Web Analytics Association RSS Feed

Predictive Analytics World coming February to San Francisco

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:00:00 GMT

Predictive Analytics World coming February to San Francisco
Start Date: 16-Feb-10 8:00 AM
End Time: 17-Feb-10 7:30 PM
Location: Palace Hotel, San Francisco, CA 94105
Event Details:

Dates: February 16-17, 2010
Location: San Francisco, CA

Predictive Analytics World is the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, covering today's commercial deployment of predictive analytics, across industries and across software vendors. The conference delivers case studies, expertise and resources to achieve two objectives:

1) Bigger wins: Strengthen the business impact delivered by predictive analytics

2) Broader capabilities: Establish new opportunities with predictive analytics

The Top Experts

PAW's February 2010 program is packed with the top predictive analytics experts, practitioners, authors and business thought leaders, including keynote speakers Kim Larsen, Director Advanced Analytics at Charles Schwab, Andreas S. Weigend, Ph.D., Former Chief Scientist at Amazon.com, and Program Chair Eric Siegel, Ph.D., President of Prediction Impact and former Columbia University professor.

Case Studies: How the Leading Enterprises Do It

Predictive Analytics World focuses on concrete examples of deployed predictive analytics. Hear from the horse's mouth precisely how Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners deploy predictive modeling, and what kind of business impact it delivers.

And the leading enterprises have responded, signing up to tell their stories. PAW-2010 includes 25 sessions across two tracks, so you can witness how predictive analytics is applied at 1-800-FLOWERS, Amazon.com, AT&T, BBC, Canadian Automobile Association, Charles Schwab, Continental Airlines, Deutsche Postbank, Google, Group RCI, IBM, PASSUR Aerospace, PayPal (eBay), Sun Microsystems, U.S. Army, Visa, Walmart Financial Services, and Younoodle, plus special examples from the U.S. government agencies CBP, NCMI, NGIC, NSA, and SSA.

February's agenda covers hot topics and advanced methods such as social data, uplift modeling (net lift), text mining, massively parallel analytics, in-cloud deployment, and innovative applications that benefit organizations in new and creative ways.

Workshops

Three pre- and post-event workshops complement the core conference program:

"The Best and the Worst of Predictive Analytics: Predictive Modeling Methods and Common Data Mining Mistakes"
Instructor: John F. Elder, Ph.D., CEO and Founder, Elder Research, Inc.

"Hands-On Predictive Analytics"
Instructor: Dean Abbott, President, Abbott Analytics

"Putting Predictive Analytics to Work"
Instructor: James Taylor, CEO, Decision Management Solutions

Tell-All Blog Interview

Read the blog interview in which conference chair Eric Siegel answers:

What do attendees gain at PAW?
How does PAW balance the interests of competing software vendors?
Why did you stop doing academic research, and how does commercial application compare?

Cross-Industry Applications

Predictive Analytics World is the only conference of its kind, delivering vendor-neutral sessions across verticals such as banking, financial services, e-commerce, education, government, healthcare, high technology, insurance, non-profits, publishing, retail and telecommunications.

And PAW covers the gamut of commercial applications of predictive analytics, including response modeling, customer retention with churn modeling, product recommendations, fraud detection, online marketing optimization, behavior-based advertising, insurance pricing, sales forecasting, text mining and credit scoring.

Why bring together such a wide range of endeavors? No matter how you use predictive analytics, the story is the same: Predictively scoring customers optimizes business performance. Predictive analytics initiatives across industries leverage the same core predictive modeling technology, share similar project overhead and data requirements, and face common process challenges and analytical hurdles.

Rave Reviews

February's inaugural Predictive Analytics World was an acclaimed success, with over 200 attendees from 12 countries witnessing case studies from over 20 named companies that represent 11 industries. Excitement and buzz ran high as participants learned how to improve efficiency and optimize across more than 10 business applications of predictive analytics.

"Predictive Analytics World was probably the best analytics conference I have attended, from a knowledge point of view, in a long time...[and] turned into my new must-go-to conference."

Dennis R. Mortensen
Director of Data Insights
Yahoo!

Read more articles and blog entries about February's PAW.

People Who Need People

Vendors.

Meet the vendors and learn about their solutions, software and services
Discover the best predictive analytics vendors available to serve your needs
Learn what they do and see how they compare

Colleagues.

Mingle, network and hang out with your best and brightest colleagues
Exchange experiences over lunch, breaks and the conference reception, connecting with those professionals who face the same challenges as you

Get Started

If you're new to predictive analytics, kicking off a new initiative, or exploring new ways to position it at your organization, there's no better place to get your bearings than Predictive Analytics World. See what other companies are doing, witness vendor demos, participate in discussions with the experts, network with your colleagues and weigh your options!

For more information, see www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com.

See a complete overview of the conference agenda.

Be sure to register by by January 15 for the Early Bird rate (save $200)!

Special offer for WAA Members: 15% discount for Members of the Web Analytics Association (Use Promotional code "WAADISCOUNT")

What is predictive analytics? See the Predictive Analytics Guide.

Sign up for our informative event updates.

Sign up for the PAW group on LinkedIn.

For inquiries, e-mail us at registration@predictiveanalyticsworld.com or call (718) 577-1202.

