Does IBM CoreMetrics Challenge Google Analytics In E-Commerce Analytics?

Although Google recently announced 2014 profits of $14.4 billion, an increase of 19% over the previous year, industry experts continue backroom discussion about whether the corporation will continue its tech dominance as digital advertising platforms Facebook, Pinterest and Snapchat score big ad revenue gains through emotion-immersive brand advertising. Arguing Google has peaked, critics like Ben Thompson see Google following in Microsoft’s footsteps, “…when a company becomes dominant, its dominance precludes it from dominating the next thing. It’s almost like a natural law of business.” (Manjoo).

In the general website analytics market, Google Analytics and the new Google Universal Analytics set the world standard in next-generation measurement with a dominating 78% market share of websites using at least one of the over 91 analytic software tools. Second place Quantcast lags far behind with a 4.3% market share. Last month, Google products use grew 3.2% while Quantcast’s user base grew 1.54%. (Datanyze) In this key Google market, there’s no clear Facebook-like competitor anywhere on the horizon.

 

For the high-traffic 500,000+ visitor retail e-commerce website market however, competitors Adobe Omniture and IBM CoreMetrics have successfully overshadowed Google’s analytic presence. US retail e-commerce in 2015 is projected to be $492 billion, performed by 75.5% of internet users that comprise 64.2% of the US population. (Statistica) Growing by12.6%, 2016 US retail ecommerce will expand to $554 billion, conducted by 77% of internet users that comprise 65.8% of the US population. (Statistica) Thus, the retail e-commerce target market is valuable, although specialized, territory for analytic vendors.

How do Google analytic products’ market shares match up against IBM’s CoreMetrics among both general content and e-commerce websites that use analytics tools? As the above graphic shows, CoreMetrics 3,512 website installations are dwarfed by Google analytic products’ 12,025,000 installations. CoreMetrics however, operates as a niche market tool believing that all websites should be online retailers. Google analytic products however, believe that all content and e-commerce sites have common general success metrics. (Kravitz) To some extent, these operational design differences have been etched in the tools’ evolution from original development to their current corporate ownership strategies.

Google Analytics Understands Traffic Volume and Engagement

In 1998, Urchin Software began development to help website owners understand customer traffic and engagement. After acquisition by Google in 2005, the software tool was released in August 2006 as a free product. Primarily an AdWords tool, the Urchin software received design additions related to Measure Map acquisition technology. In 2009, Google Analytics provided a new Asynchronous Tracking Code to improve website tracking accuracy. Other product enhancements included the 2011 launch of Real Time analytics, 2012 introduction of Google Tag Manager to help organize analytics, ads and other tags, (Cendrowski) and 2014 unveiling of Google Universal Analytics, a new script rather than product upgrade is available with new features that includes enhanced e-commerce tracking that features checkout funnels, statistics on product views, product list views, and to cart/remove from cart behavior and refunds. (Georgiev)

CoreMetrics Understands Retailer Customer Behaviors

Originally programmed in 1999 by Wharton student Brett Hurt, CoreMetrics functionality was influenced by his childhood experience watching his parents run a store. The early analytic tool tracked online visitors anonymously, analyzing how they browsed, what they bought and how frequently they returned, as well as how often people abandoned the site. Beginning in 2006, IBM and CoreMetrics partnered to deliver a leading cross-channel business analytics solution specifically for use with IBM’s WebSphere Commerce software that provided real-time intelligence on client customer product comments, as well as content and services being offered so that clients could make fact-based, accurate marketing expenditure decisions.

After the 2010 IBM CoreMetrics acquisition that allowed full software product integration, client marketing teams have been able to gain deeper insight about their customers so they can present personalized recommendations, promotions and other sales incentives to customers wherever they interact with their brands: online, on mobile devices, through social media networks, kiosks and other more traditional channels. (IBM 2010) In 2014, IBM announced “IBM Experience One” a suite of products capitalizing on the $3B in IBM research, development and software acquisitions, including CoreMetrics (now known as IBM Digital Analytics). This suite forms the foundation of IBM's newly integrated Digital, Behavioral, Social Media and Predictive Customer analytics offering that identifies real-time trends based on internal and external customer data, including mobile analytics. As the gateway to reach each customer touch point, the suite is supported by enhancements to IBM's customer digital experience software so that marketing and sales can now can more easily leverage dynamic customer, pricing and performance analytics by embedding real-time offers into their mobile, social and rich media experiences.. (IBM 2014)


 

Popular Google Analytics Sites	Popular IBM CoreMetrics Sites
YouTube.com	Footlocker.com
LinkedIn.com	Eastbay.com
Instagram.com	Bathandbodyworks.com
Reddit.com	Abebooks.com
Tumblr.com	Enterprise.com
Alibaba.com	Runnersworld.com
Stackoverflow.com	Selfridges.com

 

Why Choose Google Analytics or IBM CoreMetrics?

