Competitive Analysis




Google Analytics is a service that monitors and reports website traffic. The main competitors of Google Analytics are Piwik, Clicky, and Kissmetrics. While they all offer analytic capabilities, there are differences between all of them that separate them from each other.

Piwik
Piwik is a free open source analytics platform that gives more than just powerful analytics. It is a free open-source software and full featured PHP MySQL software program that could be downloaded and installed on web servers. It provides users with 100 percent data ownership and has high level of data privacy. Users can install Piwik on their servers at no cost. Piwik is used by individuals, small firms and large corporate entities. Piwik aims to be a Free software alternative to Google Analytics, and is already used on more than 1,000,000 websites. It tracks online visits to one or more websites and displays reports on these visits for analysis. Piwik displays reports regarding the geographic location of visits, the source of visits, the technical capabilities of visitors, what the visitors did, the time of visits and more. Piwik is different from Google Analytics in that it allows you to keep the analytics data on your own servers rather than hosting it for you. 

Adobe Analytics
This option is more of an enterprise solution. It includes website and mobile app analytics, along with advanced features like real-time automation and decision-making tools. Adobe Analytics is mainly meant for larger businesses or ones that really require a lot of segmentation or very specific data. It lets users create customized reports and share them in a variety of formats and channels. This in turn helps companies better understand their customer needs. Using adobe analytics enables companies to steer their entire business with customer intelligence.

Mixpanel
Mixpanel focuses more on how people use your site or app verse visiting. The provider basically lets you ask different questions that you
d like to learn from your data and then track that data with funnels. There are both free and paid plans available. Mixpanel is a business analytics service and company. It tracks user interactions with web and mobile applications and provides tools for targeted communication with them. Its tool-set contains in-app A/B tests and user survey forms. Data collected is used to build custom reports and to measure user engagement and retention. Mixpanel works with web applications, in particular SaaS, but also supports mobile apps.



Image result for comparison of piwik adobe analytics and mixpanel


As the chart shows (Quillfeldt & Insights, 2017), Google Analytics is by far the most utilized web analytic tool. Due to the free price offered by Google Analytics as well as the other various features that Google has to offer. As a result of this there is a higher switching price that comes with using any of the alternatives such as Clicky, Piwik, or Kissmetrics. While these other alternatives have some features that may not be offered by Google Analytics, due to the price and other features offered, it is the most commonly used system.

Google Adwords:

    Google Adwords is a great asset for driving web traffic to a user's site. However, there are several alternatives that create competition for Adwords. The main competitors of Google Adwords are Facebook Paid Ads, Yahoo/Bing Ads, and Amazon Product Ads ("Google Adwords Alternatives,” 2017).

  • Facebook Paid Ads have enhanced targeting options that enable users to pinpoint the age, location, gender, and hobbies to achieve the audience that users desire to view their ads. However, the click through for Facebook Paid Ads is generally lower in comparison to Google Adwords. As a result, while users of Facebook Paid Ads may be reaching their target audience more often they may not see a reflection of this in clicks ("Google Adwords Alternatives”, 2017).
   
  • Yahoo!/Bing Ads from Microsoft offer search advertising. This places ad in Bing search results. Thus, if keywords are used correctly a large increase in results can be     found ("Google Adwords Alternatives,” 2017). While there is great upside to Yahoo!/Bing Ads, this service is more expensive than Google Adwords, making Google Adwords the more affordable option for many businesses.
   
  • Amazon Text Ads allow users to bid on keywords for the lowest possible amount. This creates an opportunity for utilization of keywords which allow users to receive high returns on their investment for making a minimal investment on a specific keyword. However, this creates a demand to move fast since there are certain keywords that are more desirable and will draw more bids (Johnson, 2017). While keyword access may be cheaper with Amazon Text Ads, there is a higher switching cost in comparison to Google Adwords, since Google Adwords has numerous other facilities and capabilities that Amazon Text Ads does not have.




This graph ("Digital Advertising Set to Outpace TV Advertising in 2017”, 2017) shows how prominent Google and Facebook are in online advertising. In assessing the competition of Google Adwords, the total amount of competitors was taken into account. Then the highest competitors in terms of market share were examined in order to see which company is truly in competition with Google Adwords. As represented by the graph, the two biggest competitors in the market are clearly Google and Facebook. Together, they control over fifty percent (50%) of the market. The competition from Facebook is still second tier to Google since Google controls forty percent (40%) of the fifty-seven percent (57%) total. Google Adwords retains a higher click through rate, has a wider variety of facilities and capabilities, and is more affordable for businesses in comparison to most of its competitors. As a result, the evidence is conclusive that Google Adwords is the controlling operator in driving web traffic for users.



References:


Gallaugher, J. (2014). Information Systems: A Managers Guide to Harnessing Technology. Flat World Knowledge.

Consumer Insights. Retrieved from:www.thinkwithgoogle.com/

Transforming the business through social tools. Retrieved from: www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/transforming-the-business-through-social-tools.

Blast Analytics & Marketing - Google Analytics Compared to Adobe Analytics

Finances Online - Compare Mixpanel vs Google Analytics

How much does Piwik cost? (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2017, from https://piwik.org/faq/new-to-piwik/faq_145/

Adobe Analytics Prime. (n.d.). Retrieved November 17, 2017, from http://www.adobe.com/data-analytics-cloud/analytics/prime.html


Mixpanel | Product Analytics. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2017, from https://mixpanel.com/help/questions/articles/mixpanel-new-people-pricing-faq

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