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Who uses Google Analytics?

Posted By Brian Clifton On July 14, 2007 @ 3:40 pm In Google Analytics specific, Privacy andAccuracy, Urchin software specific | 14 Comments

Its actually quite easy to detect which web analytics tool aweb site is using – you can simply view the source codeand look for the page tags yourself. Of course pure logfileanalysers cannot be detected in this way, but those arenow much less common due to their inherent limitations.

*This post was updated 26-Mar-2009*

To save you the laborious task of manually checking html source code, there are now varioustools available that can detect the javascript page tags for you. One excellent one I use

myself is WASP [1]

– a Firefox plugin (by Stephane Hamel [2]

, Immeria blog [3]

) that showsyou the web analytics vendor as you browse around the web. It can currently detect 32

different vendors including GA, Urchin, Omniture, Visual Sciences (Web Side Story),Webtrends, Unica, Clicktracks, Indextools plus many others.

Last week, I spent 30 minutes browsing around and found a number of household names nowusing Google Analytics and/or Urchin. These include:

Alliance & Leicester Bank, ABN Amro, Blockbuster, BOC Group, Dixons, FT.com,Halfords, Interflora, GE Money, Lycos, Harrods, Citibank, National Australia BankGroup, MySpace, Nestle, P&G, Roche, Royal Albert Hall, Stena Line, TUI, Unicef

Update 26-Mar-2009: Slide of Google Analytics enterprise users added

of 6Measuring Success with Google Analytics » Who uses Google Analytics? » Print

01/10/2009http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/2007/07/14/who-uses-google-analytics/print/



What is interesting is the number of web sites that use multiple tools and there appears to bea pattern – US companies tend to be the ones with multiple vendor tags on their pages, whileEuropean organisations tend to only have one.

Any ideas on why this would be? Is it simply a sign of a more mature market thatsamples the benefits of multiple web analytics vendors? Please share your thoughtsvia comments.

---Related posts:

Google Analytics – Four years on [4]

1.

14 Comments To "Who uses Google Analytics?"

#1 Comment By S.Hamel On July 15, 2007 @ 1:52 am

Thanks for the nod!I have also noticed a very large number of sites using multiple solutions, more often thennot, it’s GA along with something else. I guess anyone doing PPC on Google will be temptedto implement GA. Could it be that PPC isn’t as dominated by Google in Europe (i.e. there aremore alternatives?)





Another thing that was really a shock to me: some companies claiming to offer WA solutionsare not even implementing their own tool on their site!

S.HamelWA practitioner and blogger[5]

#2 Comment By Joost de Valk On July 15, 2007 @ 6:59 pm

Hi Brian, I can’t help but drop a link to a greasemonkey script I created in here, as it gives asmall popup in the top right showing which analytics programs the site you’re currently

viewing is using: the[6]

.

#3 Comment By Brian Clifton On July 15, 2007 @ 7:04 pm

S.Hamel: Actually, in terms of pay-per-click advertising and search in general, Google iseven more popular in Western Europe than in the US…

For web analytics adoption, it could just be that as GA is free and easy to insall/setup. Peoplethink “what the hell” and just give it a try along side their existing solution. However, my

thoughts are that the US market is probably 1-2 years more mature than in EMEA – with USorganisations trying out multiple tools as their requirements have evolved.

Being free though is a double edged sword. Some people just don’t take free productsseriously, dumbing them down. However I am sure that will change over time. In fact, I usedto be the same – preferring a paid product than freeware. I thought that paying was somekind of comfort blanket. I was a paying customer – I had rights, right?

Google happen to have a different business model based on advertising revenue. Googlesearch is a free resource, as is Gmail, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Calendar, GTalkand even making money from Adsense. So as long as it helps advertisers, I guess you canexpect products from Google to be free.


Joost: Nice script, definately worth a mention.

If anyone has a script or knows of one that can detect WA vendors, please post here. So far,I have:

Joost de Valk’s Statistics Detector –[6]

•

Stephane Hamel’s WASP –[3]

•

Eric T. Peterson’s Vendor Discovery Tool –[7]

•

Rahul Revo GA detector –[8]

•

#5 Comment By Pelle Strid On July 18, 2007 @ 10:23 am

I think one big reason for European sites to use just a free tool like GA is that they still are in “lerning mode”.

Most of my clients still struggle with zero staff for web analytics and therefore don’t want tospend any money on tools.

They have also found that they get the same information for free that they used to pay forwith an other tool.





What they still need is help and education with the more sophisticated reports not jumpingout of the box.

#6 Comment By Dennis R. Mortensen On July 18, 2007 @ 5:20 pm

Hi Brian

>>Any ideas on why this would be?

I think that is a very difficult question to answer or at least difficult to add some certainty to– however; I think it is commonly agreed upon that most European sales strategies (WAVendors included) are less aggressive than those of our American counterparts. That said; we(as in IndexTools) actually recommend some leads to start out with Google Analytics – if it infact fits their needs.

… and this is not just because I think you are a genuinely friendly dude Brian – but because Iconfidently believe that this (being honest and upfront) is for the better in the long run forany company (perhaps this could be the attitude of other EU vendors and consultants aswell). When and if they hit a “reporting” wall with the capabilities of Google Analytics we hopethat they turn to back to us.

