Yahoo! has integrated its acquisition of IndexTools, a leading provider of web analytics software, with its own systems to provide a free full featured enterprise analytics solution which also now provides insight into the demographics and category interests of your website visitors.

Powerful and flexible dashboards, segmentation tools, and campaign management features make it faster and easier for online marketers and website designers to learn about and align with each audience.

The power and flexibility of Yahoo! Web Analytics come from the way it collects and stores data in raw, non-aggregated form, which makes it available to be filtered and segmented in new ways, long after the data is collected.

Data is also collected in near real time, making most data available in reporting within minutes – or seconds – of a website visit. This can be useful to closely monitor new campaigns, website content or breaking news.

Yahoo! Web Analytics also maintains historical data so you can go back to re-segment old data for new insight without any changes to page tags.

More: http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/

According to research by analyst firm CMS Watch, Yahoo!’s Web Analytics service surpassed Google in several key categories in relation to use by enterprises. You might remember that Yahoo! acquired analytics vendor IndexTools back in early 2008.

CMS Watch released its 470-page Web Analytics Report 2009, which evaluates 20 web analytics platforms against 12 potential use-cases. Vendors reviewed include Bango, Coremetrics, GlanceGuide, Intellitracker, Lyris, Nedstat, Omniture, Unica, Visible Measures, and WebTrends, as well as Google and Yahoo!.

CMS Watch found that Yahoo! Web Analytics surpasses Google in several key areas, including:

• Better access control options and simpler approach to multi-site analytics
• Larger default monthly page-view limits (200MM vs. 5MM – unless you have an active AdWords campaign)
• Access to traffic data: Both vendors retain the right to hold and use your web analytics data for their own purposes, but Yahoo! gives you the ability to export out your raw, unaggregated data
• Longer historical availability of raw data

CMS Watch also found that Yahoo! Web Analytics had its drawbacks, including an administrative complexity that accompanied its functional richness, and present lack of 24/7 tech support. “Ultimately, for some enterprises, neither Google nor Yahoo! makes a good fit,” explained CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne, “and those customers should consider fee-based web analytics solutions.”

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Es una manera de decir. La verdad es que si usted (como yo) tiene un micrositio o un miniblog deje de frotarse las manos porque la flamante herramienta de Yahoo! no está pensada para usted. Es más, piénselo de este modo: Yahoo! Web Analytics es tan poderoso que no sabríamos qué hacer con tanta información irrelevante. Aunque, claro, hay quienes sostienen que nunca es demasiada esa información. No sé. Yo con las estadísticas actuales estoy tranquilo y no veo excusa para preocuparme por nuevos numeritos.

Eso sí, si usted, por el contrario, no sólo no tiene un micrositio, sino que ni siquiera tiene un blog, pero (como yo) navega a sus anchas por dónde lo llevan los clicks, hágase de esta linda idea también: con el nuevo servicio de Yahoo! muchas empresas sabrán exáctamente qué leyó, cuando tiempo le tomó hacerlo, dónde hizo click, dónde solamente sobrevoló con el mouse, qué seleccionó, qué copió y, casi casi, por qué se fue. De eso se trata, de entender por qué vino y por qué se fue, ¿no?

No digo que conocer esos datos sean nuevos, porque no es así. Pero lo que sí es, dicen, realmente novedoso es que el acceso a esta información ocurre casi en tiempo real y con gráficos verdaderamente claros. Con tortitas Excel y todo! Que no es poco. Imáginese al editor de La Nación diciendo “sacá esa foto de Cristina que no le hicieron un puto click en 5 minutos“. Mmmh! Jugoso!

Con una versión beta que sólo han utilizado un grupo de selectos clientes, Yahoo! Web Analytics se mete en pujante mercado de las estadísticas para sitios. Luego de haber comprado en el mes de mayo a IndexTools, claro.

Only 5 months after its acquisition by Yahoo!, the analytics teams of both Yahoo and IndexTools managed a full migration and integration of the IndexTools analytics platform to the Yahoo! environment.

Today, 9 October 2008, Yahoo! announced the final integration step and the re-branding of the IndexTools product. From today onward the new name is Yahoo! Web Analytics.
The new site can be found at http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/.

Read all about it on Dennis R. Mortensen’s blog: http://visualrevenue.com/blog/2008/10/indextools-is-now-yahoo-web-analytics.html

Although Dennis is Director of Data Insights at Yahoo!, he remains very objective in his thoughts and ideas about the web analytics market, and other solutions and vendors.
Some of his ‘must read’ post are:

• A reflection on Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Web Analytics dashboards
• The difference between a KPI and a metric
• Our own interview with Dennis regarding the web analytics market, in the US and Europe

In the mean time we are eager to see how the Yahoo! Web Analytics solution and its strategic position will influence the web analytics market, and the position of both the free as enterprise analytics tools in the future.