Palace Hotel

2 New Montgomery Street

San Francisco, CA USA 94105

eTail West 2010

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:00:00 GMT

eTail West 2010
Start Date: 22-Feb-10 9:00 AM
End Time: 25-Feb-10 5:00 PM
Location: JW Marriott Desert Springs, Palm Desert, CA
Event Details:

WAA Members get 40% OFF the full 2 day conference price, offer valid for qualified retailers only

eTail began in 1999 at a time when the industry was in flux. And again, in 2009, the retail industry found itself at crossroads.

Over the last ten years, we've provided the means to bring together senior executives from all facets of the industry, both large and small, for dynamic insight and solutions they can action immediately. . Retail executives gather for four days of networking and the opportunity to preview the latest technology solutions. Search, Email and Social Media & Mobile Commerce are just a few of the areas covered at the event. Contact us at 646-200-7530 or etail@wbresearch.com with any questions.

JW Marriott Desert Springs

Online Analytics from a Managerial Perspective

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:30:00 GMT

Online Analytics from a Managerial Perspective
Start Date: 23-Mar-10 8:30 AM
End Time: 23-Mar-10 1:30 PM
Location: These Days, Antwerp, Antwerp 2018
Speaker: Stéphane Hamel

Event Details:

Increasing conversions, reducing acquisition costs and optimizing online marketing activities are often cited as key reasons for venturing into web analytics. Properly installing the tool is a challenge in itself but even when done successfully, unexpected issues surface and the value of online analytics quickly fade.

This workshop isn't about using web analytics tools or optimizing your marketing campaign. This course is looking at online analytics from a managerial perspective.

This workshop will go through an assessment of your online analytics goals and objectives from a business, marketing and web executive’s point of view. You will learn about the critical success factors and the process that will enable you to plan for future advancement.

Specifically:

Strategic methodology to evaluate your current and desired situation
How to leverage the six critical process areas of a successful data driven organization
Tips & tricks to define realistic objectives aligned with your business... how to measure & achieve them!
How to determine the resources and investment required to advance to the next level
How to communicate effectively, be a change agent and overcome internal political storms
Several real-life examples, failures & successes.

These Days

Karel Oomsstraat 47

Antwerp, Antwerp Belgium 2018

Web Analytics Strategies Conference & Expo

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Web Analytics Strategies Conference & Expo
Start Date: 25-Mar-10 8:00 AM
End Time: 25-Mar-10 5:30 PM
Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel
Speaker: Brian Clifton

Event Details:

WAA members receive 15% discount on regular fee which is 495,00 Euros.

Crowne Plaza Hotel

Via K. Adenauer, 3

Milan, Italy

Digital Marketing ExpoCon Austria

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Digital Marketing ExpoCon Austria
Start Date: 27-Apr-10 8:00 AM
End Time: 28-Apr-10 6:30 PM
Event Details:

Die <Digital Marketing ExpoCon Austria> (DMX Austria) ist eine Business to Business-Veranstaltung für Marketing-Entscheider, Werbungtreibende und Digital Professionals aus Industrie und Handel. Ferner adressiert sie Entscheider der digitalen Wertschöpfungskette, sowie der gesamten Agenturszene (Mediaplanungs-, Kreativ- , Full-Service-Agenturen). Die DMX Austria informiert den Fachbesucher über sämtliche Trends und unzählige Facetten des digitalen Marketings.

WAA Public Sector 2009 Survey Analysis

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:30:00 GMT

WAA Public Sector 2009 Survey Analysis
Start Date: 12-Jul-10 8:30 AM
End Time: 12-Jul-10 5:30 PM
Location: WAA Document Download
Event Details:

The WAA Public Sector SIG conducted a literature search to determine the state of public sector analytics, and then conducted a survey of 124 participants from four types of public organizations: government (including both U.S. - and non-U.S. government agencies), non-profit, academic, and foundation. The survey respondents included WAA and non-WAA members. The research team conducted a follow-up phone survey to obtain additional details about survey respondents.

In the interest of establishing a baseline set of data that could serve as a foundation for research, the WAAPS-SIG divided the study into three questions:

How are Web site managers in the public and non-profit sectors measuring the performance of their Web sites?
Can any KPIs used by many non-commerce organizations be used to measure the impact, effectiveness, and contributions of all non-commerce Web sites?
Can we develop a series of benchmarks for the key dimensions of visitor online interaction with the Web sites in the public and non-profit sectors?

Members, you can download a copy of this analysis for free, non-members, please pay here and Lindsay De Santis will email you the document.

WAA Document Download

Dynamic Customer Management and the Value of One-to-One Marketing

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:00:00 GMT

Khan, Romana, Lewis, Michael, Singh, Vishal (2008). Dynamic Customer Management and the Value of One-to-One Marketing. Marketing Science, Vol. 28, No. 6. 17 pages, pp 1063-1079.

Reviewed by Jim Novo, 2010

Executive Summary:

The concept of one-to-one marketing is intuitively appealing, but there is little research that investigates the value of individual-level marketing relative to segment-level or mass marketing. In this paper, the authors investigate the financial benefits of and computational challenges involved in one-to-one marketing. They investigate the impact of customizing promotions on the two most important consumer decisions: the decision to buy from the store and expenditure level. The modeling approach accounts for two sources of consumers’ responsiveness to various marketing mix elements: cross-sectional differences across consumers and temporal differences within consumers based on the purchase cycle.

