Web Analytics Tool Time

Surfing Through an Omniture Implementation

As a Northern Californian surfer I have spent many a day in bad waves.  I’d retire (and do pro bono web analytics)  if I had a buck for every time I could describe a surf session’s waves as blown out, chop, slop, ankle biters, flat or close out.  I could turn around at the site of bad waves, but I rather surf in slop than not at all.  Keeping my expectations low on bad days makes just getting in the ocean and getting a few short, unimpressive rides enough to make me happy.  I’ve leaned, the hard way; the same cannot be said for those who don’t understand the challenges crappy waves present.  In the background of an infamous homemade surf video my girlfriend can be heard saying, “Jesse sucks a surfing.”

As a Semphonic web analyst I have spent many days with poorly implemented web analytics tools, and really they aren’t so different from waves.  Not much can be done with a weak web analytics tool implementation.  As an experienced tool user I can recognize an implementation’s limitations, but the untrained eye often expect more than is possible.  Similar to how it is impossible to get a 15 second ride when the waves last three, you cannot report on a metric you didn’t implement.  

There is one big difference between Nor Cal waves and your web analytics tool -- control.  I can forgive the powers that be when bad waves roll through, but for a company that is serious about web analysis a bad implementation is unforgivable.  

But wait…assuming you’re implementing Omniture SiteCatalyst, (and my not so psychic prediction says you are) Semphonic has a product that can help.  Our recently revamped Getting Started Toolkit will walk you thorough developing, deploying, and testing your Omniture implementation. 

Semphonic has approached writing this document first and foremost as web analysts and secondarily as Omniture experts, a perspective you will not get purely using Omniture implementation engineers.  By building or crosschecking your implementation with the Toolkit you can be assured your implementation will be rich and full of analytic possibilities.  Even if you are already using Omniture implementation engineers (and one again my not so physic prediction says you are) the Toolkit can give your piece of mind and save you money. With the document you should be able to more clearly understand what pieces of the implementation your staff can handle, keeping the number of Omniture consulting hours you use down.  For example, the QA checklist within the Toolkit will make it easier for comprehensive QA to be done in house. 

You should avoid explaining why you aren’t capturing an essential metric at all costs, so buying copy of the $895 Getting Started Toolkit should be a no brainier.  Take control of your implementation and you’ll never get the sinking feeling of a surfer staring down blown out, sloppy, close out, ankle biters. 

Transitioning Your Excel Reporting From HBX to Omniture, Part II

Part II:

Excel Integration Since the Omniture acquisition of Visaul Sciences much has been discussed about the how, why and when to migrate an HBX implementation to Omniture. Semphonic has written a comprehensive implementation toolkit and bloggers far and wide, including my Semphonic colleagues, have mused on some of the finer points of migration.

As far as I have read, though, little has been written specifically pertaining to transitioning physical Excel based reporting. Although, transitioning your Excel reporting doesn’t have the same glitz, glamour and sex appeal (are you laughing, disgusted or just worried about me?) as the greater account migration, it ain’t doing it itself.

In the days following acquisition, when no aspect of the Omniture product direction when unspeculated, I hear discussion that maybe an automatic conversion tool, transferring Report Builder reporting to Excel Client, would be built. I immediately dismissed that idea as somewhere between impossible and insane. Surprisingly enough, however, when I surfaced the idea to a VP at Omniture he confirmed that the feasibility of building such a tool was considered. Alas, Omniture quickly concluded the tool had too stark of fundamental differences, leaving us on our own to rebuild reporting.

Obviously before any Excel based report is transferred you must ensure all necessary reporting metrics will be/have been properly tagged. To read more on constructing a reporting ready Omniture implementation click here.

Data blocks cannot be built around data that has not populated in SiteCatalyst, so if you had plans of building reporting in advance, think again. If possible, you should try to have a month or two (or more) window when both HBX and SiteCatalyst are collecting your web analytics data. Having this window will give you an opportunity to build Excel Client reporting, while still being about to deliver your regular Report Builder reporting. Additionally, it’s the perfect opportunity to determine the differences between the tools (I can guarantee at least small ones will exist) and audit your implementation. Frequently, requesting running both tools in parallel will get push back for development or cost implication reasons, but from a data quality and report development standpoint is largely worth the added challenges and costs.

When it comes time to begin building Excel Client data blocks keep a few things in mind. In 99 out of 100 reports you build, you will want to populate your data blocks in hidden places in the report, most commonly one or several tabs. Text and numbers in data blocks cannot be formatted using the full spectrum of options available in Excel. Refreshing a data block will simply overwrite much or all of any formatting applied. Additionally, you cannot build data blocks without pesky (or helpful, depending on your outlook) headers, like “Most Popular Pages.” To ensure you can build a report closely resembling your existing HBX reporting you will need to apply formatting to forward facing tabs which reference your data blocks.