Following the purchase on IndexTools in April 2008, Yahoo has launched a beta of Yahoo! Web Analytics.

This puts Yahoo! on par with Google from an solid analytics provider standpoint. I always liked IndexTools as a lower cost Web Analytics solution and if Yahoo! can keep the integrity of that platform while providing another no cost alternative to customers — bring it on.

The ability to track more than 4 scenarios (or goals to my Google Analytics brethren) would be enough to make me take a serious look.

There are discussions about whether the tool will be be free or not. My hunch is that it will be free as long as you are part of one Yahoo!’s advertising solutions. This is fair in my opinion.

The system is still in beta with current customers through early 2009.

JupiterResearch has found that despite volatility in the web analytics market, costs related to switching providers remain high, while more than two-thirds of current analytics customers are happy with their current provider.

This analysis is contained in a new JupiterResearch report titled “Web Analytics Buyer’s Guide: Assessing Vendors’ Competencies and Value.” According to the report, which offers a detailed analysis of the Web analytics market and a definitive comparative evaluation of the leading vendors, the feature war is over, and differentiators are surfacing in pricing, flexibility, and scalability.

In the report solutions from Omniture, Unica, and Coremetrics emerged as industry leaders for large enterprises using analytics. WebTrends, Google Analytics, IndexTools a Yahoo! Service, and Lyris HQ ClickTracks also attained industry-leader status for small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) through demonstrated value.

Source: JupiterResearch

Josh James, founder and CEO of Omniture, shares his thoughts on the above research.

In our series of interviews with Web Analytics professionals, the saga continues…

Dennis R. Mortensen is a pioneer and expert in the Web Analytics industry, having working in the field of Internet analysis and statistics since 1996. He is an accredited Associate Web Analytics Instructor – University of British Columbia and a frequent speaker on the subject of analytics and online marketing. He was the COO of IndexTools, a top tier enterprise analytics vendor, until it was acquired by Yahoo! Inc. Today he is the Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! You can follow his insights on web analytics and online marketing on his blog: VisualRevenue.com/blog

What is the USP of your WA solution?

Under the new name and strategic objective I strongly believe that IndexTools a Yahoo! service has a USP which is very close to: Enterprise class Analytics with ease of use in a Free package.
Or a more fun and easier to remember USP: 80% of Omniture for Free!

From your experience, do you see a difference between the WA market in the US and Europe? (Could be level of services, budget, technology,…)

It is a confirmed fact, as declared by Forester research, that from a market size ($ Revenue) point of view – the US is by far the single biggest Web Analytics market. It is on the other hand, important to recognize this fact for what it is, that this is measured in the willingness to buy and deploy a paid for web analytics solution. That does not mean that the interest and/or performance is any lower in Europe – in contrary, I would – and this is of course subjective – say that Europe is definitely at par with the US.

Adding to this comment I would like to point towards a recent study I conducted and its conclusion: That in contrary to what is commonly understood, European web analysts are on an average more advanced than US web analysts. This fact is based on two fundamental conclusions; namely that European Analysts are requesting and creating more Enterprise level reporting and analysis and working less with simpler reports.

Source: 1,911,913 reports requested by Web Analysts using IndexTools (Q3 2007)
(VisualRevenue.com/blog – Dennis R. Mortensen)

Immediately following this question, comes the question about which region is in fact the most advanced. I did a follow-up study about the factual (quantitative researched) state of the web analytics Industry; where I asked the question:

How do the three supposedly most advanced regions of Europe compare in level of Web Analytics advancement?

Looking at the Advanced Report Requests usage in the UK, Benelux and Scandinavia compared to a global average – we see two distinct conclusions. That the Benelux region is the most advanced Web analytics region in Europe (of the three analyzed) – but more excitingly, that the advancement of Web Analytics in the UK is not only below the global average, but also surprisingly below US levels!

Source: 5,509,003 reports requested by Web Analysts using IndexTools (Q1-Q3 2007)
(VisualRevenue.com/blog – Dennis R. Mortensen)

What’s your opinion on Eric Peterson’s suggestion to setup a separate WAA for Europe?

I rarely disagree with Eric, however on this point I see little benefit in creating a separate WAA for Europe, I do nonetheless understand the reasoning behind it. But the solution is, if you ask me, more in the line of better membership revenue distribution, better activity distribution and better EU communications etc. All of this can be accomplished by changing the rules and regulation of the organization.