A series of policy simulations show that for an online retail business, customizing promotions leads to a significant increase in profits relative to current practice of uniform promotions to all customers.

Specifically, they find for this online retail business:

Customizing offers based on purchase cycle (Recency or weeks since last purchase) contributes more to profitability than exploiting variations across consumers using previous transactional content (segmenting by purchase category, basket size, demographics, etc.). This is important because the computational burden of implementing the dynamic optimization to account for variations across consumers is far greater than accounting for purchase cycle.
A substantial number of customers purchase without a promotion of any kind. Offering any promotion to these customers substantially reduces the profitability of a campaign, and targeting by purchase cycle is key to avoiding this problem.
Free shipping tends to be the most profitable promotion for re-acquiring lapsed customers, whereas discounts are the most effective tool for managing active customers. Offering the “wrong” promotion (e.g. free shipping to active customers) substantially reduces the profitability of a campaign.
Customizing offers by previous transactional content in addition to purchase cycle increases profitability further, with customizing at the individual level outperforming customizing at the segment. However, gains in profit using individual level targeting when accounting for costs might not exceed the gains relative to cost by segment targeting; outcomes need to be tested.

Review:

This is an incredibly rich study and I highly recommend a personal review for WAA members involved with online commerce. There is a ton of detail on how the different promotions affect response and order size, in addition to how these parameters interact with purchase cycle to variously contribute to profit.

For those not used to discussing purchase cycle as a segmentation variable, I offer this chart on purchase rate (not response rate) from the paper:

What you are looking at is a model constructed from actual test results. The model maps probability of purchase by 4 groups of online customers, by weeks since last purchase. Three of these groups are being offered promotions – Coupons, Free Shipping, and a Reward program. The Baseline group is offered no promotions.

Example: Looking at the Baseline (lowest) curve, with week = 0 being the last purchase date, and remembering these customers receive no promotions: about 3.3% of customers will make their next purchase 1 week later; about 5% of customers will make their next purchase 2 weeks later; about 5.5% of customers will make their next purchase 3 weeks later, and so on.

Please recognize that there is a “Natural” purchase rate, as represented by this “Baseline” group – those offered no promotion. This natural purchase rate peaks at about 4 weeks, and after 4 weeks of no purchases, the likelihood to purchase again begins to fall each week that no purchase is made.

Your business model has a chart that looks similar to this one. The peak may be different, the slope may be different, but the general characteristics will be the same. The Baseline group is often called the “control” group, and is simply a sample of the population that receives no promotion, which allows you to measure the natural purchase rate and revenue generated from these buyers.

The chart above shows what Marketers mean when they talk about “Lift”, as opposed to response. Let’s say the response to a campaign may be 8% from buyers 4 weeks into the cycle. If the natural purchase rate for people receiving a campaign is 4% at that same 4 week point in the purchase cycle, then the campaign is only responsible for generating 4% of behavior – literally 50% of the “response” to the campaign. The Baseline or control group tells you the natural buying rate and revenue generated from natural buyers in each point of the purchase cycle, which starts at last purchase date (week = 0 in chart).

This also means that when you do a financial analysis of your campaigns, you should only be taking credit for the Lift caused by the campaign. Said another way, the full cost of the campaign should be applied against only those sales the campaign is responsible for generating, in the above example, the 4% rather than the 8%. As you might expect, this cost allocation against the true performance of the campaign can dramatically affect profitability.

And this is why segmenting customers by purchase cycle contributes more profitability to a campaign than segmenting by transactional content like category, basket size, demographics, and so forth. The timing of the offer is a more powerful determinant of profitability than the content of the offer.

Why is this important to you?

Because if you believe in the power of interactive to “pull” customers in, if you believe that usability and customer centricity really matter, then it follows you should be thrilled to have a high natural purchase rate. In fact, increases in natural purchase rate can be used to prove that customer centricity drives increased profitability.

Logically, if you accept the above premise, “push” campaigns will encounter higher levels of natural demand as a business becomes more customer-centric. Which means that as your business becomes more customer-centric, you should rely on more and more on purchase cycle targeting to drive higher profitability.

Impact of Different Promotions

An example of how to take action on purchase cycles is represented in the study, where free shipping tends to be the most profitable approach for re-acquiring lapsed customers, and discounts are the most effective tool for managing active customers. Look at the graph above to see how this works.

On the left side of the graph, when weeks since last purchase are low, you can see purchase incidence is higher in the “Coupon” group than the “Freeship” group; the Coupon line is higher than the Freeship group so the delta versus the Natural buying rate is greater for Coupons than for Free Shipping.

If you follow the Coupon line down to the right, you can see it drops below the Freeship line at 6 weeks with no purchase and in the out weeks, closely approaches the purchase incidence of Natural buyers. This is happening while the Freeship group maintains a significant delta to the purchase incidence of Natural buyers. If the purchase cycle analysis for your business looked exactly like this one, what should this data mean to you? Primarily two things:

In order to maximize purchase rate, customers who are offered Coupons and are non-responsive after 6 weeks should then be offered Free Shipping.
Offering a Coupon after 20 weeks of non-response generates very little lift in purchase rate; virtually all the responders are Natural buyers who would have purchased anyway. This means you are probably generating negative profit after campaign and discount cost on these efforts.

