interesting trends such as growing trend in improving customer acquisition through web analytics. More interestingly, it shows a growing trend in the number of companies using Google Analytics.
While the immediate temptation is to assume that just because it’s a free application, people are only using it haphazardly, for ad-hoc exercises, analysis by Bryan Eisenberg shows that there is a shift from spending on technology to spending on staff. While the web analytics applications might be free, the investment is in the analysts and staff who are making sense of this data. In today’s economy, this seems to make a lot of sense.
On top of that, our own 4Q online survey metadata suggests that free web analytics application users are very highly engaged with the tools that they use. For example, even though the 4Q online survey is a little under 16 months old, over 40% of account holders have had their surveys in field, live and collecting, for at least 100 days.
Furthermore, we know from our own use of Google Analytics (we’re highly engaged ourselves!) that traffic to the pages that host our 4Q online reporting tools has never been higher. We’re seeing active users who are passionate about the data they collect and passionate about the results that emerge from that data.
While that may not be as enticing as spring flowers or full-throated robins, it’s pretty formidable for a free tool!
The 2009 Online Measurement and Strategy Report is out and it reveals interesting trends such as growing trend in improving customer acquisition through web analytics. More interestingly, it shows a growing trend in the number of companies using Google Analytics.
While the immediate temptation is to assume that just because it’s a free application, people are only using it haphazardly, for ad-hoc exercises, analysis by Bryan Eisenberg shows that there is a shift from spending on technology to spending on staff. While the web analytics applications might be free, the investment is in the analysts and staff who are making sense of this data. In today’s economy, this seems to make a lot of sense.
On top of that, our own 4Q online survey metadata suggests that free web analytics application users are very highly engaged with the tools that they use. For example, even though the 4Q online survey is a little under 16 months old, over 40% of account holders have had their surveys in field, live and collecting, for at least 100 days.
Furthermore, we know from our own use of Google Analytics (we’re highly engaged ourselves!) that traffic to the pages that host our 4Q online reporting tools has never been higher. We’re seeing active users who are passionate about the data they collect and passionate about the results that emerge from that data.
While that may not be as enticing as spring flowers or full-throated robins, it’s pretty formidable for a free tool!
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© 2010 Created by Jonathan Levitt
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