TrendWatch Blog
Where are the Profitable Web Analytics Vendors
09-Oct-2007As part of my ongoing research for the
Web Analytics Report, I've been looking more closely at vendor size
and financial performance. Of course, most of the vendors in this space are
privately held, so you have to take their pronouncements with a grain of salt.
The only web analytics vendors who claim to be profitable over the last 5 years
based on net income are based in Europe. Those would be IndexTools and Nedstat.
Now, J.L. Halsey, the company that owns ClickTracks is also profitable, as is Unica, but in both cases their web analytics offerings are being supported financially by the companies' primary products, and bring in only a fraction of total revenue.
I find that typically, customers don't discuss financial stability and strength during the vendor selection process -- that would be distracting from the cool visualizations on the screen -- and perhaps a downer when you see the actual figures. But you ought to be aware of the potential risks of purchasing from companies that have never turned a profit. In the end, cash flow is probably a more important measure of near-term risk, but you'll still want to ask hard questions about your vendor's plans to get "in the black."
- Submitted by: Phil Kemelor, Contributing Analyst
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