I'm pleased to announce that we have kicked off the research process to update Forrester's web analytics vendor evaluation.

As always, this evaluation will be based on Forrester's Wave methodology (more info here).

The timing is definitely right, 2010 was an exciting year for Web analytics and the industry has changed quite a bit since the previous Wave installement.  Companies are entering the market, companies are consolidating, and leading web analytics vendors are aggressively developing their product offerings.

I'm really looking forward to doing a deep dive into this market to update our findings.

Forrester has covered the web analytics market for several years, so we also look at this project as an opportunity to update the Wave evaluation criteria that vendors are scored against.  Evaluation criteria should evolve over time as the market matures, new capabilities become available, and existing capabilities become commoditized.

I'd like to invite the community to contribute suggestions for criteria that Forrester should consider including in the evaluation, for example:

1. What do you consider to be the most critical criteria to drive web analytics vendor selection?

2. What topics are you interested in knowing more about these vendors?

3. What do you see as the most relevant differentiators for these vendors?

4. What are the key areas where web analytics obstacles occur and impede productive measurement?

If you'd like to reference the previous Wave from 2009, you can access the criteria here, in the Excel spreadsheet that accompanies the primary Wave report.

Thanks in advance for your contributions and suggestions!