As you are constructing a hidden data block tab make sure to allocate plenty of space for each block, specifically those that might include additional line items with time. Report Builder simply won’t allow one data request to sit on top of another, but when Excel Client data blocks bleed onto one another things get ugly.

Try to format the hidden data tab(s) in a way that make them easy to troubleshoot. Your first few reports probably will have data tabs with data blocks all over the place, especially reports where new metrics are added over time. Try to learn as you go so future data tabs can be intuitively constructed and have room for report expansion. You’ll have to determine for yourself how you can best group data blocks for easy troubleshooting later. I have seen successful reports built with data block for similar types of data grouped together and others that making the hidden tab roughly resembles the forward facing report.

You need to utilize the tools in excel client to keep the data you are referencing in the forward facing tabs in consistent cells. Be especially mindful of dates as it is a common, but rarely obvious, mistake to reference a correct metric but with an inappropriate date range. Excel Client allows you to select specific items, like page names, so that they will always populate on the same line in the data block regardless of volume. Utilize this feature to keep the cells you are referencing on the forward facing tab consistent. Alternatively, you can pull a large data block and utilize a vlookup, on either the forward facing tab or a hidden tab, to populate metrics in a consistent cell.

Above everything else, recognize the thankless task of transitioning reports will take time. No magic conversion tool will ever do it for you. Not even a “sooner than you might think” update of Excel Client promises to make the process any easier. I haven’t heard any stories of HBX clients postponing a migration to Omniture because they are waiting for improvements to the Excel integration tool, but if you consider yourself in that group (even secretly), stop stalling and start building.

Speculating on the Future of Omniture's Excel Client

Usually in the blogosphere someone will write a blog and other people will comment.  I am responding to my own blog, "The Future of Omniture's Excel Client" because:

A. I have more to say that didn't seem appropriate in the more journalistic style blog (couldn't you tell I once wrote microscopic blurbs for a 200,000 copy a day paper?).

B. I fear though that the overwhelming popularity of my blog (Google Page Rank 4/10!) has labeled my writing as untouchable.

My interview with Ray Rauch left a lot to be desired.  Extracting exact details from him was a bit like pulling teeth with no Novocain.  I tugged, he made some noise, but nothing substantial came out.  

On one hand his silence gave me no clear sense of the product line, but on the other hand he left me plenty of room to speculate.  Emphasis in the last sentence should be on "speculate."  Other key words to keep in mind as you read this blog are "guess," "hypothesize" and "don't sue me."

From the interview I truly got the sense that Omniture has done and will continue to do their client needs homework (or they simply read my "Open Letter to Omniture"). In promotional materials and conference speeches, preaching about product development based on client requests sounds great, but I have fears that the process isn't as democratic as it sounds.  The interview left me with worries that Omniture has unequally weighted the needs of the most engaged Report Builder users.  This is perfect for me and the other supertool users, but I have worries that this direction will create substantial barriers to entry for infrequent users.  In addition to committing to adding complex features it probably would have been wise for Omniture to focus on making Excel Client more smooth and intuitive.

The main takeaway clients or potential clients should have about the client induced direction of the tool is be vocal about your desires.  Omniture has promised that if they get enough momentum behind a request it will be put in place (assuming it is possible).  Make them put their money (actually YOUR money) where their mouth is.

The additions that will come first in the "sooner than you think" update are anyone's best guess.  Based on some of the emphasis in the conversation I would think the ability to copy and paste request, with both absolute and relative references, is what we should expect.  Rouch made it very clear that copy and paste was a request they had received from many, many clients so it seems logical it the capability would be in the initial update.  The update also makes sense because Excel Client already has limited copy and paste functionality, so it should not be a stretch to enhance it.

It seems very possible that copy and paste functionality will be integrated into an Excel Client without complementing additions, but I'm going to give Omniture more credit than that.  I trust that Omniture will recognize that without adding the ability to add data blocks without accompanying text, the ability to copy and paste them is significantly less valuable.  The Omniture mandate that all data blocks come with text showing the date range, metric type, etc. in relatively inflexible formats make data blocks big and clunky, difficult to reference and nearly pointless to copy and paste.  

The strength of Report Builders copy and paste functionality come from the ability to set up the cells data blocks will references, whether they be with page names, dates, segments, etc. in advance of building a single data request.  Then being able to build one data request, copy and paste it over and over and have a neat, tidy and compact report before you know it.  