The key internal enterprise factor, which an e-commerce company facing a website analytics tool selection decision must evaluate honestly is its organizational web analytics professional skill set maturity, availability of budget dollars and deployment of a centralized or decentralized analytics approach among sales, marketing and operations team members.

As the following graph of recent user reviews shows, both Google Analytics and CoreMetrics provide similar functionality across metrics, reporting and special features. Dissatisfaction with the quality of technical support plagues both tool’s user community.

What sets Google Analytics apart and is reflective in its overall higher review ratings (on a 7-point scale), is its relative intuitive user-friendliness, reliability and the ease for non-web analyst technical experts in sales, finance and operations to interrogate for curiosity and fact-finding purposes. CoreMetrics’ advanced e-commerce metrics and customer behavior analytics on the other hand, requires strong technical expertise to execute reporting and administer, longer implementation schedules and requires other IBM integrated software product plug-ins like Explore, to exploit the breath of individualized customer data available across all customer touch points and all devices. (Kravitz) For small e-commerce retailers, the free Google Analytics package provides an attractive low-cost first option, although effective e-commerce setup is complicated enough that small companies should contract for Google Analytic technical implementation support services.



If you’ve had any direct experience using Google Analytics or CoreMetrics for e-commerce web analytics, I’d be interested in your overall thoughts about the product, its technical support and whether you feel Google and IBM are headed in the right direction with their product’s evolution. Interestingly, in my analysis of the 15 most recent user reviews for each tool, 96% of Google Analytics users felt Google’s product enhancements moved the product in the right direction. Most CoreMetrics users however, were not sure what direction IBM was headed with product development while only 20% of reviewers affirmed the product’s current trajectory.

Sources.

Cendrowski, Megan (27 Janaury 2015) Infographic: The History of Google Analytics. Converge [Website] Retrieved from http://convergeconsulting.org/blog/2015/01/infographic-history-google-analytics/

Datanyze (15 February 2015) Analytics market share in the Datanyze Universe. Datanyze. [Website Data Set] Retrieved from https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/analytics/Datanyze%20Universe

(15 February 2015) IBM CoreMetrics and Google Analytics Reviews. G2Crowd [Technology Reviews] Retrieved from https://www.g2crowd.com/products/ibm-coremetrics/reviews?utf8=%E2%9C%93&show_filters=&order=most_recent

Georgiev, Georgi (25 August 2014) Google Universal Analytics – Migration & Update Guide. Analytics-Toolkit.com. [Website] Retrieved from http://blog.analytics-toolkit.com/2014/google-universal-analytics-migration-update-guide/

IBM (2 August 2010) IBM Closes Acquisition of CoreMetrics. IBM [Website] Retrieved from http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/32248.wss

IBM (13 May 2014) IBM Introduces 'IBM ExperienceOne' to Help Organizations Bring Together Marketing, Sales and Services Practices to Deepen Customer Engagement. PR Newswire. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1523837997?accountid=2837

Kravitz, Ana. (26 February 2013) CoreMetrics vs. Omniture vs. Google Analytics. Akravitz.com [website] Retrieved from http://www.akravitz.com/coremetrics-vs-omniture-vs-google-analytics/

Manjoo, Farhad (11 February 2015) Google, Mighty Now, but Not Forever. New York Times. Retrieved from http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/02/12/technology/personaltech/googles-time-at-the-top-may-be-nearing-its-end.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=2&referrer

Statistica. (October 2014) Interet Retailer. Internet usage in the United States - Statista Dossa. Statitica. Retrieved from http://www.statista.com.www.libproxy.wvu.edu/study/24290/internet-usage-in-the-united-states-statista-dossier/