I think it’s worth repeating again that purchase cycle (or more broadly, LifeCycle, to include analysis of any action including visits, log-ins, downloads, etc.) curves will not look exactly like this one for your business, and the optimal timing of switching offers by purchase cycle likely won;t be the same.

However, having seen these same types of curves many times over my 15+ years working with online businesses, I can tell you this kind of work is worthy of your attention and effort – and especially so if your company is actively working on becoming more customer-centric. The more successful you are in pulling customers back to you, the more attention you should pay to purchase cycle segmentation to drive company profitability.

If you believe a fundamental part of your business model is to be “interactive”, time since last interaction – perhaps you’d prefer the term “dis-engagement” – is one of those most powerful segmentation approaches you can use.

The Effectiveness of Combining Online and Print Advertisements: Is the Whole Better than the Individual Parts?

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Wakolbinger, Lea M., Michaela Denk, Klaus Oberecker. (2009). The Effectiveness of Combining Online and Print Advertisements: Is the Whole Better than the Individual Parts? Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 49, No. 3. 12 pp 360-372.

Reviewed by Jason Dong, 2010

Executive Summary:

Marketers have increasingly made online marketing an integral part of their multi-channel communications strategies. There are certainly advantages to using online marketing including economies of scale, direct fulfillment, exceptional targeted advertising capabilities, and of course the ability to track advertising.

Wakolbinger et al. have taken this knowledge of increased spending and usage of online marketing and set out to determine whether a multi-channel marketing approach is more effective than using any one single channel for a marketing campaign. Their hypothesis was that a combination of marketing channels should a) yield higher values in advertising effectiveness (measured via five different recall and recognition metrics) and b) between print and online individually, neither when used individually, show any difference in influence on advertising effectiveness when directly compared against each other.

Their experiment was carried out on university commerce students in Austria. They created a fictitious nonprofit organization (NPO) and placed ads promoting the NPO in a local newspaper and its corresponding website. Different groups of students were assigned to different test conditions. All of the students were then surveyed to determine whether they were able to recall the NPO ads.

The experiment yielded results that were contrary to the authors’ hypotheses. There was no discernable difference in brand recall or recognition between the print-only and online-only groups. This was consistent with previously conducted studies. The more interesting conclusion was that there was also no statistically verifiable conclusion that the combination of print and online was more effective than using print or online alone.

Finally, the authors conceded there was certainly room for further research regarding the effectiveness of mixing and matching different advertising mediums and look forward to more research being conducted on integrated marketing communications with online playing a significant role.

Review:

Overall, this article was full of very useful information of online and traditional marketers alike. Executing integrated marketing communications strategies and plans involve numerous players from different business areas. These campaigns also cost a lot of money as each channel individually has unique costs to produce a final marketing deliverable as part of the larger campaign. Thus, it makes complete sense that marketers will want to spend their money most effectively and results like what was derived from this experiment are good to know and may serve to dispel preconceived notions that the more channels a customer is bombarded with the same message isn’t necessarily better.

For the web analyst, there are already inherent challenges in determining what advertising element to attribute ultimate conversion to from an analytics perspective. This challenge becomes more complex when dealing with multichannel marketing campaigns with online components integrated into each tactic (i.e. online discount codes on print material, vanity URLs in television ads, tracking codes on external online ads, etc.) and trying to determine which tactic to assign “credit” to for conversion. As a result, it sometimes becomes very difficult to analyze, report, and make recommendations either in the middle or end of campaign. This article reinforces the need for the web analyst to work that much closer with their marketing counterparts and be active in the planning and execution of multichannel campaigns. The web analyst brings with them a wealth of knowledge of how previous campaigns have performed and the analysis and recommendations need to be disseminated to those who formulate and decide on how a company markets their products. The web analyst would also know for companies that sell multiple products that online may not always be the best to have in the mix.

Whatever the campaign’s objective is, whether it is awareness or sales or both, it is incumbent both traditional and online marketers to use the appropriate mix of tactics for their marketing plans by performing due diligence in knowing who their customers are and using the right channels to reach them. It is especially important not to get caught up in the hype of spending frivolously on placing online ads everywhere given the steady press from various sources that internet ad spending is on the rise. I highly recommend this article to online and traditional marketing practitioners who are involved in managing and executing integrated marketing communications plans.

A single copy of the full journal reviewed above is available to members of the Web Analytics Association. To request a copy, email .

12-Jan-10 2:00 PM

Viewpoint: Now or Never – An Urgent Call to Action for Consensus On New Media Metrics

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Wurtzel, Alan. (2009). Viewpoint: Now or Never – An Urgent Call to Action for Consensus On New Media Metrics. Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 49, No. 3. 3 pp 263-265.

Reviewed by Jason Dong, 2010

Executive Summary:

The issue of standardization of media (including web) metrics has become increasingly important to address and find solutions for. Wurtzel does a good job outlining where the metric standardization problems in television originated and how that has spilled over into internet advertising. He outlines four major problems facing media: 1. Constantly new metrics from new platforms dilute an already cloudy soup of existing metrics; 2. There is no coordinated effort to leverage every research provider’s best assets; 3. There are no standardization standards anywhere; and 4. There is a need to measure cross-platform performance to exploit the good in each platform.

