Mouseflow vs. Webtrends Analytics

Mouseflow is a great when you're working in a busy product development or conversion optimisation environment, and want to understand exactly how customers are interacting with your site or app so you can respond. It's a capable tool that offers some great insight at a fraction of the cost of competitors like SessionCam or ClickTale. It has occasional problems in captures that its competitors suffer from less often, but if you're looking for a general understanding of usage then this is a great tool. It doesn't have built-in integrations with all A/B testing tools, but it does have a built-in Google Tag Manager tag so its very easy to set up without assistance. If you've got the budget to select reliability over cost, then you may choose to opt for a more mature, enterprise offering. But if your budget is limited, or you're just looking to prove the value of session recording as a concept, then Mouseflow will more than do the job.

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?

• Mouseflow does a great job creating wonderful Heat Maps. These allow you to really see how people are interacting with a page. Great data if you want to create better flow in your pages.
• The User Session Recordings are also especially useful and when used in conjunction with the heat maps you can really get a feel and a look at how a page is working. This lets you see where people get stuck, elements that might be distracting, etc.
• In the area of the heat maps Mouseflow can handle A/B testing which I think is priceless.
• Another advantage to Mouseflow is that unlike many of these types of tools Mouseflow integrates with most Web platforms, well beyond WordPress.

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.

• Free version could have more features.
• Should be optimized for a better view on mobile devices.
• Although it provides a complete list of data, it is not able to capture certain sessions.

• 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.

Mouseflow is pretty easy to use. You need to be a core technical person to implement it on your site. Mouseflow provided us a tracking code that need to be installed on the website, and if do not have the knowledge of how to work on the backend of the website, you will not be able to install it. Here you will need the help of a technical person who has a good knowledge of your website platform to install the code on the website. There are also videos available giving insight on how to use the Mouseflow platform. I personally haven't faced any problem while using Mouseflow. Just login to this tool and a dashboard will open in front of you.

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.

This is an area where Mouseflow is quite strong. Not only is the support good but they also have some very good training on the use of the product. There is a nicely laid out section of videos that not only cover the use of the tools functions but also how to use the data that Mouseflow produces. They are doing well in the support area.

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.

Mouseflow is a supplement to Google Analytics and improves on some Analytics functions. Mouseflow adds qualitative data to the quantitative data that Analytics provides to help marketers better understand their website visitors

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

• MouseFlow makes a positive impact on our future marketing decisions. We recently had a change in formula for a product and added a variety of ways for people to read about the changes via our website. Mouseflow allowed us to see which method was effective in communicating our message. We were able to replicate the style on other digital platforms.
• Mouseflow allows us to save time we would normally spend in developing a website. For example, before building a new website I will spend a couple of weeks analyzing user data via mouseflow. I can clearly see what features are not currently working and where we are loosing people in the current process. This cuts down website revisions by about 10%

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.