So to conclude I vote for one united WAA.

What will be the next step or hot topic within WA? How do you see the evolution?

I think we will start to see two shifts in the industry:

• A move from web site analytics towards web presence analytics
• A move from data conclusion towards towards data predictions

Both SUPER exciting topics! An in regards to A – I would like to reference the Online Business Measurement Quadrant for better understanding:

The Online Business Measurement Quadrant structure, try to shed some light on what we have to measure and in particular the very different environments we have to measure it in. The 4 quadrants represents:

• Controlled On site Content
• Controlled Off site Content
• Uncontrolled On site Content
• Uncontrolled Off site Content

Dennis continues: “Where I think it becomes obvious that even something as supposedly simple as collecting the activity becomes an obstacle.“

It is still fairly easy to collect good click stream data (Controlled On site Content), but I think you (as me) can see the difficulty in figuring out what to collect when somebody comments on your brand on some random blog (Uncontrolled Off site Content) – not even considering HOW we would want to analyze it and even more exciting HOW we would like to relate it to the data collected in other Online Business Measurement Quadrants.

Types of content

• Controlled On site Content
  Traditional marketing messages published on the corporate website, micro websites etc.

• Controlled Off site Content
  Traditional marketing messages published on third party website sites, widgets etc.

• Uncontrolled On site Content
  Brand commentary, Ratings and other User Generated Content published on the corporate website, micro websites etc.

• Uncontrolled Off site Content
  Brand commentary, Ratings and other User Generated Content created and published on third party websites.

What was your top outcome of the eMetrics? Did you achieve it ?

With the recent acquisition of IndexTools by Yahoo! one objective was to be a comforting face for goodbye (IndexTools no longer) and a exhilarating face for hellos (welcome to a Yahoo service) … AND I spoke to more than a 100 people during the three days and was VERY happy with how the response was (VERY POSITIVE).

Dennis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Embattled Yahoo Inc has struck an advertising partnership deal with WPP Group that will let WPP buy ads on Yahoo’s online ad exchange.

In a statement, the companies said that as part of the deal, WPP advertising agencies would, through its 24/7 Real Media arm, develop a proprietary advertising media trading platform that takes advantage of Yahoo’s Right Media exchange.

WPP will also work with Yahoo to develop a WPP marketplace, giving WPP’s ad agencies wider access to potential advertising inventory, or places to advertise, across the Internet, as well as insight into how to buy ads cost-effectively for clients.

The WPP-Yahoo marketplace will also be open to outside publishers, helping to increase the overall volume, while cutting the costs, of the WPP ad-trading marketplace.

Source: Yahoo! News

Talking about Yahoo! and its services…
The new logo (on the short term) of their analytics services (after the acquisition of IndexTools) will look like this:

Two big announcements in the past few days:

Coremetrics
Coremetrics just secured $60MM in new funding, then followed that up with an announcement that they will begin releasing benchmark data collected from their ~300 clients. Their announcement follows Google’s announcement about releasing benchmark data. Some interesting stats from Coremetrics:

• 22.41% of visitors left retail sites after viewing one page
• 51.65% got as far as a product page
• Conversions from Direct Load Traffic – 47.89% of traffic and 67.35% of sales came from visitors who typed in the retailer’s URL or clicked on a bookmark. The typical conversion rate was 3.29%
• Conversions Where Site Search Was Used – 14.84% of consumers used site search during their visits – conversion rate 5.60%
• The shopping cart abandonment rate was 68.42%.

Here’s the link to the Coremetrics Benchmark page.

Yahoo! and IndexTools
Second Yahoo! announced its purchase of IndexTools – start at Bob Page’s blog post to get the industry take on what this means. Plenty of pundits have weighed in on what this means, and most of them are linked from Bob’s post. The one post worth listing here is Eric Enge’s 10 Cool Things you can Do with IndexTools. If you’re not familiar with them, this post gives some info about the solution and its reporting capabilities.

Eric Peterson suggests that “this (acquisition) is potentially the permanent game changer”. So here we are – three giants – MSN, Yahoo! and Google:

• each providing search results,
• each selling ads,
• each with mass volumes of email account holders and other member-specific areas,
• all of which result in vast volumes of data about what people do online.

Before this acquision, two of the three had web analytics capabilities, and now they all have it.

On a related note, last week I ran across a blog that Avinash wrote over a year ago – Five Ecosystem Challenges for Web Practitioners – still as relevant today as when it was written. In it he talks about the fact that web analytics is not a silo – web visitor data is tightly related to the “upstream” (tv, magazine, newspaper, radio ads), and the “downstream” (phone sales, retail outlets, other sites).

