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Phil Kemelor

Has Omniture stalled?

25-May-2009

Tags: Web Analytics, Building Business Case, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, Vendor Viability & Financials, Google Analytics

When Omniture announced its Q1 2009 earnings a few weeks ago, there was a bit of heartburn among its investors because the forecast for Q2 results were off analyst expectations. However, the company added another 200 customers and now has 5,200.

But it was the earnings call that was telling. Here are the quotes that jumped out for me:

" ...over 1 trillion transactions (are) being captured"

"A very small percentage of these 1 trillion transactions are being optimized today"

"...customers now have an average of 1.39 [Omniture] products per customer."

Taken together this can look like a glass half empty or full. In Omniture's favor, with its suite of 10 products (depending on how you count), one would think there's plenty of room to cross-sell -- but on the other hand, it seems very few Omniture customers are taking the company up on that.

And what are those products? SiteCatalyst is Omniture's core analytics product. DataWarehouse is usually the next "must have," followed by Discover, and then one of the marketing and conversion modules, such as Test & Target, Search Center, Merchandising, or a Genesis partnership.

So, Omniture has created a great vision of how analytics should be the common thread among all web marketing. But if you're an Omniture customer, are you ready? Most of the Omniture customers I speak to are not at the point of adoption beyond Discover. And the Genesis partnerships? These take commitment and resources to get underway. As we've reported in our Web Analytics Research, this isn't quite the "plug and play" process touted in the marketing material.

I think Web analytics software has evolved more quickly than the ability of most people to use it effectively -- and justify paying for it. Interesting factoids from the Web Analytics Association 2009 membership survey released in January 2009:

- Over 62% of respondents said they have fewer than three years of web analytics experience.

- Optimizing web site functionality and analysis of past performance both scored over 70 percent as the purpose of web analytics in organizations

- Measuring Web 2.0 Technologies, targeting and segmentation and A/B and multivariate testing scored highest as subjects that people had the highest interest in learning more about

So, if you're an Omniture customer, I wonder how long it will take for you to make a sound business case for purchasing the other products in Omniture's suite. Certainly optimizing site functionality and analyzing performance comes within the purview of the basic web analytics tool kit; so does measuring Web 2.0, segmentation, and A/B testing; targeting as well. Do you really need the other modules? I'm thinking in most cases and in the near term, probably not.

Are there any other reasons that might be impacting Omniture's growth? Don't discount the Google Analytics factor.