Despite the state of the UK economy, the web analytics industry continues to grow.
It is estimated that £85 million was spent by UK companies on web analytics technology and consultancy during 2009, up 9% year-on-year from £78 million in 2008.

Last year Adobe entered the Analytics market by buying Omniture for 1.8 Billion. While other paid providers have suffered at the hands of the free Google Analytics product, Omniture has dominated the top end of the paid Analytics market.

If you put Google Analytics head to head with Omniture’s SiteCatalyst Analytics solution, Omniture comes out the winner based on the number of available tools, modules and reports available.

However reporting is not analysis. While Google Analytics lacks some of SiteCatalyst’s bells and whistles – it is a free product with free updates. This is allowing companies to spend their license fee savings on investing in analysis and insights.

As Analytics guru, Avinash Kaushik, says in his book Web Analytics 2.0, “you need an analyst, that is, a person with a planet-sized brain. Invest multiple times more in her or him, or
more of them, if you truly want to take action on your data. Otherwise, you are simply data-rich and information poor.”

In 2009, the proportion of spending on internal staff increased from 36% to 42% of total web
analytics spend while spending on technology decreased from 45% to 38%. In these tougher times expect this trend to continue.

The good news is that Google and Adobe have the funds to drive innovation – making it easier to gain actionable tasks from their respective Web Analytics systems.

What are your experiences of Google Analytics, Omniture or other Web Analytics products?

Please share your comments below.