He concludes his opinion piece by offering up some solutions that mainly centre on the ideas of bipartisanship, collaboration, and transparency. He also cites the players that will be critical in achieving a consensus on new media metrics. They include trade organizations, national governments, and research providers.

Review:

Wurtzel does a good job outlining a continuing problem both in the television/media world as well as online. Differences in definitions of metrics with the same label used across different audience measurement tools down to different web analytics tools plagues the quality and ultimate conclusions of analysis and reporting being done by web analysts. You don’t have to go far to learn of the frustration of web analysts when you ask of their opinion on the many different ways a “visit” can be defined.

The author makes valid points in the approach towards standardization: All parties with vested interest put aside short term self-interest in the name of accuracy and stability of metrics. He also states legacy consequences if action is not taken now. The same can be said for web analytics metrics where if definitions of even the simplest of metrics are not standardized, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to conduct analyses on historical web performance for anything.

While this article being read by the members and friends of the Web Analytics Association seems like preaching to the choir, it is still an interesting read for those interested in web analytics standards given that the solutions that Wurtzel proposes ultimately has cross-platform implications.

A single copy of the full journal reviewed above is available to members of the Web Analytics Association. To request a copy, email .

12-Jan-10 2:00 PM

Assumptions, Explanation, and Prediction in Marketing Science: “It’s the Findings, Stupid, Not the Assumptions"

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:00:00 GMT

Tsang, Eric W. K. (2009). Assumptions, Explanation, and Prediction in Marketing Science: “It’s the Findings, Stupid, Not the Assumptions”. Marketing Science (28). 5 pp 986-990.

Reviewed by Christopher Berry, 2010

Executive Summary:

Tsang references a previous debate in Marketing Science on whether analytic models need to have realistic assumptions and stakes out a position that modifies Shugan’s “It’s the Findings, Stupid, Not the Assumptions” point of view in 2007.

Tsang reasons that the realism of an assumption is a continuous variable – not binary. That is to say, an assumption isn’t necessary unrealistic or realistic – the realism of assumptions is more like a thermometer than it is a light-switch.

Tsang suggests that: “Authors should discuss the probable impacts of the assumptions on their findings, predictions, or implications, and if possible, test the sensitivity by varying the assumptions and compare results...The burden of proof should lie on those who use the assumption.” He goes onto suggest: “As the field advances, efforts should be directed toward making assumptions more realistic…More realistic assumptions result in better theories.”

Tsang concludes: “although Shugan (2007) rightly stresses that it is inappropriate to dismiss a model or theory based only on the realism of its assumptions, realism does matter, and it matters a great deal for model building and theory development.”

This is an important conclusion. Instead of building theories and models based on unrealistic assumptions, like a house of cards that falls down when a door slams, we ought to be building a brick house. Building on a solid foundation of assumptions ensures the long-term predictive value of a discipline.

Review:

Implications for Practitioners

I’d have to retype the article in its entirety to do it justice. The summary above highlights the most relevant bits for web analysts.

Web analysts are frequently asked to make assumptions. Making unrealistic assumptions has gotten us into deep trouble in the past. For instance, the assumption that a unique visitor really represented a unique person was intensely flawed. And yet, for reasons that have been well documented, we as an industry stretched the assumption for the sake of precision. We as practitioners are frequently pressured to bend on assumptions – one way or another. We ought to become self-aware of why that happens and use sensitivity models to communicate the consequences.

Web analysts make predictions about the future. Optimization is not possible without making a range of predictions about the future and selecting the best scenario to guide action (Even A/B testing falls into this definition). Any prediction is fraught with unknowns and uncertainty. We use assumptions to simplify those unknowns, and to a large extent, quantify them.

For instance, a common question is how many more sales would we get if we employed [generic tactic X]. That kind of analysis requires reasoning and preferably accurate evidence for previous circumstances. We lack a common a pool of findings in our industry. Many analysts lack a common pool of evidence at best, and at worst, a sanitized version of what was a success and what was not. Regardless of how much data we have, we still make assumptions for the purposes of making predictions.

Tsang makes reference to the fact that not all sciences are predictive in nature. For instance, Earth Scientists are great at explaining earthquakes after they’ve happened, but are seldom predictive. Indeed, (tongue-in-cheek), many web analysts are indeed deployed like Earth Scientists. Like Earth Scientists, in certain circumstances, it’s worth pushing assumptions to the limit of believability so as to understand the range of what’s possible.

We should take advantage of those types of models to communicate with non-analysts. We can treat assumptions like a continuous variable and push the limits if it helps us make better predictions in the future, so long as those assumptions return to Earth in the final analysis and recommendation. The next generation of visualization software could assist us in communicating the bounds of what’s likely when given a set of assumptions – going beyond the spreadsheet.

Understanding and acknowledging that assumptions exist in our own analytical world will free us to challenge each other on those assumptions more often. We will all be better off for it.

I recommend that Web Analytics Practitioners read this article.

A single copy of the full journal reviewed above is available to members of the Web Analytics Association. To request a copy, email .

4-Jan-10 9:00 AM

Are Your Business Goals Aligned with Insights drawn from Your Web Analytics?

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:00:00 GMT

The world of online marketing is evolving fast and 2010 promises to be explosive in terms of social media engagement. The extent of accurate measurement of these efforts is going to play a major deciding role in differentiating all business successes. Measuring your web engagements , be it the website or the social media efforts, isn’t about the volume; it’s about identifying the critical few performance indicators that aligns with your goals, assists with insights and eventually drives the business forward.