OR it is simply because YOU are doing a better Job than your American colleagues

Cheers.. and see you in San Jose I presume?

Dennis R. Mortensen, COO at IndexTools[9]


Pelle: I certainly agree that education is a key requirement needed in Europe.

Dennis: I am not sure I agree with your ‘less agressive in Europe’ comment. Perhaps not somany vendors have offices around here so it is less intense…

I know you love referring to GA as a starter product, but the latest version really isn’t. The

clients I list[10]

are testiment to that – they simply do not have basic requirements when itcomes to understanding their visitor data. One theory I have for GA being successful forthese clients (apart from being free of course!), is that the competition have focused too

much on the development of features – at the expense of [11]

of information. Having thelatest and greatest features can be perceived as being better. But in my opinion that’schanging. The best tool is what gives you the greatest insight into your traffic for the leastamout of resource on your part – staffing, implementation costs, user training etc.

My analogy is the use of MS Office – for example I speculate the vast majority of purchasersof that product never use Access or would even know what a pivot table is. Of course thereare some users that cannot live without such features – a bit like Formula 1 requiring themost technically advanced cars. However for most web analytics users its about gainingactionable data quickly and easily – or getting from A to B in a reliable, efficient car…

Of course as the market matures in terms of its requirements, then tools need to advance

and mature in their features to match this. We’ll just have to see

Yep – I am at San Jose in August. Anyone fancy meeting for a beer (Tequilla for Dennis –yuk!)?

#8 Pingback By Advanced Web Metrics by Brian Clifton » Blog Archive » Why is GoogleAnalytics unique (free)? On July 23, 2007 @ 2:25 pm





[...] analytics industry – a deep dive reporting tool suitable for companies of all sizes (pastarticle – Who uses Google Analytics?) given away free of charge. But is there a catch to thisuniqueness? Well in my view there is none. [...]

#9 Comment By rich alot On September 5, 2007 @ 7:55 pm

Has anyone considered it’s possible that many of these companies are now using multiple

solutions because they’re taking GA for a test drive, comparing it to their paid solution? If GAmeets organizational expectations it can free up around $15k annually, which can be

allocated elsewhere. Taking that a step further, if you agree Europe is a bit behind on theInternet front, it’s easy to see why companies wouldn’t be investing limited resources intoanalytics. A free solution like GA opens the door to analytics for these cash-strapped, Eurocompanies and it does so without the worry of having to break the bank.

#10 Comment By John Hossack On March 17, 2008 @ 4:45 pm

To answer the question – Who is uses Google Analytics (or any other analytics platform)? Idecided to research using Stephan Hamel’s WASP on the Internet Retailer 500 to see what

analytics platforms where the most popular. The full report can be found at[12]

The highlights were that over 37% of the websites were using GA, and almost 2/3 of themwere only using GA. I plan to follow this study up with the Fortune 500 and others.

#11 Comment By Brian Clifton On March 24, 2008 @ 2:01 pm

John: nice work

Just to clarify for other readers, the Internet Retailer 500 are the top 500 US retailing sites as

shown at:[13]

John – do you know how they measure/determine who is on their list?

#12 Comment By Brian Clifton On March 24, 2008 @ 2:11 pm

As a follow up, the following briefing document from e-consultancy ([14]

), quotes EricPeterson as:

“Google Analytics has been deployed in some form by around 60% of the companies in theFortune 1000 “

#13 Comment By Amir Mullick On August 17, 2008 @ 9:09 pm

Thanks for the info, I didnt know it was that easy to find out what analytics someone wasusing lol. Thank you.

#14 Comment By Ryan On August 29, 2008 @ 2:40 am

Thanks for the post, I always wonder if a site is using Analytics and now with the add-on Isee quite a few sites I visit use it.

Article printed from Measuring Success with Google Analytics: http://www.Advanced-Web-Metrics.com/blog





URL to article: http://www.Advanced-Web-Metrics.com/blog/2007/07/14/who-uses-google-analytics/

URLs in this post:

[1] WASP: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4001

[2] Stephane Hamel: http://www.linkedin.com/in/shamel

[3] Immeria blog: http://blog.immeria.net/search/label/WASP

[4] Google Analytics – Four years on: http://www.Advanced-Web-Metrics.com/blog/2009/04/16/google-analytics-fours-years-on/

[5] : http://blog.immeria.net

[6] : http://www.joostdevalk.nl/code/greasemonkey/statistics-detector/

[7] : http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/vendor_discovery_tool.asp

[8] : http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/3013

[9] : http://visualrevenue.com/blog

[10] : http://www.brianjclifton.com/blog/2007/07/14/who-uses-google-analytics/

[11] : http://www.brianjclifton.com/blog/2007/04/24/emetrics-dusseldorf/

[12] : http://blog.vkistudios.com/index.cfm/2008/2/22/Is-Google-Analytics-Taking-Over-the-World

[13] : http://www.internetretailer.com/top500/list.asp

[14] : http://www.e-consultancy.com/publications/analytics-measurement-

optimisation-briefing-march-2008

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