"Who's number 1?"

It's question people ask a lot in many domains, but especially software, and as such, it regularly pops up within the web analytics community.

You can rank them crudely by number of individual customers. Let's take a look at the vendors we reviewed in the most recent Web Analytics Report and see how many customers they have -- or rather, they say they have:

1. Google Analytics: 5 million "hundreds of thousands" (Enterprise/SMB)
2. WebTrends: 10,000 (Enterprise/SMB)
3. ClickTracks: 8,000 (SMB)
4. Nedstat: 1,200 (Enterprise) 6,000 (SMB)
5. Omniture: 4,000 plus(includes Visual Sciences) (Enterprise/SMB)
6. IndexTools: 3,000 (Enterprise/SMB)
7. Unica: 500 (Enterprise), few thousand (SMB)
8. Coremetrics: 1,200 (Enterprise/SMB)
9. Fireclick, : 230 (Enterprise/SMB)
10. AuriQ: 200 (SMB/Enterprise)
11. Foviance: 50 (Enterprise)

It's an interesting list, but what does it really tell you? It tells me that some products target different sizes of customers and may be more niche than others. But can you really say who's number 1 or who's winning? I'd say these results only make for good conversation, just as picking who'll win the World Cup or this or that election.

Would you buy a solution because it's perceived to be the market leader? Because the buzz is that "everyone is buying" that solution? You shouldn't. I find that vendor selection is often given short shrift in today's market because of a perception that there are only a few real choices.That's simply not true. You have some very important choices.

Figure out your requirements and manage your vendor selection process. Don't simply favor one vendor over another because it's getting all of the good press clippings, and nods from the Wall St. analysts. In the long run, you'll be much happier with your analytics tool selection. Or, to put it another way, the "Number 1" vendor is always whichever one that's a right fit for you.

PS: Have you signed up for my web analytics class in Copenhagen?