If someone tells you “Free puppies can be messy”, I will tell you “Expensive puppies can be messy as well, it depends of you”. I’m talking about puppies in my IT blog because a few weeks ago I read a document presented by John Lovett from Omniture (The cost of Free). In that document he makes an analogy between free analytics tools and free puppies. He says “When you first encounter them, they are cute, inviting and the idea of having them sounds wonderful. When that irresistible urge strikes you, first consider how much work anything free may require. In the case of the puppy, that means food, walks, shelter, vet bills, etc”. Yes, I agree, but puppies that you pay for require that as well. Dogs are there to be loved (free or expensive ones), as tools are there to be used. With free analytics tools you don’t pay for the product you pay for experts that help you to increase the return of investment. With expensive analytics tools you pay for both.John presents in his workbook a case study comparing Omniture SiteCatalyst (commercial tool) and Google Analytics (free tool). However, some of the items mentioned don’t apply anymore. For example, he mentioned that Google Analytics only offers 4 conversion goal funnels and 1 custom variable. Well, as I mentioned in my last post, Google Analytics now offers 4 sets of Goals where you can include in each one 5 goals, having a total of 20 goal funnels per profile, and up to 50000 custom variables (5 in each request), plus other great features such as the intelligence report and alarms. I won’t go in detail with the side by side comparison made by John but you can find that in the Mangold Sengers’ official blog.
What I most disagree with in John’s workbook is the fact that he is trying to make out that Omniture SiteCatalyst is a better product because is not free. First of all, each tool has different features and depending of the business’ requirements some of them may suit your business more than others. Secondly, the success of web analytics doesn’t remain in the tools. I’ve been following the 10/90 rule proposed by Avinash (Web Analytics an hour a day), which states that ‘10 percent of the budget should be spent on tools and 90 percent spent on people (brains) who will be responsible for insights’, this is exactly what free tools like Google Analytics offers you. You know your business, you know what your goals are, you choose the tool that fits your requirements, you get your free or not free tool and then you invest in expert people who will help you to get the best results from the data provided by the tool. Going back to the free puppy, you can pay for the puppy or you can get it for free, but at the end if you don’t want a messy puppy you will invest time or money to educate it, for sure if you do that you will love your puppy.
