Webtrends - A Flexible and Nimble Open Platform for Enterprise Data Analytics
Overall Satisfaction
Pros
- Webtrends provides a platform that can accept any number of custom variables and can be adapted to fulfill a variety of business needs. Segmentation, purchase funnel, scenarios, dropoff and bounce rate are effective.
- Webtrends 10 integrates analytics data with 3rd party data including app stores, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This provides a compelling case for programs that require insight into these data.
Cons
- Webtrends is not great at providing statistical data for analysis. You need to enable Log File Delivery or create an analysis export to perform this. This could theoretically be done with Streams.
- Webtrends has difficulty identifying multi-visit users due to the inherent fragility of cookie-based tracking.
- Webtrends Analytics does not provide Pathing capabilities for segments, only for the aggregate. However, this can be worked around with Scenario functionality selectively fired by a tag management system.
- Segmentation by high-cardinality parameters tends to cause issues with table limits. Even after scrubbing and scrutinizing data, we commonly see up of 10K rows per dimension. Due to this, we use Webtrends Analytics to roll up data into larger segments and export all of our log data into our database for heavy duty number crunching.
- Webtrends is able to identify the source of each visit and create reporting on user behavior. We're able to attribute activity from a variety of sources to determine effectiveness. The REST API is invaluable for pulling large volumes of trended data to identify where notable events occur.
- Streams provides ROI by providing immediate visibility into site activity, for any level of granularity that you're collecting in the Analytics product, without impacting the user experience. We're using this to create a proactive Care response team as well as resolve product issues remotely within seconds of it occurring on the site, so we can save customers from abandoning while they're still on the site.
Product Usage
20 - Product Owners, Marketing Managers and Analysts primarily.
2 - Administrator
Reporting Manager (creates self-serve dashboards in Excel via REST API)
Reporting Manager (creates self-serve dashboards in Excel via REST API)
- Webtrends is used to identify segments of our traffic and report on each segment. so we are able to determine what is drawing interest within each segment of our visit population.
- Webtrends Streams allows us to identify issues on the site, as well as identify individual users who are encountering issues, so we can proactively reach out to them.
Evaluation and Selection
In a previous position, we switched to On-Demand from On-Premise.
We evaluated Google Analytics, but we picked Webtrends as it offered better value for the price.
Implementation
- Vendor implemented
- Implemented in-house
Training
- Online training
- In-person training
- Self-taught
It can be done, especially by someone with experience with analytics. For a beginner, the tool is complex enough that it's (significantly) more time effective to get outside training.
Configuration
If you work with custom data integrations, you'll likely be updating the analytics code on a monthly basis. The pace of change increases with data requirements, so a tag management platform to accommodate this is highly recommended.
Support
Usability
Reliability
Integration
- Responsys.
- Hootsuite.
- Facebook.
- Twitter.
- DoubleClick.
- App stores.
- Proprietary data stores.
- Enterprise Data Warehouse.
With a published Data Dictionary, it is quite easy to identify what data can be integrated with other services.
Webtrends is able to export large data sets in an easily consumable CSV or JSON format.
Vendor Relationship
We negotiate package deals primarily. It's easier to gain leverage to secure discounts when shopping for multiple products from the same vendor.
Comments
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