In order to get this type of speed and flexibility with Report Builder my guess is Omniture will install a check boxes or toggle button to allow users to select non-data, written items they would like included in each data request.  Or at very least Omniture will provide an all or nothing button so users can either include all the usual text or none of it.      

In addition to adding robust copy and paste functionally, I would guess the next generation of Excel Client will have one other change, the look and feel.  Although, Omniture acknowledge they were aware Report Builder users loved the interface and process of building data blocks, I have serious doubts an updated Excel Client will resemble anything close to Report Builder.  Given the direction of the Omniture family of products I would guess the look and feel changes would mostly be used to make the tool more inline with the new Omniture Suite.  

This partially makes sense because Report Builder has promised to add functionality to extract Discover data in the short run and probably will add it for other products in the long run.  But unlike the Omniture Suite, Report Builder would probably be better suited for seamless integration of other Omniture products where users are only conscious of the data they want, not whether it is coming from Discover, Search Center, etc.

The look and feel changes that I'm projecting might slightly improve the flow and usability of the tool, but not bring it anywhere close to that of Report Builder.  In my perfect world an updated Excel Client interface would be 80% Report Builder, 10% old Excel Client and 10% Omniture Suite, but I would expect a distribution more along the lines of 50% old Excel Client, 40% Omniture Suite and 10% Report Builder.

When the dust settles on the next round of Excel Client updates I expect to see a prettier tool that is no easier to use but has one significant HBX/client inspired addition.  It will be one step in the right direction, but no giant leap for webanalyticskind.  Omniture will probably still need two more years and two more updates to catch the Excel Client product up to and (maybe) surpass Report Builder.  Sigh.

Author's note- The correct answer was B. 

The Future of Omniture’s Excel Client

Click here to read the introduction to this blog

Out of this year’s Omniture Summit came word that Omniture’s Excel integration product, Excel Client, would be evolved to integrate features of HBXs Report Builder

In late March I had the pleasure of speaking with Ray Rauch, Omniture’s Vice President, Customer Support, regarding the future of Excel Client, specifically regarding the Report Builder additions.  Rauch spent four years with Visual Sciences prior to the acquisition and now and now works with customers currently engaged with or transitioning from HBX.  His team is constantly listening to the thoughts, ideas and needs of clients.      

In the beginning of our conversation, Rauch was surprisingly honest and quick to admit some of the superiorities of the HBX Report Builder tool over Excel Client.  He noted that numerous clients he had conversed with touted the speed and flexibility of Report Builder.  In both those respects Rauch explained that Excel Client has a “poor competitive advantage” and it was something they were aware of and working on.

Trying to get to the details of the tool convergence, I asked some very specific functionality questions during the interview.  They included:

• Will copy and past using absolute or relative cells be added?
• Will the Excel Client interface remain in its current form or will it take no the look and feel of Report Builder?
• Will Excel Client adopt technology that will allow for the full range of Excel formatting capabilities of data blocks?
• Will it be possible to pull single numbers without any text as data blocks?
• Will functionality to Report Builder’s matching and trending be added to Excel Client?
In various ways Rauch acknowledged that just about all my questions were one that had come up in the past, but chose not to elaborate on any in particular.  He suggested that additions along these lines are what Omniture is looking into for the next Excel Client update.

Despite mostly talking in generalities, what Rauch was willing to discuss did in fact turn out to be quite revealing.  He said that a “…tremendous amount of really positive feedback and really great ideas…” has already been collected from clients to help dictate the product direction.   

“Were really hoping…to look into how we can integrate those features of Report Builder into Excel Client.  It’s pretty safe to say that we did not run across anything the customers said that they wanted, that they enjoyed in the Report Builder interface that we couldn’t do under Excel [Client] it’s just a matter of the timing of those specific features and how they’ll be integrated so were keenly interested… that ReportBuild has the best...features”

The convergence of the two product lines will not happen overnight.  Omniture plans to
“…get the most important things out in the first iteration and then evolve the product.”
For the first step in converging the products Omniture appears to be more focused on speed than a comprehensive update as it, “may require a step back…so we can get it out quickly.”  After the first update Rauch explained Omniture will, “Continue to develop that line and mask sure we work with customers over time.” Additional Report Builder functionality will be added, “If we get enough momentum and critical mass behind it…”      

But talk is cheap, when can you expect to see Report Builder functionality in Excel Client?  During our conversation Rauch pointed out that until very recently the two products were developed for many years in separate vacuums and have stark differences that go much deeper than functionality.  Despite the challenges ahead of the Excel Client development team, Rauch sounded confident Report Builder functionality would be found in Excel Client “sooner than you think.” 

