Forrester web analytics forecast: WASP data

Forrester just released the "US Web Analytics Forecast, 2008 to 2014". John Lovett, Forrester analyst, predicts the US web analytics market will reach $1B by 2014, with a steady and amazing growth of 17% per year!

Collaborating with Forrester

I had the chance to collaborate with John Lovett & Forrester by providing WASP market data:

Data from the Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP), a service that detects analytics solutions installed on Web sites, projects that market penetration for Web analytics is roughly 58%. WASP also estimates that 78% of total market share is currently held by free vendor solutions. Further, among sites that have installations of fee-based Web analytics tools, 37% also have free tracking products installed, thereby duplicating their measurement efforts.

Data referenced in the Forrester document was based on a sample of 210,820 sites analyzed over a one-month time period between February 2009 and March 2009.

I you are a vendor seeking market share information or competitive data, an agency looking for business development opportunities or a market analyst, contact me to tap into the unique and valuable WASP market data.

My take

I got my hands on an advanced copy of the research and my feeling was simply "wow!" I can already hear people complaining "yeah, right... I knew that", the difference here is the level of detail, the trust and confidence you can put in this 10 pages document. The abstract says "the promise of web analytics needs an adjustment" and goes on to detail the specific points justifying such a statement.

• "The future success of web analytics is dependent upon experts who translate raw data into insight". If only a fraction of professional services are delivered by vendors, the market for experienced consultants will continue to be in high demand.
  
• "Data becomes the addictive drug because it can demonstrate success, predict outcomes, and establish business cases for new endeavors.". Web analytics is not a matter of ROI, it's a matter of accountability.
• "The importance of integration is accentuated": during initial client meetings there is always a point of integrating everything... they quickly hit a roadblock because their web analytics maturity is simply not there.
  
• "Optimization technology will be the next frontier": I would rather say "automation & optimization". We should always aim to automate tasks and transfer our knowledge into intelligent systems that will free us to work on the next challenges.

Being an independent consultant, I particularly like the statement that "professional services will be delivered from non-vendors providers".

Web analytics brain available! (for a fee)

Over the past couple of years I have been very involved in the web analytics community, tutoring the UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics, providing feedback on the Yahoo! Web Analytics forum, writing on my blog, answering a huge amount of emails, even providing free tools to make your web analytics life easier.

Brain juice

I've often said it: consulting is selling brain juice, and the amount of juice you can extract is scarce and valuable.

As much as I like to help out and collaborate whenever possible, my workload is constantly at a high level and my expertise is often being requested to give feedback on products or the market in general. Speaking at eMetrics and other conferences, my nomination to the WAA Board of Directors and the Web Analytics Association Leadership & Technical Excellence Recognition (WAALTER) award I recently received have significantly increased the number of requests I get. Being an independent, free spirited though leader, it just makes sense to realize what I’m selling is my knowledge, experience and expertise. I just can’t afford to spend a lot of time providing free advices and feedback...

Offer for agencies & vendors

Long story short, I have something to do in order to prioritize my work and maintain a level of professionalism and ethics with the people I'm working with:

• Retainer: We will define the scope and objectives of our collaboration and I will provide monthly feedback about your product, the market, social media & news, etc. A six month agreement and a fixed monthly fee will also garantee I won't play the same role with any of your competitors.
• Ad hoc: I will gladly work with you, provide feedback and information about your product or the market on an hourly basis. In this model, I can still work with any other partner, including competing ones.
• Package: With a minimal monthly agreement the hourly rates can be reduced.

Don't hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss this offer privately.

WASP v1.25 released

WASP v1.25 is now approved at addons.mozilla.org and had been available from WebAnalyticsSolutionProfiler.com for a couple of days.

Another round of bug fixes and minor enhancements toward WASP v1.50, coming up in June.

