Tracking Web 2.0

Etracker, one of Europe’s largest webanalytics solutions, will present new innovations at the OMD this September. Besides many innovations the tracking solution provider will focus on Web 2.0 tracking. A big part of it will be a new RSS and web services tracking feature.

One of the other new features will be the integration of Google adwords with the etracker tracking system. Campaigns, Conversions, Costs and revenues can be automatically imported in the web based software.

Another advanced service will be the integration of Email management services. Tracking links won’t be necessary, which will save the customers a lot of time.

The tool will also integrate an automated click fraud system. This is especially necessary since affiliate hopping and clickfraud became a huge business.

It is exciting to see how the big webanalytics vendors move in the same business direction. Click fraud, RSS tracking and integrated Emailtracking seem to be the highlights of this year. 

Websidestory on it’s way to launch integrated Podcast / RSS tracking

Websidestory announced the improvement of their product. Download tracking of RSS feeds and podcasts will be integrated in their new Version 3.6. The RSS tracking will be free for current Websidestory customers but will require further implementation. 

A great long awaited feature that finally gets done. I hope that Websidestory and other big webanalytics vendors approach RSS a little bit out of the box. Features as Feedburner offers should be included.

Tracking a feed and publishing the numbers of Feed subscribers can have a huge marketing impact for a website and can have a massive impact on the recognition of a webanalytics vendor. Feedburner’s and other RSS tracking solutions are a prove of the success.

Two word phrases most popular search

 OneStat reported that most people use 2 word phrases in search engines. Of all the search phrases world wide, 28.91 percent of the people use 2 word phrases, 27.85 percent use 3 word phrases and 17.11 percent use 4 word phrases. Less and less people use now 1 keywordsince the last measurement in July 2005. 

The 7 most used word phrases in search engines on the web are:

July 2006				July 2005
1.	2 word phrases	28.91%		1.	2 word phrases	29.60%
2.	3 word phrase	27.85%		2.	3 word phrase	27.55%
3.	4 word phrases	17.11%		3.	4 word phrases	16.21%
4.	1 word phrases	11.43%		4.	1 word phrases	13.42%
5.	5 word phrases	8.25%		5.	5 word phrases	7.58%
6.	6 word phrases	3.68%		6.	6 word phrases	3.21%
7.	7 word phrases	1.59%		7.	7 word phrases	1.34%

Readership.com partners with Comscore

Readership.com, the new print measurement service scheduled to begin continuous measurement of issue-specific publication audiences this fall, today announced a partnership with comScore Media Metrix. Through this partnership, readership.com clients who subscribe to this service will have access to a single source of information on print readers, online readers, and readers who access a publication via both print and online versions.

As a result, clients will have a new level of understanding about the interaction of offline and online audiences. Online audience data will be based on actual behavior recorded by comScore Media Metrix’s proprietary technology – an especially important feature given the fragmentation of the online media environment.

“As publications increasingly strive to reach consumers across multiple platforms, we see this as a critical expansion of our service,” said Rebecca McPheters, President of McPheters & Company, which is launching readership.com. According to Lynn Bolger, Executive Vice President of comScore Media Metrix, “This partnership represents substantial progress for the magazine industry. Publishers will finally have a tool with which to analyze consumer media behavior, enabling them to maximize value for both online and offline audience components.”

qSearch Competitive Search Marketing Reports now available

The comScore Media Metrix qSearch service measures search-specific traffic on the internet. qSearch data is gathered by monitoring the web activities of about 1.5 million English-speakers worldwide. Today Comscore announced the launch of the Competitive Search Marketing Reports.

The service enables agencies, publishers and online marketers to compare the effectiveness of their online search campaigns to campaigns run by competitors.

Marketers seeking to target specific consumer segments can safely assume that the segment’s search behavior will reveal a list of topically-relevant sites for advertising purposes, but oftentimes less obvious sites can provide marketers with the greatest financial return. To aid marketers in this effort, comScore provides insight into Web-wide behavior for virtually any consumer segment, including those who exhibit specific search behavior.

This is a great tool to comapre your numbers against your competitors and it gives you a better idea about the search volume of your industry. Still many websites run keyword campaigns with under 1000 keywords. Diversity of keywords is usually a great approach to increase business and lower the average PPC costs.