Up Next:

Early next week- Thoughts, reaction and speculation for the future of Excel Client
Shortly after- Transitioning your HBX Excel reporting to Omniture Excel Client   

 

An Excuse and An Introduction

Click here to go directly to “The Future of Omniture’s Excel Client,” otherwise go ahead and wade through the following (pathetic) excuse.

A. Stagnant. Neglect.
B. Holding pattern. Pause.

Pick either A or B and you have described my treatment of this blog.  If you look back and see my last post, which promised an immediate follow up, was on February 21st you might pick A.  But let me make a case for B. 

I was planning on writing about transitioning Excel based reporting based on the assumption that HBX’s Report Builder and Omniture’s Excel Client would remain as two (completely) separate tools.  Then flowing down from the mountains of Utah came word that my assumption isn’t quite correct.  The two tools will converge with time. 

At that point I would have put on the breaks, admitted I knew nothing of what Omniture meant by “converge,” and blogged about something else if it wasn’t for one June Dershewitz.  Using her rare combination of web analytics skills AND social skills, she made acquaintance with “someone, who knows some people” (or a fellow in Omniture marketing, but is there really a difference?). 

Apparently Omniture, for better or worse, had been following the Semphonic blogs since they were launched.  In spite of, or as a result of, my previous blogs, Omniture was willing to put me in contact with someone close to the source of the Report Builder- Excel Client tool convergence. 

After an interview with, Ray Rauch, Omniture’s Vice President, Customer Support it no longer seemed appropriate to turn around and immediately blog about converting Report Builder report to Excel Client.  Instead, it made more sense to share my newfound wealth of knowledge about the future of Excel Client.

Making the Switch – Transitioning Your Excel Reporting From HBX to Omniture

Part I: Implementation and Interface

So you’ve looked (hopefully), leaped (bravely) and landed on your feet (hopefully).  You’re now a proud Omniture client, with data coming out of your ears, new platforms to play on and an endless ocean of analytic possibilities.  But before you even begin contemplating your first Omniture based deep dives a series of email pour in, all with the same gist – where’s my daily/weekly/monthly Excel report?  These come in from people who didn’t know about the Omniture acquisition of HBX, that your company has transitioned from tools or exactly how to define a single access visit, the just want their freakin numbers. 

If you haven’t considered how to rebuild existing reporting until the “where’s my report?” emails roll in, you’re already too late.  You have already failed those dependent on you for reporting.  After “looked” and before “leaped” is when you should begin laying the framework for rebuilding existing reporting in Omniture’s Excel Client.  Here is a list (in time relevant order) of steps and considerations for transitioning your HBX reports, especially those of the automated variety, to Omniture.

1.    Its important to realize that many of the HBX interface tools that you can utilize to get reporting data (campaigns, active segments) won’t exist in their same form.  In general, Omniture reports require more forethought and planning because they are more dependent on tagging and less dependent on an interface customization.  Without active segments or campaigns (the HBX kind) to lean on, you’re going to have to start thinking about how they can be replaced with a combination of custom metrics and correlations/subrelations.  It will require a major in shift in thinking going from having a hand full of custom metrics to a boat load of them. And it’s your job to interweave important reporting metrics in the implementation of custom metrics. Often custom metrics for reporting would have been tagged as props or evars anyway, but not always.  Metrics tagged as props are slightly (or vastly, depending on your implementation) different from evars, so be careful when deciding if your metric will be a prop or an evar.  If you have the slots to spare considering doing custom metrics as both, so you get the best of both words.

2.    The other main tool you must consider (A.D. active segments) is correlations and subrelations. Although, these are enabled by calling Omniture, you need to consider them before tagging.  Prop correlations must be set on the same page or a correlation simply isn’t possible.  Subrelations, however, are more flexible since they do not need to be set on the same page and will most likely be integral to your future reporting.  Obviously subrelations/correlations cannot exist in vacuum so as your stretching your mind thinking about your new found wealth of custom variables you have to stretch it further to consider how you want them correlated/subleased and with what.  Personally I’ve always liked puzzles, I hope you do too.

3.    Anyone who spends a lot of time with Omniture will find the words “turned on” and “enabled” seep into his or her frequent vocabulary.  Once your implementation is in place you should make sure to enable visits and visitors for metrics where they are necessary for reporting or might be necessary in the future.  Doing this in advance of needing them will save you a ton of grief.

4.    Once your implementation is in place, correlations/subrelations are connected and visits/visitors have been turned on, spend some time with SAINT.  With Report Builder you might have been using Excel equations, like vlookups, to sum groups of pages or translate page names, but with SAINT this no longer has to be the case.  If your page groupings or lookup tables change more often than each month it's probably easier to continue using Excel equations, but if they are more static take advantage of SAINT.