Web Analytics is the biggest weapon available to businesses of all size in their battle for insights. Yet, while currently about 70% of consumers are shopping online at least once, researches have revealed that nearly 60% of the businesses still under utilize this critical power house of online customer information. The biggest data management revolution in recent years has happened in the form of free Analytics tools from Google & Yahoo. A lot more followed, but Google Analytics still commands the major market share due to the simplicity of its installation and constantly expanding robust reporting features.

I have always been a huge fan of simple & holistic approach to solutions.

Here’s a basic 4 step analysis model I’ve been following for quite some time and currently implement at Curve Trends Marketing. This has more than enabled me to gain business insights and action on:

Prospect Acquisition, Retention & Conversion
Nurture Existing Customers

while deriving outcomes in terms of

Lower Costs
Increased Revenue
Improved Customer Experience

Step 1 - Assess the Current State of your Business	Gain Insights and Action on Prospect Acquisition, Retention & Conversion Nurture Existing Customers	Step 2 - Identify goals, establish benchmarks & report on basic key metrics that drives visitor behavior
Step 4 - Answer the “Why” in Customer Behavior - Qualitative Analysis , Usability Testing & Competitive Analysis	Derive Outcomes Lower Costs Increased Revenue Improved Customer Experience	Step 3 - Customize the “Critical Few” actionable "Key Performance Indicators” Dashboard that is Unique to Your Goals & Your Customers

If you are currently new to the concept of Web Analytics tools or just getting acquainted with customer behavior through click stream analysis, you might want to start taking those tiny incremental steps of establishing your basic metrics first.

Basic Metrics

Visitors & Unique Visits
Bounce Rates
Exit Rate
Sources Of Traffic
Popular Content & Landing pages

But once you are ready to dive deeper into your customer world, it becomes imperative that you start pursuing the advanced segmentation & analysis.

No advanced analysis can be complete without understanding the “why” in customer behavior. Why did they come to your web site? Why did they react the way they did? Why did they leave? Did they get confused with the layout? What were they crazy about? Customer surveys, benchmarking, A/B testing (where you test 2 different versions of the web page) are some common channels for answering these questions. Capturing the voice of customer (VOC), will enhance your user experience & improve customer satisfaction.

Advanced Analysis

Segmentation
Understanding Intent of Visit
Customized Traffic Source Analysis
Multichannel Measurement Including Offline Efforts & Social Media Campaigns

They say “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”. Unless you understand the modus operandi of your competition, you will not be able to set yourself apart. Competitive Intelligence helps to understand industry trends that integrates with the insights derived from Web Analytics and enhances your outcomes. There are several free tools including Google’s Insights for Search available to help you accomplish your competitive analysis.

Whatever you do, always remember the key to your success lies with identifying your unique Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), for objectives you have set for your online actions, before starting to monitor and measure them.

Still unsure? Or are you already an Analytics Ninja? Let us know your role and how you are leveraging this powerful tool to drive your business.

Wishing you a safe ,successful & measurable 2010!

-Bibi

3-Jan-10 11:00 AM

The Most Important Analytics Reference Document: Definitions

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:00:00 GMT

There is an “analytics” document which is often overlooked in the operational rush to measure and then analyze the results of the Web effort. It is a simple reference document that will help you understand and use the metrics available to you. In fact, it will tell you what information is available to you. It is also invaluable in helping your IT department to understand what information you need and which they need to plan for. This article will discuss what to include in a “Data Definitions” document.

The Data Definitions document is a simple list of all the metrics that are collected about your site. It reflects your information architecture. It may be owned by Marketing, IT, the Analytics group, the Information Architect, or some other group within the organization. It will benefit all. It is particularly important for large organizations with many people and for Web sites collecting large sets of data about their pages. This document is guaranteed to save hours and hours of time, effort, and massive amounts of misunderstanding.

Variables

The first step in creating your document is to list all the variables you collect about your site. A variable is just a term that designates a container into which data values are passed. Below are a few examples for a Media site. These are the “Business Names” for the variables and they should be short and matter-of-fact descriptive. (No marketing buzz words, in other words.)

Business Name

Page Name

Site Name

Content Hierarchy

Topic

Page Type

Application/Tool

Module + Link

Server + Beacon

Sponsor ID

Collecting this list should be a relatively straight forward task. The list of variables will be in your tracking systems. If you do not know what they are already, you’re Analytics Product Manager or your IT department should be able to provide them, even if they don’t yet have sensible Business names.

Definitions

The heart of this document is information about what the data means. This goes a long way to make sure everyone within the organization is on the same page about what is being tracked and why. More specifically, each variable should have the following information:

What is it?
Provide a brief description of the type of information the variable is supposed to contain. You should be clear and concise. Make sure you are not sacrificing clarity for trivia that adds no real value. Direct and succinct declarative sentences are almost always better.
How is it used?
This is a high level description of how the Business will use the information, the reason for all the effort involved to collect it. Again, you should be clear and concise. If you can’t identify specific action items that will be taken as a result of knowing this information, it may only be data noise and not worth collecting.
The format of the values.
Sometimes the values have a specific format or form they follow. Provide the expected format.
Example values.
Provide some example values. This goes a long way to helping everyone understand the data and what can be expected.
Data population rules.
Values are often set when certain conditions exist or there are rules for how the value is determined. Provide a brief description of these rules so everyone has a clear understanding of what is being tracked.
How is the value collected?
Values can be set by different systems and in different ways or even manually. Indicate where the value comes from and what person or group owns the system.
Who decides the value?
Identify who or what group decides what a given value will be. It may be a system that determines the specific value. This will provide the go-to people for questions about the value.
Related documentation.
Often there is more information in other documentation; information that is too big or tangential for the definitions document but that staff should be aware of. Add a link to that documentation.