We’re all watching to see what’s going to happen to the large pure-play companies – WebTrends, Omnture, Coremetrics – each with its own expansion strategy, and the multitude of smaller players and even new entrants into the space.

UPDATE – 4/15: Dennis Mortensen posted to his blog today that Yahoo! is making IndexTools free to all existing partners and client if they accept Yahoo!’s Standard Agreement.

Following the example of Google and Microsoft, now Yahoo! enters the web analytics market.

Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO – News), a leading global Internet company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of Tensa Kft., more commonly known as IndexTools, a leading provider of Web analytics software for online marketing. The acquisition includes IndexTools’ Web analytics business and technology as well as its Tensa R&D Kft.

The acquired technology is expected to extend Yahoo!’s current analytics offerings by adding capabilities to deliver relevant insights and metrics for online campaigns that run across the entire Yahoo! network.

More info on the Yahoo! web site.

I’m eager to see how the IndexTools Analytics package and Rubix tool will evolve. Compared to Google Analytics and the Microsoft AdCenter Analytics tool, IndexTools Analytics definitely offers more functionalities, and is more oriented towards mid-size and large sites with more flexibility (drag-and-drop, ad-hoc segmentation, etc.) and integration possibilities.

So maybe this will help Yahoo! win back (some of) the edge it has lost against Google and Microsoft.

• But will the efforts to further develop the IndexTools solutions continue?
• Will Yahoo! make a free tool of it for their adword clients?
• And wasn’t Yahoo! to be acquired by Microsoft?
• So what will happen with the current AdCenter Analytics?

Future will tell…

Wow! Dennis Mortensen is a lucky guy and I’m glad I know him (hope he’s bringing a bunch of cigars to Emetrics SF next month and will finally show me Rubix – before it gets changed all over to Yahoo Analytics! – or whatever Yahoo! ends up calling it).  I first read about the news today in a post by Lars at his blog, Web Analysts Info – Yahoo! to Acquire IndexTools and a more through analysis by Eric Peterson in on  How Yahoo! buying IndexTools changes Web Analytics.

Dennis Mortensen is also on the Social Media Committee at the Web Analytics Association that I direct, and I have  spent some time with him over the last year at the conferences I’ve attended (Emetrics, SES NY and Ad-Tech, where IndexTools has had a booth – and IndexTools has a small office in NYC which I admit, I’ve never been to … I guess it will end up moving into Yahoo’s offices in midtown once the aquisition finalizes.

Eric Peterson is of the opinion that Yahoo Analytics! will change a lot of things, especially with the capabilities that Rubix brings, along with everything else that IndexTools does:

“…Prior to the acquisition, IndexTools was poised to release their own ad hoc segmentation and analysis engine, dubbed Rubix, that directly competes with the likes of Omniture Discover and similar high-end offerings. I have seen Rubix and my first reaction was “Oh man am I glad I left Visual Sciences when I did.” Dennis and his team have taken advantage of the work that Visual, Omniture, and others have done and essentially packaged it up in a much more user friendly and approachable way. The result is something that I believe a far greater number of analysts will be able to take advantage of, regardless of the price point, and something that other free and low-cost vendors simply have no response to today. Lars Johanssen of SATAMA and my very good friends Rene and Aurelie from LBi/OX2 have similar summaries of Rubix worth reading.”

I like that Eric thinks Rubix, or whatever it gets dubbed once Yahoo Analytics! is unleashed on us all – will be a tool much easier and more intuitive than Visual Sciences – I’m finding it hard to get started with VS, given the setup and the interface, while powerful, isn’t particularly user friendly or intuitive – at least, that’s what I found.   Omniture Site Catalyst, I could say much the same for, as these tools were never meant to be used by more than a small number of analysts  who were often specially trained on the platform.

But clearly, that’s changing as the role of Web Analyst gets “absorbed” and “redefined” into other roles within an organization much as Social Media and SEO/SEM are slowly moving away from being specialties and becoming merged and absorbed into other marketing roles within organizations.     As we move in that direction, interfaces and the information driving them what were once adequate enough to answer the questions of a prividledged few, now need to become more user friendly and flexiable to accomodate the varied roles and uses the Web Analytics Platform is being asked to perform.