5.    Even though you lack active segments in SiteCatalyst, Omniture throws you a bone of five ASIs.  You may or may not choose to use these for reporting.  If you do be aware that the bigger the segments population or the more complex the segment the more lag you’ll get on the ASI data.  In general, it’s a bad idea to rely on any ASI for time sensitive reporting in any form.  However, ASI are a powerful tool to help recreate HBX reports in Omniture and if you plan on using them in delayed reporting they should be built as early as possible.

Stay tuned for Part II where differences between HBX Report Builder and Omniture’s Excel Client will be discussed along with the changes you will need to make in your Excel report building technique.  Additionally in II I’ll discuss what the best practices are when you cannot fully automate a report with the Omniture tools available.

Where Big Meet Small- The Perfect Training Analysis

In my intro Economics classes in college we always talked about the world as if it were a perfect place. No we didn’t hold hands and discuss rainbows, bunnies and sunshine, but we did discuss the widget industry as if it existed in a vacuum. I knew that concepts like the widget industries adjusting perfectly to a decrease in widget pricing were far from the real world, but for the purpose of education I was willing to suspend my disbelief.

So, in true Econ 101 I present to you a best case scenario for a training analysis. Chances are small that you have a task like this to pass along to your developing analyst, but anything even slightly resembling this analysis should be the catalyst for leaps in growth.

In the perfect world your analysis should be of big proportions with few boundaries. Forget classifying your campaigns or building a report on those who enter via an email, see 2-4 pages and exit on a product page, they are small peanuts. This analysis should be of an entire web site. But let’s not forget how fragile your new analyst is. You cannot pull up www.ebay.com and say GO. In this perfect world, the site you put in front of your analyst should be of small proportions, let’s say a site with 30-100 total pages, 3-4 page templates, 5-10 primary routers and 1,000 visits per day.

The hardest part and possibly least real world piece of this analysis is that optimally the analysis should be done one to three months into an analysts career or just at the point where they are becoming a (mostly) self sustaining productive force. I know the temptation to use your analyst, who recently was graduated from “burden for now” to “they only ask five questions a day!” for all those little housekeeping tasks will be immense, but try to postpone the housekeeping. 

So you now have allocated plenty of time for your young analyst to perform a boundary less analysis of a small site. What kind of direction should you give them? Not much. Tell them the end result should be the combination of a site overview and highlights of the most interesting insights and trends the site has to offer. Beyond that I like to rattle off a few specifics to look at, like site router effectiveness and exit pages reports. Also, I make sure to outline a few basic segments like first time visits, clients, etc, and make sure to leave it open to the new analyst to build a few of their own.

Once you laid that foundation, sit back and watch the growth. Like a Chia Pet, you should be able to watch the growth almost daily. You should only get concerned about the progress of the analysis if the flow of questions halts.

Sometime in the middle of this you should sit down with the young analyst and run through all the data they have collected. Ask them to specifically point out the most interesting findings. With each finding explain why it is valuable or why it wouldn’t make the cut for a presentation. Also, make sure that the forming analysis will be complete and tell a story when it is complete. If the final analysis appears like it will have loose strings get your young analyst back on track.

In the end, this works as a training tool because for the first few months you have given your young analyst all the skills to analyze a whole site. Given them this assignment at the opportune time during their growth helps little leanings fit into a much bigger picture. Conversely, be careful not to spring this analysis too early as it could easily cause confusing and retard growth. By allowing your young analyst to perform this analysis you should in turn expect to watch his/her comprehension of how to think about, build and use population segments skyrocket. It’s hard to understand how segments work when you’re not starting with a complete pie, but this analysis hands your trainee a full pie to break up on their own. By comparing many comparable pages your developing analyst will get a better sense of how to analyze based on data as opposed to project personal judgment. This will be helpful in the future when they might be asked to analyze a single page. They should also more efficiently find the interesting nuggets in smaller analyses and be able to better mentally plan out a future analysis from end to end.

It has been in moments while discussing a big and small analysis with fresh analysts that I have seen true comprehension. I specifically recall an instance where I was corrected on how to define an “engaged” segment. For a brief instant my ego was wounded, but quickly I came to my senses and remembered that while training nothing is more satisfying than being corrected.

This big and small analysis could be nothing more than a training tool, but by keeping an open mind it might actually turn up new leanings or new areas of analytic focus. If done properly the final product of this analysis could be a perfect brainstorming tool for laying out an analytic roadmap. Additionally, if your considering a site rebuild, about to undertake a site rebuild or have recently rebuilt your site then use this analysis to baseline or check for improvements. My favorite part about new analysts is that they always bring a fresh prospective; it’s your job to let them.