What's new

• WASP for Analyst:
  
  • Now makes the distinction between Google Analytics (legacy Urchin code) and Google Analytics Urchin Software
• WASP Pro:
  
  • Bug: First install now sets default database correctly.
  • The crawler now logs special WebTrends meta-tags (WT.*)
  • Fixed condition where detection rule optimization was failing (fixed performance issue)
  • Crawl report now handles on-click to filter rows correctly
  • Crawl report now open in current window instead of popup
    
• WASP for Market Research:
  
  • Fixed escaping of values when custom tags are found
    
• New/updated tools:
  
  • Mediaplex
  • Facebook Connect 
  • Bango Analytics
  • HubSpot
  • Chartbeat
  • AT Internet Xiti
    
• Enhanced:
  
  • Now supports Firefox v3.5.*

Please take 2 minutes to submit a review at addons.mozilla.org and visit the UserVoice page to suggest improvements and cast your vote.

Web Analytics Association Leadership & Technical Excellence Recognition (WAALTER)

I was humbled and honored to receive this prestigious prize at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. The WAALTER award "recognizes companies and individuals who are leaders and innovators in the field of web analytics. The objective is to encourage creative and innovative projects or initiatives that embody the web analytics industry’s best practices."

Get WASP v1.25 update now!

Follow-up on WAALTER award

Last week I did a short post about the Web Analytics Association Leadership & Technical Excellence Recognition award I got at eMetrics. I think I look pretty good on this picture, along with Jim Sterne :)

The WAA just sent a newsletter to its members saying:

In the individual category, the WAA awarded first place to Stéphane Hamel of Immeria Consulting Services. In 2008, Hamel demonstrated leadership through his development of the Web Analytics Solution Profiler, WASP. With ongoing commitment to web analytics, Hamel directly influences the direction and success of his company, and inspires change throughout the industry.

You can view the full article on the Web Analytics Association website and download my case study.

Web Analytics Maturity Model

I have continued my work on a Web Analytics Maturity Model focused on the business and change management aspects rather than being around the technological usage level of web analytics tools, which is quite different from Gartner's model or the recently proposed WebTrend DM3 approach.

My work is heavily inspired from Thomas Davenport Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, a must read for all web analyst and their boss. It also leverage business analysis concepts, a topic I've been tutoring at UBC for some time and as a member of the International Institute of Business Analysis. Last week, at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, I presented the actual state of this project. You can find the presentation below or on Slideshare.

Web Analytics Maturity Model

View more presentations from Stephane Hamel.

This model is the result of over 20 years of experience working for very diversified companies, including the last 15 playing different roles in several web projects, and several years in web analytics. The model as also been "tested & calibrated" with various companies in Canada and abroad.

Speaking & Consulting

I'm open for speaking opportunities at marketing, business analysis or web analytics conferences. I can do an independant, unbiased, complete evaluation of your web anlaytics maturity and provide clear recommendations on what needs to be done in order to strenghten your current web analytics practices and help you move to the next level.

"We used Stéphane's Web Analytics Maturity Model as support for developing a (Web) Analytics roadmap and strategy. It is a long road to implement culture change in a large organization - especially when you are on IT side. It already triggered interest; that is a good start!"
Michael Notte
Senior Analyst - Web Team
Sales & Marketing Business Applications
Toyota Motor Europe

Please Note

The presentation is not available for download and I would kindly invite you to contact me before re-purposing or using it. The Web Analytics Maturity Model is an important element of my consulting practice and a couple of slides can't give justice to all the hard work, experience and thinking behind it.

WASP receives WAALTER Award at eMetrics

Today, at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit being held in San Jose, I received the first ever WAALTER Award for my work on the Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP). The Web Analytics Association Leadership and Technical Excellent Recognition (WAALTER) award "recognize companies and individuals who are leaders and innovators in the field of web analytics. The objective is to encourage creative and innovative projects or initiatives that embody the web analytics industry’s best practices."

This prestigious price means a lot to me; it's not only a peer recognition, but also a strong encouragement to continue my work on WASP. Combined with my election on the WAA Board of Directors, it highlights my involvement and strong commitment to the Web Analytics Association's role as an industry voice.

I also wants to congratulates Predicta, who won the WAALTER award in the corporate category, and thank the judges who took the time to evalute the submitted entries and saw the value of WASP.