The various items in this list will likely come from multiple sources within your organization. For example, the Business Managers, Marketing, your Analytics Department, or your Developers. Here are two examples of descriptions:

Simple Example 1:

Definition

Publication Source identifies the publication company and the product line for third party content. It is used by Editorial to track the effectiveness of content and manage the third-party contractual obligations.

Format: [companyName]-[publicationSource]

Example values: “timewarner-cookinglight”, “mrthstwrt-everydayfood”

It is a concatenation of two values passed from Documentum: Company Name and Publication Source. The values are separated by a “-“. If no value is passed, the beacon will pass a value of “ntc”. The beacon will change all values to lower case.

The values are determined by the Affiliate group and selected in the CMS to be set on the page.

Complex Example 2:

Definition

This variable can contain several different values related to Boards, Blogs, or similar Community applications and depending on the site.

Main Site:

Boards: This is the Alpha-Numeric code identifying the message board action taken by the visitor.

Format: command=[command id]

Example Values: “command=view_thread_summary”, “command=view_category_folder”, “command=read_thread&threadid=8964bb9c”

Examples of board actions include: Post, Edit, View, etc. The individual thread views (read_thread) are identified by individual thread ID. The other commands are roll ups across all threads

The values are passed from the WebCrossing system and the values are system values.

Blog: The variable contains the name of the blog and is a roll up of several blog pages. (Note the individual pages are passed in Page Name).

Format: blog:[blog-name]

Example values: “blog:all-rabbits”, “blog:life-with-dogs”, “blog:sexual-health-of-livestock”

The values are passed from the WebCrossing system and the values are determined by Editorial staff, specifically the blog moderator.

Pet Health Community: The variable contains the identifier of an individual thread.

Format: blog: ph-[threadID]

Example value: ph-dis-147/3

The values are passed from the WebCrossing system and the thread ID is system determined.

Lifestyles Site:

Boards: This is the code identifying the message board action taken by the visitor.

Format: command=[command id]

Example Values: “command=view_discussion”, “command=view_folder”, “command=reply_to_message”

The command values are unique to this implementation and will not collide with Main Site values. The values are passed from the WebCrossing system and are system determined.

Blog: The variable contains the name of the blog and is a roll up of several blog pages. (Note the individual pages are passed in Page Name).

Format: blog:[Vanity-uri]

Example values: “blog:thedifferential”, “blog:runningbackwards”, “blog:rblakeley”, “blog:worsthomerecipies”

Each time a blog page name is passed into the Page Name variable, pass the Vanity URI into this variable. The vanity uri is the vanity URL without the domain.

The values are passed from the Web Crossing system. The vanity URI is derived by the system from the user entered blog name.

Variable System Names

The variable names that your systems know and that your Development staff knows may not be the Business names. To make sure everyone knows what is being talked about, these system names should be included for each variable. This provides an essential mapping across various systems and individuals (think of it as a kind of Rosetta stone). This information will come from your System Managers and Developers.

In the example below, the first column is Omniture based, the second is for internal scripting, and the third is for the Documentum CMS (Content Management System). The systems you use will likely be different, but you get the concept.

Omniture Field Name	De Field	CMS	Business Name
Account	s_cid		Account
pageName	s_pn	From Documentum: Page Name (de_w_nm)	Page Name
pageType	s_er		Error Page Indicator
channel	s_chn		Undefined
Hier1	s_hier1		Content Hierarchy
Prop1	s_site		Site Name
Prop2	s_subject s_cn is a deprecated value.	Documentum: Primary Subject Code (de_r_prm_id)	Subject

Putting It Together

Here is how all our example columns will lay out:

Omniture Field Name	De Field	CMS	Business Name	Definition
Value	Value	Value	Value	Value

This can become a big document. I have one on legal sized paper that runs 29 pages, printed on both sides. It may take some effort to create and maintain this document.. But you can see how useful it is to have a Data Definitions reference document. (Granted, the title of this article is a little exaggerated). If your organization does not already have one, you should make the effort to create one or have one created.

Lastly, once created, be sure it is put in a place on your network that everyone can find and access it.

Robert Blakeley is the product manager for WebMD’s analytics tool. Mr. Blakeley has worked in the Internet industry since 1993 and has worked with many companies and government agencies. These include the Direct Marketing Association, International Council of Shopping Centers, Atlantic City and the City University of New York. He can be reached at rblakeley@webmd.net. More articles by Robert Blakeley can be found at www.rblakeley.com/webwork/articles.shtml. ã 2008 Robert Blakeley.