Top 10 Benefits of Migrating to Omniture’s SiteCatalyst? Part II

Without further ado here are my thoughts on "benefits" 6-10.  In case you just tuned in click here to start with my first post on the "Top 10 Benefits of Migrating to Omniture's SiteCatalyst?"

6. Standard reporting-

In this section the narrator claims that SiteCatalyst can be responsible for producing "board room ready reporting" that is "clear and compelling."  Sigh.  If only it were that easy. I admit Omniture does produce some of the prettiest interface and exportable reports.  And no matter what decision makers at your company might say, prettiness does count for something.  But you aren't going to get out of the box reports that you can put in front of a board room and tell a complete story.  Often when I'm pulling together an overview report or analysis, I will find that I can start off by using prefab or easy to access reports in Omniture, but by the middle or end I am needing to build my own customized reporting in Excel.  At that point I sometimes end up rebuilding the reporting I pulled from Omniture in Excel for the sake of continuity. 

For the record Omniture reports do come out looking flashier than what you can build in Excel 2003, but if you invest in Excel 2007 you can easily build reports that trump both.

7. Personalized Interface-

Personalized interface reporting can be an important feature to your company (although it is only mentioned as an afterthought in this section).  Interface reporting is a perfect way to get a quick overview of what is important to you and your business.  It can be a dangerous tool if it is all people at your company utilize or if it makes you reliant on arbitrary little dials that point to green, yellow or red (which obviously translate to bling bling spend money like it ain't nothing, the Magic 8 ball says "Ask again later" or Chapter 11).

Those currently using HBX are probably no stranger to interface reporting…or are you?  I'm not exactly sure why, but in an informal study of Semphonic clients’ accounts I find that those using SiteCatalyst are far more likely to be actively using interface reports than those with HBX. A safe bet why is that in Omniture interface reports are much more flexible.  If you’re used to the complete freedom of Excel, they will make you feel like you’re trapped in a Columbian jail, but compared to other tools they are one of the biggest backyards in the neighborhood. 

If you, the heavy tool user at your company, are assigned to build reporting for others, you will notice several weaknesses in how reports are shared.  You can build a dashboard or singular report and allow other users to access it, but if you want it to be easily accessible for other users or appear for them upon login you'll have to login to their account and set those things up yourself.  No big deal if you’re setting up three accounts, but headache city if that number is double digits.    

To sum five and six up, Omniture will give you more interface reporting, exporting and scheduling options than HXB.  It's your call whether that's important to you or not (be aware that the above thoughts are relevant to things you can get immediately out of HBX and SiteCatalyst; to see my thoughts on how both tools Excel integration tools stack up click here).

8. Web 2.0-

This section was perplexing to me.  It is titled "Web 2.0" but really just discusses how Omniture can correlate data.  Last time I checked, even if your site doesn't contain blogs, social networking or rich internet applications, correlating data was still an important feature.

The main takeaway current HBX clients should have from this section is that when using SiteCatalyst you’re going to have to think about your data and extracting relevant things from it differently.  In HBX you might have built an Active Segment to understand the engagement level of people coming from a specific email campaign but with SiteCatalyst you’re going to have to rely on Subrelations/Correlations.  Unfortunately, Subrelations/Correlations are much less flexible than Active Segments.  Once you build an Active Segment you essentially can correlate it with anything else you collect data on, but with Subrelations/Correlations you have a finite number of things that you can correlate your data to.  If you anticipate your needs when setting up your account, then you should have no problem; but if the Subrelations/Correlations you set up don’t cut it for reporting or an analysis, you’ll have to pick up the phone and your wallet.

9. Genesis-

Numbers nine and ten are essentially strategically placed selfless plugs.  I'm sure when Omniture purchased VS they intended to convert the VS customer base to being not only SiteCatalyst clients but clients of the full spectrum of all things Omniture.  And Genesis would be one of those things.  Although I have limited experience with it, I do like the idea of being able to easily send out emails to specific segments of your site users.  I have heard some complaints the Genesis based paid campaign optimization technology isn't quite "there" yet, but I lack hands on experience to support that claim.

10. Platform-

Ten is the kicker.  The point that will undoubtedly linger with you.  The words that will leave you drooling over not only SiteCatalyst, but everything Omniture has to offer.  But Discover, SearchCenter, Offermatica and Touch Clarity and Genesis aren't the same as the pack of gum you add in the checkout isle.  They’re damn expensive.  If you’re debating between SiteCatalyst and Google Analytics, you almost certainly bother with these add ons, but for big budgets these will all be tempting in their own ways.  If you’re considering add ons just be careful not to out buy your bandwidth (ALERT: That last sentence was a Gross oversimplification).

