Happy new year to everyone! To celebrate the new year and the first birthday of this blog, I would like to share with you what’s going with Web Analytics in the country so famous for its wine and cheese.
When I moved from Canada to France 18 months ago, there were only a couple of players in the Web Analytics field. While more and more Web agencies are now trying to grow their Web analytics knowledge, the leadership has been taken over by Hub’Sales, a Paris-based company specializing in Web Analytics and Web TV consultancy. Led by Eric Dumain, a former executive at Macromedia Europe, Hub’Sales has managed to attract senior talent like Julien Coquet (formerly at OX2 and head of the Web Analytics Association in France), Nicolas Guillard (formerly at Aposition / Isobar) and myself (formerly at Oracle in Silicon Valley and at Videotron in Montreal).
Although major US Web Analytics vendors have at least a sales presence in France (Coremetrics, Google, Omniture, Unica, Yahoo and Webtrends), they face significant competition from local solution providers in a market where business, consulting and support is mainly expected to be performed in French and under French laws. Of all French solution providers (AT Internet, Eulerian Technologies, eStat, Piwik, Weborama and Wysistat to name a few), AT Internet is now ahead of the pack with a world-class solution and offices in the UK, Germany, Spain, Canada, Brazil and China. In addition to this, two European solution providers: NedStat (Netherlands) and WebTrekk (Germany) have a presence in the French market. Regarding the attitudinal analysis, Paris-based CRM Metrix has become a global player with offices in Europe, the United States and Asia-Pacific.
On the corporate side, the interest and awareness with Web Analytics have highly improved over the last 18 months. Most companies have a Web Analytics solution installed on their web sites and they are now wondering what insights they can get with all the data collected. Three months ago, Jacques Warren and myself published a book in French on Web Analytics, the first of its kind, and we were both surprised to see our book ranking #1 in the e-commerce category of Amazon.fr for several weeks.
This interest for Web Analytics by the French public has also been confirmed by the success of the Web Analytics events that I’ve organized in my hometown of Lille (Northern France, in the heart of the Mail Order Valley of Europe). During the last event featuring Jacques Warren and Matt Bailey at the VAD E-commerce trade show, 140 people showed up in a 120-seat conference room (videos available here).
To go back to the wine and cheese, France is a country where tradition and time are key to ensure long-lasting quality and reputation. So, little by little, the French are growing their Web Analytics expertise, and you should see more and more innovation coming out of France in the coming months. Stay tuned!