On another side of it, Yahoo! certainly wants to stick a needle in Microsoft’s side and frustrate if not thawt the MicroHoo aquisiton – and if you noticed lately, Yahoo! has been on a buying spree, which will force Microsoft, if it succeeds in absorbing Yahoo! to absorb all it bought, including IndexTools – which competes with it’s own Microsoft Analytics tool it just formally launched last month (renamed an all).  Again, Peterson speaks out:

“…One of the things that people really like about Microsoft Gatineau is the inclusion of a small amount of demographic data available for segmentation. I like what Ian and his team have been doing, but I suspect that A) Yahoo! has access to very much the same data (only a whole lot more of it) and B) the existing segmentation capabilities in IndexTools, not to mention Rubix, will make that data a whole lot more useful to marketers. Imagine if you deployed IndexTools having real-time access to age, gender, income, and behavioral demographic data to apply to all the reports in your system, collected via Yahoo’s huge network, obfuscated, and presented properly showing sample sizes and statistical correlations. That would be cool, huh?”

I bet Microsoft is somewhat cool to the idea of yet another analytics tool to integrate into what they already have.  And then, what if Yahoo! makes IndexTool and all it’s super segmentation tools free to anyone?

“..f Yahoo! provides a low/no cost option for IndexTools, suddenly companies wanting to invest in web analytics will be far more likely to take advantage of the 10/20/70 rule for web analytics success I described over a year ago, focusing their efforts on people and process and worrying less about the technology used. Companies will be able to get their feet wet with Google Analytics and then, as the need arises, upgrade to IndexTools when they’ve mastered the basic processes and have hired the right people to move beyond basic reports and start to generate more complex analysis.

Obviously this acquisition is not without risks — Yahoo! could take too long to integrate IndexTools into their arsenal, the Microsoft/Yahoo! drama could play out in an unexpected way, and Google could respond by bringing Google Analytics dramatically up-market to be more competitive with Yahoo’s new position. Mitigating these risks are the fact that the team at Yahoo! is exceptionally bright (Bob Page, Michael Wexler, many others), any MSFT/YHOO drama will inevitably take years to play out, and if Google Analytics comes up market, well, then we have two truly great free or low-cost tools to choose from!”

Suppose the above happens?  Where does that leave Omniture (and Visual Sciences), WebTrends and Coremetrics?    Perhaps, in five years, neither company will exist in it’s present form and the platforms will be “absorbed” and all the customers will have migrated to other, more integrated platforms that incorporate the same data, but in a more useful way.

At least, that’s one possibility.  Congrats Dennis, and I look forward to hearing more about this acquisition from both Dennis and Yahoo! next month at Emetrics – which I will definitely  write about.

ZDNet du 9 Avril nous apprend, dans un article intitulé : « Yahoo achète IndexTools, spécialiste de l’analyse marketing » que le second moteur de recherche mondial (mais loin derrière Google) tente de racheter Tensa Kft, éditeur de solutions marketing en ligne. Cela intervient après l’acquisition, en septembre, de BlueLithium.

Yahoo ! va donc enfin prendre au sérieux les outils marketing pour valoriser son activité de moteur de recherche. La publicité payante est en déclin, Yahoo ! voit ainsi une de ses principales sources de revenu fondre comme neige au soleil. Le développement d’outils marketing plus perfectionnés devrait permettre à Yahoo ! de répondre à deux objectifs : tout d’abord augmenter sa valeur et ainsi garder ses distances d’avec Microsoft, ensuite tenter de refaire son retard sur Google, qui semble donner quelques signes de faiblesse pour la première fois de son existence. Affaire à suivre.

I am very, very happy for Dennis on the acquisition of IndexTools by Yahoo!. Dennis – you’ve worked long and hard and I’m glad to see it rewarded.

We missed you in Toronto and Munich but now we know why you were otherwise engaged.

Bob Page is appropriately jazzed as well.

No surprise at all that Eric Peterson goes deep. He was an analyst at Jupiter after all.

And this means that Matthew and I get to welcome Yahoo! as a sponsor for eMetrics!

I noticed Dennis Mortensen’s post on Web Analytics Definitions – WAA – IndexTools Compliance and I think it would be great if all the major Web Analytics Vendors did the same thing IndexTools just did defining compliance to the WAA Web Analytics Standards.

On that note Demo.com mentions the WAA Wiki (which we’re using to define Web 2.0 Standards). The Web Analytics Association’s Social Media and Web Standards committees are partnering in defining, perhaps for the very first time, Web 2.0 Standards (including Social Media Standards).

Last year, my committee (Social Media) started this work and created the WAA Wiki to draft Social Media Standards (see the video below – Gary Angel got us started).

We had a bunch of categories – we were aiming to to something similar to what Dennis did with IndexTools, but for Social Media, and about all we had in place last year was the Wiki and a list of categories we’d cover plus committee members that would tackle different subjects.

Then we coordinated our work with the Standards Committee and now I can say, our two Committees are jointly able to create more than each of us separately (which is great).

Of course, to participate, you must be a WAA Member.