Clicktracks Vs Webtrends, Articles or Opinions Options

[Rob]

Hi all,

I'm trying to rate these two against each other (for corporate use). From looking around it appears WebTrends is the more favoured by corporate companies.

Our setup is one main site, with a few minor sites on other servers.

I'm not sure if with either we're going to need dedicated hosting?

Regardless of that, does anyone know any articles on the above, or, if anyone has any good first hand experience, applicable to my scenario, i'd really appreciate the input.

Many thanks in advance,

Rob

[Matt B]

Hi Rob,

I currently work with both products, and I've worked with many companies to help them with their current solutions or evaluate new products.

Yes, the majority of corporate companies use WebTrends. From my perspective, WebTrends has done the best marketing job of positioning themselves as the stats solution provider. Many large companies don't even realize there are other providers, WebTrends just seems to be the default.
The problem with this, is that many companies purchase the software, and then have to pay outside consultants, like me, to come in, set it up and train their people how to use it. Many times, the IT department is stuck with the responsibility of setting it up and administrating it and getting reports to the marketing department. However, the two departments rarely meet about what to track and how to do it. Again - that's just from my experience.

What I have done is demonstrate multiple stats solutions to clients in our office, as we use a number of stats products, and let clients see the difference.

My two cent evaluation:
Webtrends is very robust and can be an incredible tool, but you have to be a genius to set it up and then set up the automated reports. You can automate multiple reports to have real-time data for funnel analysis, technical data, and shopping cart stats. However, from talking with corporate users, it is a usability nightmare.

ClickTracks is an excellent marketing oriented stats solution. For evaluating marketing and usability trends, it is the best available. However, if you want technical stats, this won't do it for you.

NetTracker is one of my favorites for getting technical and drill-down data from a website. It is a breeze to set up and the interface is naturally intuitive. New reports can be run on the fly, as opposed to WT, which requires you to reload the profile if you add a new report.

[cline]

I've used both. I'll take ClickTracks any day, but that's because ClickTracks is designed to help people analyze marketing and usability questions, which are the issues I focus on. Webtrends is a good product (albeit IMHO overpriced) and it delivers some excellent info.

[Rob]

Many thanks for your comprehensive reply there Matt.

Its funny how a website can purvey exactly how a product is.

The Webtrends site is very in-depth and you have to search around painfully for what you want.
ClickTracks is very clear and straight forward, and you can find what you want with ease!

From your reply, and cline (thank you also for your reply!), it looks like ClickTracks could be the one i'm after.

Just one further question - when you say "However, if you want technical stats, this won't do it for you." - can you elaborate on what you mean by technical stats please?

My aim is to find where traffic is coming from, numbers using our website, and analyze their usage of our site (and therefore how we can improve it). Reporting will also be useful for the VP's.

Many sincere thanks again,

Rob

[Matt B]

That should give you what you want.

Clicktracks does not offer bandwidth /peak usage, error reporting, spider visits, etc. You are going to get purely marketing data from the reports, perfect for VP-level info and decisions.

[burgeltz]

Our experience with WebTrends has been similar to Matt's. When you get WebTrends Reporting Service (the online version), all the power features you want are turned off by default, and you need a PhD in WebTrendsology to figure out how to turn them on.

If you go the WebTrends route, you may need to pay their professional services staff or other consultant to get it to work.

I really love ClickTrack's data presentation. Those little tabs showing who clicked where are terrific for usability evaluations.

This post has been edited by burgeltz: Apr 2 2004, 06:59 PM

[Rob]

Fantastic.

Many thanks again Matt, and thanks also Burgeltz for the input!

Looks like ClickTracks it is (or at least the first i'll eval (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )

Rob

[qwerty]

NetTracker is one of my favorites for getting technical and drill-down data from a website. It is a breeze to set up and the interface is naturally intuitive. New reports can be run on the fly, as opposed to WT, which requires you to reload the profile if you add a new report.

As Matt pointed out, NetTracker is a great tool for drilling down into your data. You can go from an overview of all of your site data right down to a single user session.

I've demoed it a number of times, and as soon as I get rich I'm getting a copy for good.

This post has been edited by qwerty: Apr 2 2004, 01:24 PM

[Jill]

For anyone who's interested in learning more about this subject, our own Matt B. will be discussing this stuff in more detail at our [url=http://www.highrankings.com/seminar]High Rankings® Seminar[/url] in Chicago on April 23rd.

---now back to our regularly scheduled thread---

[GeordieSEO]

I would also consider Urchin - it is very easy and intuitive to use.

[anthonyparsons.c...]

I absolutely love clicktracks. As cline said, it makes marketing and usability analysis much simpler, especially for fault and strength identification. I often wonder how I did things without it.

[Rob]

Thanks again everyone for the input.

I've heard so many good things about Clicktracks (Amongst others) - i'm wondering why Webtrends is the market leader, and is clearly the one used most in a corporate environment. To simply pass it off as being 'more affordable' by companies i'd say would be somewhat nieve ... apart from the difficult setup, there must be some obvious benefit to it over ClickTracks?

Thanks again,

Rob

[Matt B]

It seems WebTrends has the inside track as they are the most familiar in this space. They've been in this market for years, and have effectively marketed themselves as the corporate solution. (sort of the "we were there first" mentality)

WebTrends does have the ability to satisfy both marketing and IT needs, however, the set-up and reporting is the killer.

The advantage of ClickTracks, is that it is a purely marketing analytics tool. It is not meant to report bandwith, browser stats, user OS and all of the "fluff" that made up traditional reports. Where WebTrends tries to report it all, ClickTracks isolates and specializes.

It's not so much that one is better than another - it is mainly dependant on your specific needs and the information you want from your website. For example, ClickTracks is not necessarily the analytics choice for a network admin - the info is basically useless for someone in that position. Each stats program comes from a slightly different philosophy of analytics, which then provides a unique insight for that program.

[Rob]

Many thanks Matt - that puts things in a good perspective for me (as I cover both of those roles to some degree). Looks like Clicktracks is definitely going to be the tool of choice ... we don't need the bandwidth, OS etc ... i'm thinking that would only be of use if we hosted internally, since our sites are hosted externally, all the techy stuff won't be required.

Thanks again sincerely,

Rob

[melvin]

help, any reccomendations for a mac??