WebTrends rules the webanalytics market

WebTrends Inc today announced that in Q2 2006 the company achieved its highest quarterly results ever for WebTrends web analytics solutions with bookings growth of 30 percent year over year. Customers selecting WebTrends Analytics(TM) 8 On Demand, the hosted version of the company’s flagship solution, fueled most of the growth with year-over-year bookings increasing 78 percent. In addition, tremendous growth in international markets continues to extend WebTrends worldwide market share with WebTrends EMEA growing 108 percent year over year.

Congrats to Webtrends. Great to see that all the big 5 vendors grow tremendously.

Podosphere vs. Radio

After Youtube rocked the TV industry, podcasts get more and more in the focus of market researchers and analysts. As written in my last podcast tracking post it is difficult to track a podcast accurate.

Recently Nielsen analytics announced that the most popular podcasts are downloaded 2 million times a month: news shows, tech shows, self-help and advice programs are in highest demand. With a podcast doing 2 million deliveries a month, Gerbrandt, vice president and general manager of the unit of VNU says a show could “conceivably generate $100,000 a month in advertiser/sponsorship revenue.” The number could be higher if there’s more than one sponsor in a show.

With the growing success of Apple’s Ipod and Microsoft’s plans with Zune the market will be more and more interesting.

If you are more intrested in the podosphere I highly recommend Frank Barnako’s Million-dollar podcasting post.

Google analytics chooses authorized consultant company

Google(TM) Analytics, formerly Urchin, recently selected Friedrich Software Resources (FSR), a global software company based in Houston, as a Client Services and Support Consultant for the North American market, announced Jason Senn, Google Analytics partner manager.

FSR’s alliance with Google greatly expands the training, advanced support and expert Web analytics consulting services currently available to executives, marketing managers, and Webmasters, according to Senn.

“To gain the highest quality end-user experience, we are tapping first-rate companies, such as Friedrich Software Resources, to help deliver our services, training and analytics. We are lucky to have consultants like FSR representing us,” he said.

Click fraud only 2-5%?

Today the Google Adwords Team announced the launch of a new AdWords feature enabling advertisers to have a much more detailed picture of invalid click activity in their account.

These clicks are filtered in real-time by their detection system. The metrics of “invalid clicks” and “invalid clicks rate” will show virtually all the invalid clicks affecting an account. The resulting data will of course differ from one advertiser to the next. In addition, a much smaller number of invalid clicks may also be credited to advertisers’ accounts after-the-fact, as the result of a publisher being terminated from the AdSense program for invalid click activity. These will appear as account-level credits.

The click fraud report only works on the campaign level. First users reported click fraud between 2-5%. I ran a report myself and my US accounts have an average invalid click rate of 3.35%.

The invalid clicks report is a smart move by Google. The integration is limited to the reports, which means that Webanalytic Gurus and professional SEO’s won’t be able to explore this more. I am wondering how webanalytics vendors, webmasters and interactive agencies react to the unexpected low invalid click rate of 2-5%.

If you are interested in Google’s anti click fraud efforts, read this Tuzhilin Report.

Omniture once more recognized

Omniture was recently named the leading on-demand Web analytics provider by revenue in a report by IDC, an independent global research and advisory firm for the technology industry. The report highlights Omniture’s revenue growth from 2004 to 2005, stating “Omniture experienced very high growth in 2005… and is now the leading on-demand Web analytics provider by revenue.” It continues to discuss significant achievements in 2005 and 2006, including Omniture’s release of SearchCenter, its keyword bid management solution.

This IDC study shows vendor revenue for the Web analytics market for 2003–2005 as well as projections for 2006–2010. It includes a quantification of the changes in market concentration as well as profiles of several leading vendors.

“Web analytics has continued to flourish as the marketer’s attention toward online promotion and selling has increased. Massive changes are now taking place in the Web analytics space, transforming its direction and future.” — Robert Blumstein, research director, CRM analytics and marketing applications

The report attributes part of Omniture’s success and revenue growth in 2005 to successful launches of new technological developments, such as the company’s keyword management solution, SearchCenter™ and the partner integration with DoubleClick’s DARTmail. IDC also highlights Omniture’s innovative business developments announced in 2006, such as the Omniture Solutions Network™ — the Web analytics industry’s first partner network of certified solutions and services, and Omniture’s My Marketing Network™ — an interface that easily integrates partner solutions and services to provide customers with one source to manage multiple business initiatives.

The entire study can purchased here