Snoobi and Google Analytics
Google Analytics and Snoobi are the market leaders in web analytics software in Finland. There are an estimated 4800 enterprises using the Google Analytics software in Finland, while Snoobi has in the region of 2500 clients. The combined market share of Google Analytics and Snoobi on the Finnish markets make up for 75 percent of of all visitor tracking software.
Google Analyics is a free visitor tracking service offered by Google. With Google Analytics it is easy to obtain information about the utilization of a website as well as measure the effectiveness of AdWords-advertising. The strength of Google Analytics is in measuring the effectiveness of Adwords and in the marketing analysis of Business-to-Customer sites, which contain a webstore or an equivalent ordering system.
The most significant difference between Snoobi and Google Analytics in the focus; Google Analytics focuses on Business-to-Customer sites, whereas Snoobi is designed to operate in Business-to-Business environments. Google Analytics does not give a clear picture of what specific visitors or companies have been doing on the website, since Analytics does not display the path of each visitor. i.e. which particular pages they have viewed.
The main focus of Analytics lies in producing general level information about the website. Hundreds of Finnish companies have used a combination of both Snoobi and Google Analytics to follow-up the traffic on their website. Both solutions have their advantages, and together give an extremely comprehensive picture about the traffic on a website.
Some of Snoobi’s advantages over Google Analytics are listed below:
- Snoobi shows the paths of individual visitors, Analytics does not
- Snoobi provides a pre-filtered list of companies, where ISPs have been filtered out. Analytics does not provide this
- Snoobi can identify Finnish search engines, online directories and online communities and gives their visitor data in separate boxes. Analytics does not automatically recognize these
- In AdWords campaigns, Snoobi reports the actual, full search phrases used by the ad visitors. Analytics only displays the pre-defined search phrases and words. For example, let's say "train" has been defined as a desired search word. Analytics doesn't reveal that the visitors may have arrived using the words "TGV train", "Trans-Siberian train" or "train-wreck"; the Analytics report simply truncates all these to "train". In contrast, Snoobi provides you with the full search phrase, making it possible to truly evaluate and improve the selected search phrases in AdWords.
- Snoobi can show you in which page order visitors from ads browse your site, Analytics only reveals which pages have received hits
- From Snoobi, you can see a summary of the channels that ordering customers have used to arrive to your site (which search words, ads or linking sites they utilized). With Analytics, this process requires you to cross-reference each channel separately
- Snoobi gives a comprehensive summary of a certain page or a certain search phrase. With Analytics, this process requires you to cross-reference several report parts and combine them
- Snoobi produces real time information, whereas Analytics gives an updated report much more infrequently
- With Snoobi the URL-addresses can be transformed into more easily readable Page Names by adjusting the settings (for example www.index.php?pageID34 -> Products). However, in the Analytics, this has to be done at the source code level, which too is also possible in Snoobi
- When measuring online advertising, in Snoobi the links and parametres can be coded freely or alternatively existing coding can be used. In Analytics using utm_source type of coding is compulsory
- Snoobi works on public websites as well as both in intra- and extranet environments. Analytics can not be used on sites which do not have a public DNS address
- Installing Snoobi is easier, since all the configurations can be done from the settings, while in Analytics changes have to made straight into the source code and into filters, which might prove to be difficult (for example, setting advertisement tracking and following multiple domains from the same account etc.)
- Snoobi maps the needs of a customer and customizes the tracking to better suit the needs of customer’s business. When the tracking has begun, experts from Snoobi will guide the customer in using the service and how to utilize the results it has been generating. Additionally Snoobi gives you hints on how to improve your website. The hints are based on experience received from thousands of customers
- In addition to English, Snoobi offers speedy assistance in Finnish and Swedish
Eric Peterson, one of the field's leading authorities reasons whether it's advisable to use free web analytics tools. Also Fred Aun writes about the risks of free analytics software.