Lead Forensics vs. Webtrends Analytics

In my opinion, Lead Forensics is good for companies promoting a high-value ticket product on their website. If they are looking to maximize the results of their platform, LF is a good fit for their digital marketing strategy. If they are pushing a low-to-medium-ticket product, there is a higher risk that the platform will not be as relevant, because all the parts related to re-marketing and similar stuff can be done directly with Google tools, which are available to everyone.

Scenarios 1. If you want to use web server log files as input to your web analytics, then Webtrends will provides a good product, with great ease of implementation. Don't even think about being cheap on hardware, and make sure Webtrends runs on real servers, not in a VM environment. 2. If you want to use Data Tagging, similar to Google Analytics or Site Catalyst, Webtrends has a powerful product, just be prepared to pay. 3. If you are new to Web Analytics, but it is the strategic direction, start with Webtrends on Premises. Questions to Ask 1. What are you trying to accomplish? 2. Can you place a dollar value on the benefit that you expect/need from Webtrends? 3.Can you live with Webtrends running SaaS?

• Lead Forensics helps us see which companies are visiting our site, even if they don’t fill out a form. This gives us a chance to reach out to businesses that are already showing interest but might not have contacted us yet.
• Instead of cold-calling random prospects, we can see which pages a company has viewed and how often they return. This helps us tailor our conversations based on what they’re actually interested in.
• The Lead Forensics support team has been great whenever we’ve had questions. They’re quick to respond and always ready to help, whether it’s troubleshooting an issue or offering advice on how to get the most out of the platform.

• Control privacy, data sharing and competitive industrial knowledge using Webtrends on premises
• Great control over custom reports, custom dimensions and metrics
• Flexible tool which allows multiple methods of data capture. To my knowledge it was the first tool with a Tag Builder / Tag Management function built in via a supporting website.

• Better updates on companies' current names. Often if a company was a different company years ago it still says the old company name which is confusing.
• Better identifying the correct location. Sometimes it seems like that the location coming up is the wrong location.
• Giving a better understanding of how they got to the website would help too. Often is says "direct" but I would like to know if it was via a link from an email or what

• The big downside, the elephant in the room, is that it does not (as of right now) have on-demand segmenting, drilldowns, etc. You have to think of what you want in advance and create those reports then analyze some data. This is huge. You can, of course, re-analyze old data after creating new reports but you still have to wait. (This deficiency may become obsolete with the release of Webtrends Explore later this month (May 2014).)
• It has fewer mature integrations with other products and databases than competitors do, although I'm told it works with SharePoint better than anything else does.
• Its attribution modeling capability is behind Google Analytics'. In my humble opinion, this could be changed quickly if Webtrends would make some tweaks to its standard visitor history files (i.e. preserve the order in which past visits were sourced beyond the single most recent one, rather than storing all those past sources as a randomized list).
• It doesn't incorporate statistical tests, confidence intervals, or statistical associations. However, this same criticism can be applied to its competitors (other than A/B Testing products). It's a tabulation program, as they all are. In this respect, web analytics tools as a group are relatively primitive. Sorry to bring this up as a criticism of Webtrends but it's my pet peeve about the whole industry and I just have to say it. (p.s. take advantage of the heavy-duty Webtrends Scheduled Export functionality to get really granular data that you can feed to a stats program to get significances.)
• Although the documentation, help screens, phone support and the knowledge base have improved tremendously in recent years, there is still a pretty steep learning curve because it is different from the tools that entry-level users may have already been exposed to. This can be a shock and many users are alienated at first because they just don't get some of the fundamentals at first. I'd like to see much better help screens that are thoroughly interlinked with the KB and documentation. Having superb online support would make a world of difference with the adoption of this basically powerful tool.

I would be willing to try Webtrends again AFTER some research from other users. I would need to see that users mention better and faster customer support on questions and issues that arise while using the software. The software is capable of vast and incredible things, but if it isnt properly set up and supported during use, it is just a big hassel and waste of everyones time and money.

It is just a brilliant piece of software, and I discover more and more every time I meet with my account manager. The company missed a trick when it was first set up, as I believe they only used it to see who was looking at the site, but it can do so much more, and we would not be without it now. We have used it in relation to a cold-call campaign with Paragon to drive sales, but ultimately drilled down into who was coming to the site and whether they were our ideal customer.

If I could give it a 0, I would. Not having an intuitive user interface made it impossible to convince non-analytic business users to use the tool on their own. Even as a seasoned analyst, frequent calls were needed to get what should be simple tasks done. Account managers don't understand the tool either, and have to refer you to technical support

It is much better than average. Down time usually occurs because of a need to refresh the server on our end.

The v9 admin interface and v10 reporting interface work as well as expected, but have a tendency to be pokey, especially for bulky reports and whenever you're connected to wifi. I much prefer using the REST API for all reporting for this reason, which simply dumps out the data and doesn't bother with the user interface.

Top support from the Lead Forensics team. They take time to understand your business specifications, they make sure your needs are fulfilled, they show the new assets of the platform. The rythm for the business review is very flexible. You can access a live chat at any time. A lot of tutorials help you to deepen your skills in using the platform for your busines.

I once went on to Twitter to ask for help from my network of analytics people, and Webtrends themselves responded. They have been an excellent partner in making sure that their product is being used to the best of it's ability and I greatly appreciate that. Both Omniture and Google Analytics, do not have that level of support over social media

The in-person training was comprehensive enough to get you started, but I strongly recommend having a more experienced person when beginning with the tool.

Webtrends provides several free webinars over the course of the year, many of which I would expect to pay for. The people providing the webinars seem to have a good feel for real-world application of the product.

Careful planning and patience. Use a non-public test site to fine tune tags and reporting. Despite best laid plans, there will be surprises when you collect the data, run the analysis and begin generating reports using the tool. Perform a tag audit to ensure tags fire as desired.

I’ve used SalesIntel primarily for contact data, but I haven’t explored its web tracking features. What sets Lead Forensics apart is how quickly it delivers actionable insights from site visits. It helps me identify engaged accounts and prioritize follow-up without extra effort. For our needs, Lead Forensics offered a more immediate impact on sales productivity and customer engagement.

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Webtrends has its work cut out for itself considering you have the behemoth Google Analytics and Google Analytics Premium having a strong offering and brand recognition for the price of free. After reviewing the paid service I'd suggest you start off with GA as a cheaper alternative that is just as robust, if not much more flexible in regards to the reporting and goal tracking needs for our company.

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• We are still in the very early stages of using Lead Forensics for our agency, but I can see that it could already be very useful to us as we haven't had insights like this previously.
• Our very first use case with Lead Forensics was with a brand-new client and I would say it went exceptionally well. We were running a large media campaign for them, and it was very insightful to see how those specific businesses were getting to the site and what page they were going to. Like mentioned previously, this helped their very small sales team to go after businesses they know were interested in them.

• Webtrends has had a positive impact on site visitation because it allowed us to understand the sources by domain for site traffic and find out ways to increase visits from those domains.
• Webtrends has also allowed us to understand areas of optimization on the site, which has had a positive impact on the overall user journey on the site, likely leading to longer site duration and engagement.