Nov24
Google Analytics vs WebTrends
- posted by: George
- 13 comments
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First off, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more said about the comparisons between Google Analytics and WebTrends. When Google acquired Urchin back in 2005 and suggested they would be giving the tool away for free, I thought WebTrends would last no more then another 2 years. But I’ve been totally wrong. They’ve still been able to ask for thousands of dollars for the privilege of using their software. I thought it was about time that we really compare these two popular tools and the data they report.
Feature |
Google Analytics |
WebTrends |
|
Overview Dashboard |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Customizable Graphs |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Report Referring URLs |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Report Search Bot Traffic |
No |
Yes |
|
Real-time Analytics |
No |
Yes |
|
Visitors, Uniques, New & Returning |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Visitor Domain / Organization |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Geographic Drilldown |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Date Comparisions |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Entry Pages / Exit Pages |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Hits |
No |
Yes |
|
Browser, Platform and Technical Metrics |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Activity by Time of Day |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Key Metrics Towards Goal |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Tracking Referral Keywords |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Campaign Tracking |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Tracking Onsite Advertising |
Partially |
Yes |
|
Export Data |
Yes |
Yes |
|
API |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Animated Graphs |
Yes |
No |
|
User Path Drilldown |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Cost |
FREE |
$1,500 + per year |
Ok, so Google loses on the matrix of features but let’s go into this a bit deeper.
Bot Traffic: Advantage WebTrends. If you absolutely need to know what bots are hitting your site then go with WebTrends because Google just can’t report that data.
Real-Time Analytics: Big Advantage to WebTrends. Real-time reporting requires investing an a substantial amount of server power. Sure Google has that power but they haven’t put it behind Analytics yet. My guess is you’ll see this in the future but right now the win goes to WebTrends. In my opinion, it’s the sales team that needs to know about real-time visitor activity and there are plenty of tools out there that can do a better job then WebTrends at reporting real-time activity.
Hits: For real? Who still uses this as a metrics and why? Slight Advantage to WebTrends.
Tracking Advertising: This can be accomplished in Google but it’s a bit of a hack to get it working. WebTrends is more eligant in it’s approach towards tracking advertising.
Animated Graphs: Advantage Google. I’m a data visualization junkie and I can easily lose hours working in the visualization tool; however for the majority of marketers this is overkill.
So, how does that data compare?
Total New & Returning Visitors
This data is comparing a 1 year time frame by monthly totals.
Referral Traffic Counts
Six months of data from Jan 1st, 2009 and June 30th, 2009
|
|
Google Analytics |
WebTrends |
Difference |
|
Direct Traffic |
151,460 |
139,112 |
9% |
|
Referred by Google |
69,567 |
72,556 |
5% |
|
Referred by Yahoo |
16,162 |
23,730 |
32% |
|
Referred by MSN |
2,853 |
2,271 |
21% |
Page Views
Six months of data from Jan 1st, 2009 and June 30th, 2009
|
|
Google Analytics |
WebTrends |
Difference |
|
Homepage |
127,337 |
143,409 |
12% |
|
Page 1 |
117,714 |
129,858 |
10% |
|
Page 2 |
82,287 |
56,847 |
31% |
|
Page 3 |
35,420 |
40,352 |
13% |
|
Page 4 |
36,702 |
33,160 |
10% |
|
Page 5 |
28,771 |
23,050 |
20% |
Verdict
To each their own. I personally can’t justify WebTrends to our clients. Google’s feature set is 95% of what is available in WebTrends and the few features that stand out don’t justify the hefty price tag. I’d love to chat with someone who feels WebTrends is superior to Google, I just haven’t found that person yet.
