Leadpages vs. Webtrends Analytics

It's great if you want an easy-to-use but extremely robust tool for producing effective online marketing pages since it makes production work enjoyable and inspires fresh creativity. It also offers wonderful split-testing capabilities which can enhance marketing results. But if you're looking for an out-of-the-box collection of standardized, one-size-fits-all marketing resources, you really might want to consider looking elsewhere.

Incentivized

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?

• Leadpages integrates well with many of the main software that businesses use like Infusionsoft, Hubspot, Marketo, Mailchimp, GoToWebinar, and Wordpress. This allows your landing pages to be integrated well into the other processes you have with your business.
• Leadpages makes it easy to build professional looking landing pages without having to hire someone else or have coding skills. Their drag and drop builder makes it easy enough to use and get the hang of. I particularly love the hundreds of templates they provide for you to help give you ideas and get you going faster.
• They also have a Leadbox function that has also been super useful in being able to get other types of forms up on our website. These forms provide some functionality that our website wouldn't have had without them.

Incentivized

• 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.

• While most of the editing functions are easy to figure out, some of the finer details to get spacing, sizing, alignment and layout just right can take some trial and error if you don't have formal training in the tool. A lot of the editing tools are collapsed into sections, and finding just what you're looking for can sometimes be a challenge.
• I don't believe the version we used had a page optimizer or optimization score, which I have seen on other landing page builders. This may be a feature of a more premium version of the tool or may have been turned off by the product manager, but it would be a helpful feature.

Incentivized

• 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.

I would give it a 10, for me, I love all the features. For the average person, the number of choices on a landing page could create a decision paradox. Thankfully the pre-designed landing page templates do not require a lot of decisions for a landing page newbie.

Incentivized

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.

Leadpages support is helpful, they also created many resources to help people create good funnels and learn about small things that matter when doing marketing. The affiliate program is good and could be something which pays for your subscription. People like Leadpages because its been recommended by many influencers participating in affiliate program and also because it just works without problems and does the job. But right now alternatives should be taken in consideration, as there are many other projects that could do it better and cheaper.

Incentivized

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 have used Mailchimp for clients, and use ActiveCampaign personally for my email marketing and have used it for clients, but prefer Leadpages for the frontend of the opt-in process because of its analytics and performance metrics. Leadpages makes it super easy to see what's performing well, without having to dive into Google Analytics or aggregate any other data. Leadpages also integrates really well with WordPress, my primary platform, with opt-in forms (wayyyy better than Mailchimp).

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Leadpages, as long as you have it set up properly, will have a quick ROI within days of your first campaign.
• For those that are not familiar, it is probably best to hire someone to take over this part and still your ROI will be very quick, including the cost of this professional.
• Overall, Leadpages has a very fast ROI if used and implemented in a timely manner, and used to constantly evolve what you are doing with new fresh content.

Incentivized

• 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.