I understand why Omniture lumped these things together, but you should mentally break them out.  Discover sticks out of that list as the only thing that doesn’t do something completely different than SiteCatalyst.  If you currently have active HBX users responsible for analysis and reporting in place, they should be able to understand and utilize Discover from (almost) day one.  In fact they might need to utilize the tool to extract data that you previously were able to get directly out of HBX.  The other tools are the outliers:  the ones that integrate (although not necessarily easily) with SiteCatayst, but do entirely separate things than SiteCatalyst.  These should all be evaluated individually with consideration to their benefit to your company and if you have resources that could not only handle but extract value from them.

Top 10 Benefits of Migrating to Omniture’s SiteCatalyst?

Despite the finalization of the Omniture acquisition of Visual Sciences, details of the future of the product line and migration process are as uncertain as ever. On Omniture.com the ridiculous “Learn about the migration program” link routes to a page of quotes from those currently benefiting from Omniture. Not only does this link route to a page of irrelevant information its salt in a wound. When I’m approaching a traffic jam the last thing I want is a call from my coworker, who left early, letting me know he was pulling into his driveway.
                                    

One of the most substantial pieces of “new” information is the narrated presentation of the top 10 reasons why HBX customers should switch to SiteCatalyst. To help HBX customers wade through this list of spoon fed Omniture rhetoric I figured I would provide a heavy tool users perspective on each reason why to switch. Here are my thoughts on 1-5. Expect 5-10 to be posted in a day or two.

Omniture’s Top 10

1. Admin Console

Omniture describes their admin console as a powerful tool for maintaining and sustaining all things SiteCatalyst and largely I agree with this description. The admin consol is fairly easy to use and gives you a lot of control over creating logins, specifying what content users can access and manipulating report suites. Its not quite as intuitive as the drag, drop, bada bing, bada boom interface the friendly narrator suggests, but the heavy tool users (who should be the only ones with access) should have no trouble using it. And once heavy users get a taste of it, it will be hard to remember how they ever lived without it.

If anything, my biggest issue with the admin console it that it allows users to change too much. In two clicks you can remove every page in a report suite or do numerous other actions that will do irreparably damage to your report suite or wallet (usually Omniture can fix your f*** ups, but it’s gonna cost ya). Additionally, it’s surprisingly easy to create undeletable entities, such as report suites and data categories here. It is common for higher up, light users to expect access to something called the “Admin Console,” but in interest of keeping your report suite looking clean and full of numbers this should be discouraged.

Conversely, there are areas of the admin console where you will reach a dead end and have to call Omniture Live Support. Sometimes it will make sense why you have to call, but other times, like when your building a rollup report suite, you’ll be a bit annoyed.

2. International Capabilities-

It’s nice that Omniture supports a lot of currencies. You still have to pick a single currency per report suite, so it’s not revolutionary system for handling currency but its still better than nothing. In reality no web analytics tools handle multiple currencies as well as they should, and this is a common area to run into implementation and reporting issues.

I can’t say much in regards to the fact that Omniture supports a slew of languages, but I was surprised that Omniture didn’t mention here (or anywhere in this list) the extensive amount of online help and documentation they have available. Heavy users will often find holes in the manual and Knowledge Base, but it’s still the best online help of any enterprise web analytics solutions. The value of good online support should be taken into consideration when you are evaluating your tool options. Omniture Live Support licenses must be purchased on a person to person basis and are NOT cheap. If you plan on having SiteCatalyst users in your organization that do not have Live Support access they will most certainly be digging through what is help is available online.

3. Version Support-

Omniture promises to support older versions of SiteCatalyst and I promise not to care. The biggest difference I notice from one generation to the next is the color scheme. Users would have to be VERY stuck in their ways or not be able to adapt to the minor changes of a new version of SiteCatalyst. Omiture’s willingness to support old versions makes then enablers, and it might actually benefit your business if they let older versions sail into the sunset when their time comes.

4. Custom Metrics-

I tend not to use custom metrics very often, but I do think they are cool. If your into stretching the limits of in interface reporting to the max custom metrics will help. You do have to be careful not to get too carried away building metrics, though, or your reports could become more confusing than it is helpful.

5. Segmentation-

Telling a group of people that are currently using HBX Active Segments that ASIs are a reason to switch to SiteCatalyst is just ludicrous. Powerful segmentation is an essential feature of any enterprise solution, so I understand why Omniture feels the need to brag about their capabilities, but they are barking up the wrong tree. ASIs are a massive step back from Active Segments. ASIs are sluggish and limited to 5 (which at times feels like it might as well be 0). In principal these things segmentation tools are nearly identical, but if you’re expecting ASIs equal to or better than Active Segmentation you’re going to be sorely mistaken.

