Use of Google Analytics is up seven percentage points on last year’s survey, but most concerning for paid-for analytics vendors is the growth in the number of companies using the tool exclusively – from 23% in 2009 to 38% this year.

“Google is cutting away at the market share of paid-for web analytics vendors, and this trend has accelerated due to increased awareness about its analytics tool and improving functionality,” according to the report. “The response of the web analytics vendors has been to become broader solution providers, for example offering multivariate testing and paid search bid management technology.”

The research again put Omniture on top in the paid-for space, but with a reduced market share of 39% compared to 42% last year. WebTrends grew its share to 26% (from 19%) but it was Nielsen that saw the biggest gains, with reported usage up from 2% in the 2009 survey to 12% this year.

Econsultancy and Lynchpin also asked respondents about their use of tools to measure and monitor online reputation and social media activity, 73% of whom reported doing so. Roughly one-fifth of respondents said they were using free tools or their own customised feeds and dashboards, while a similar number reported using their web analytics package to measure social media activity. Paid-for reputation monitoring tools were in use by 9% of respondents while 24% said they used a combination of the aforementioned approaches.

Lynchpin MD Andrew Hood (pictured) said: “This year, a clear message is that analytics is no longer just about measuring what is happening on your website. The growth in social media monitoring is hardly surprising given the growth of this channel.”

The report is available for download here. Results are based on an online survey of more than 600 clientside and supply-side respondents carried out in March and April.