Harrison Gervitz wrote a great post about PPC Optimization over at Shoemoney.com and
these words really got me:
“We use our in-house analytics system, by the way, because we don’t want
to give the engines our data. For many of our clients, however, we just
install Google Analytics, since it’s easy, cheap (free), and has a
beautiful UI.“
With Google’s Adwords revenues soaring (pretty much every 4th online ad dollar ends up in Google’s pocket) and
since Adsspy.com is able to figure out related sites based on your Google Analytics code (which is an open door for any competitor), I tend to say that I would stay away Analytics software, that is provided by a search engine.
I certainly cannot proof Harrison’s concerns, but it is just at a point where you are probably better off running Sitemeter, Getclicky, Omniture or some other system, which is not affiliated with your ad spent.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Hi…
“since Adsspy.com is able to figure out related sites based on your Google Analytics code ….”
For me, Adsspy.com tracks Google AdSense code, not Analytics code !…
I am wrong ?
Kind regards (and thanks for your website/blog : well done and very usefull)
Philippe Mochamps
(my website is at the very early stage…)
September 4th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
It actually does both. It compares similar Adsense codes as well as Google Analytics.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Wich one is the best option?
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
If you really want to be paranoid, try Google Ad Planner, and see the type of data that is out there already. I think msn analytics is more of a worry, since they have your details on what software you have been using for years, and the amount of demographic information that they can provide is almost scary.
I do like that AdsSpy tool, it seems something fun to play with, but im wondering if it is like other tools like keywordspy that often leave tracks on their server/analytics data that someone has been researching the company?
You say that you use your own inhouse solutions for analytics, but i notice Google Analytics is running atm…?
good topic for an article!
November 3rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
hi i am trying to setup in-house tracking of google adwords.
Has anyone done that here? i have started to use the {creative} tag from value track but the adwords API says that is not unique? does anyone know of the correct solution for tracking adwords clicks in house?
November 30th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Good replacement for Analytics is Piwik. It runs on your own server.
It’s opensource, so in the worst case you can code something that’s already missing there.
BTW there is another tool that seems to be better than AdsSpy - it’s SameOwner - not only it searches by Google Analytics IDs and AdSense IDs (and some other IDs like Kontera and YPN), it also detects sites that include some site using IFRAME. Most of partked or cybersquatted domains use IFRAMEs to show same content on several domains.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:26 pm
I have agree that Piwik is a great tool, indeed. I have been using it for the past few months and it has completely replaced analytics as my stat tracker. It may not do everything analytics does but it’s pretty close and it’s runs on your own server which is always a bonus.