The narrator also mentions SAINT as a segmentation tool. Although I don’t really agree that most of the uses for SAINT are related to segmentation, I do like SAINT. It’s a handy and fairly easy to use classification tool that allows you to easily change things like product numbers into product names or rollup products into relevant groupings. When rolling up you only get summations and not deduping, so look to the tool for page view data and not visit/visitor data. SAINT will give you a slightly easier development, since you won’t need to spend hours figuring out how to send Omniture an image request with the product name instead of the product number. Also SAINT will keep your report suites looking cleaner and easier to use.

WOWA

As the champaign glasses clinked and lips smacked on the night of December 31st 2007 I made a resolution to blog more.  It might have taken me until the 16th day of January to begin my resolution, but from here on out in 2008 expect a lot from Web Analytics Tool Time. 

Throughout the year this space will be filled with content to help you, the web analytics practitioner, but today this space is for me to turn reflective.  Read if you like.  Pass if you like. Just don’t expect to gain any knowledge except that of how I view the World of Web Analytics…

I am incalculably a nerd.  I’ve been in science fairs and essay contests. I attended a college built by nerds for nerds, where only people who did not embrace the notion that they were a nerd where having an identity crisis.  I picked my major because out of my freshman year class pool including drama, photography and psychology, economics was the most fun. I even find ways to put nerdy twists on my non nerdy interests.  At Oakland A’s games I might cheer with all my testosterone induced might for a late game rally but I also could probably tell you both starters pitch count, approximate lefty/righty success ratios of the guy warming up in the pen and the on deck batter’s on base percentage over the previous road trip.  About the only time I won’t strike you as a complete and utter nerd is when I’m atop a surf or snowboard, and that’s only because I won’t be saying much of anything.

So it doesn’t really surprise me that when I think of my first two years in web analytics I consider it parallel to something quintessentially nerdy: fantasy books.  Without fail fantasy books always seem to begin in some small, rural, seemingly normal town.  Novato, California, the town where my web analytics career was born, wouldn’t fit that description, but in the World of Web Analytics (WOWA) Semphonic would.

During those first couple of months the newness of the work acted as blinders to the greater web analytics world.  As far as I was concerned Semphonic consultants were the only people in the world who built Active Segments, implemented Omniture, did deep dives on conversion rates or made site rebuild recommendations. 

I began opening up my eyes to the WOWA via blogs.  Not coincidentally I started by reading the closest blog to home, Gary Angel’s.  Gary’s writing led me to the likes of Eric Peterson (who I found he mostly agreed with) and Avinash Kaushik (who I found he not only disagreed with but on occasion shredded to pieces).  The blogs of Peterson and Kaushik were portals to the writing of many others.  Chipping away each day I slowly climbed the mountain of blogs and gaining perspective with each step.   

Armed with the perspective that the WOWA doesn’t only exist in the second floor of an office building in Northern California on my first major business trip I traveled to the offices of Omniture in Oram, Utah.  Looking up at the wall of Omniture clients I realized that blogs just scratched the surface, the surreal parallel universe of WOWA extended much further. 

My view of the WOWA was almost entirely conceptual until last year's San Francisco Emetrics Summit.  The WOWA I had come to undertand existed as tiny islands amongst oceans of other industries, but Emetrics swelled our land mass and allowed me to attached bodies to floating minds.  Eric Peterson announced his departure from VS, I met Avinash and as a result of listening to a series of presentations my web analytics ego swelled.  Everything made sense.  Everything was easy.  I had figured out the WOWA.

Then a few months later came a reality check in the form of Semphonic’s Xchange Conference.  Throughout the course of two days, intimate conversations pealed back layer after layer of the WOWA.  Up until that point my WOWA only involved analyzing individual web sites, but concepts like behavioral targeting opened up my view to include the entirety of the World Wide Web.   

My journeying around to the corner of the WOWA in one sense has shrunk Semphonic into a tiny island; an entity that is relegated to a line in a Forrester report.  But on the other hand my perspective has made it bigger than ever.  I didn’t understand my island’s uniqueness and progressiveness until I saw how others within the WOWA operated.   

I read fantasy books because they take seemingly normal words and twist and turn them into something extraordinary.  But by the second or third book in a series they always lose my interest as the author runs out of nuances about the world and has to turn to crazy plot twists.  So far the WOWA I have come to know has never failed to reveal something new with each passing page.  And considering the rapid industry and intellectual growth within out WOWA I can’t imagine it ever becoming stagnant.  The more I live and learn in this odd parallel world the more I like it.  .