I spoke to Christian Bartens, Managing Director, Datalicious about the debate of free v.s paid analytics tools. Here’s a video of our chat, and my thoughts below:

I mentioned in my last post the importance of data in any truly customer centric strategy. The problem we have in digital marketing however is the sheer volume of data that we can gather. It’s easy to be obsessed with the collection of it and then become overwhelmed once we have it.

While the technology enables us to get more and more sophisticated, the key to making use of data is the collection of the RIGHT data, the analytics of it and a culture of adapting based on what you learn. It’s an ongoing process. Putting proper analytics in place is not necessarily an expensive business. Google’s free analytics tools have opened up the power of analytics to a much broader audience. This has been a great thing for our industry as it has raised everyone’s awareness of what is really happening on their websites. However it also raises the debate of the benefit of free vs. paid tools.

An article I read recently claimed that Omniture’s market share of paid tools has grown from 18% to 42% in 2009 and WebTrends has dropped from 27% to 19%. It went on to claim that 80% of companies are using Google Analytics compared to 66% the year before. The conclusion they drew was that the market is rapidly polarising into two camps, with free Google Analytics at one end and tools like Omniture at the other.

The difference between paid and free tools seems to come down to the degree of personalised detail you want to be able to get and the integration you want with other systems such as data warehouses and CRM systems.

The decision of whether to go free or paid however extends beyond pure cost and integration requirements. One of the most critical components in an effective data strategy is the resources capable of interpreting the massive quantities of data available. It takes a special kind of skill to be able to unearth the real secrets that data holds and there is often an assumption that you will know what you are looking for once they find it. Perhaps the question that an organisation should be asking itself before they worry about what tool is who will be using it.

Christian Bartens will be moderating a panel discussion on this issue at ad:tech Sydney, other panellists sharing their view on the paid vs. free debate are:

Matt Langie, Director Product Marketing, Omniture (Global)
Alex Crompton, Senior Manager, Web Marketing, Aussie
Jonathan Kerr, Associate Director eCommerce, Budget Direct
Rod Jacka, Managing Director, Panalysis

You can share your thoughts and feedback on this issue right here, and keep checking in to see what others have to say and how the debate is shaping up.