4-Nov-09 4:00 PM

Modeling the Determinants and Effects of Creativity in Advertising

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Smith, Robert E, MacKenzie, Scott B., Yang, Xiaojing, Buchholz, Laura M., Darley, William K. (2007). Modeling the Determinants and Effects of Creativity in Advertising. Marketing Science, Vol. 26, No. 6. pp. 819-833, 15 pages.

Reviewed by Christopher Berry, October 2009

Executive Summary:

Smith et al get straight to the point in their opening line: “Marketing researchers and practitioners agree that creativity is one of the essential elements for advertising success in a cluttered marketplace”.

Their study is aimed at defining ad creativity, measuring it, and examining its determinants.

The article examines previous methodologies of defining ad creativity and produces a better one. They identify two concepts in their literature review, divergence and relevance, as being the primary variables in defining creativity. They define divergence being ‘originality’ – how much a particular ad stands out from the pack. They define ‘relevance’ as “the extent to which at least some ad/brand elements are meaningful, useful, or valuable to the consumer”.

They infer that ads with low divergence and high relevance are easy to miss and ignore in a cluttered landscape, while ads with high divergence and high relevance are the most effective.

The authors do not (refreshingly) start from scratch. Instead, they go about refining previous definitions of both divergence and relevance using a survey methodology to gradually reduce the number of questions pertaining to each group and their relative impacts on ‘creativity’. These include questions like “The product or brand was meaningful to me”, “The ad demanded my attention”, and “The production elements of the ad were of high quality”.

Then they showed students a number of ads which included award winning ones – making the assumption that award winning ads would be judged more creative. Students were asked the shortlist of questions based on the authors’ operational definition of creativity and evaluated the effectiveness of their model. Their model is a series of questions, grouped thematically into groups and indexed, then treated like independent variables to explain variation in a dependent variable: creativity. They found that award winning ads indeed tended to be more creative.

They found that divergence is the leading indicator of creativity. Interestingly, they found that creativity was very strongly correlated with attention to the ad, but not to purchase intent.

Review:

The article will be of particular interest to web analytics practitioners and managers in very brand oriented companies.

A practitioner can borrow from this methodology to add detail to their analysis of why different pieces of creative worked, and why some were less than successful. It might also inform a range of informed hypotheses that could be progressively A/B tested. They might do this by using the survey questions (helpfully listed in Appendix A) and evaluate the ads themselves, or, use the questions to survey customers directly themselves. The answers could be put into a spreadsheet or statistical software and compared with the actual performance of specific ads, be it display, video, social, search, or on-site promotion. An analyst could then correlate creativity to various metrics, including attention, clickthrough, and ultimately conversion. Not that the analysis would be completely fair or necessarily perfect in assigning ROI, but it would yield actionable insight.

The authors go one step further, where I think web analytics should go: “In addition, it seems time for marketing research to move beyond the attentional effects of ad creativity and investigate its role in the persuasion process.”

Practitioners steeped in the direct response world might question the real role of creativity in ads. Indeed, much of the dialogue in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) world (possibly the closest thing to ‘direct’ marketers we have in digital) focuses on the questions of rank, price, and keyword relevancy. There are 95 precious characters that go into a Google Adword Unit. How important is divergence? How important is relevance? There’s an opportunity, using this framework, to explore the effects of creativity on conversion. The same could be said for landing page optimization from a purely web analyst point of view.

I would recommend this article to web analytics practitioners and managers who are particularly concerned with the role of ad creativity and its correlation to various metrics: including ROI.

A single copy of the full journal reviewed above is available to members of the Web Analytics Association. To request a copy, email .

6-Oct-09 8:00 AM

Firm-Created Word-of-Mouth Communication: Evidence from a Field Test

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Godes, David, Mayzlin, Dina., (2009). Firm-Created Word-of-Mouth Communication: Evidence from a Field Test. Marketing Science, Vol. 28, No. 4. 19 pages.

Reviewed by Jim Novo, 2009

Executive Summary:

The authors investigate the effectiveness of a firm proactively managing customer-to-customer communication. In particular, they are interested in proving how, if at all, a firm should go about effecting a meaningful word-of-mouth (WOM) communications program. This is done through two different data collection schemes: a large scale, 15 market test through BzzAgent with a client restaurant chain, and also through a controlled online experiment. The results are somewhat counterintuitive and may change the way web analysts and Marketers should be thinking about WOM and social analysis, particularly if there is a hard monetary investment in the WOM program.

Specially, the researchers are trying to answer 2 questions:

What kind of WOM maximizes incremental Sales?

The answer: WOM created by less loyal (not highly loyal) customers, and occurring between acquaintances (not friends). Though perhaps surprising, this result is often found in Marketing program measurement; Sales would occur anyway without the program, especially among best customers. Said another way, the results demonstrate the pitfalls of not using control groups (people not exposed to the campaign) to accurately measure Marketing effectiveness.

Which kinds of people are most effective at creating the WOM above?

The answer: “Opinion Leaders” or “Fans” are not as effective in spreading WOM that drives incremental Sales because these efforts are “preaching to the choir”, per #1 above. The networks that opinion leaders or fans have are likely to already know about the Product from pre-existing conversations, and spending money on creating a campaign to reach these people is ineffective because the social communication has already taken place.

In sum, if you want to invest in a WOM program that will drive Sales you would not have received anyway, you want the WOM conversations happening, as the authors say, “where none would have naturally occurred otherwise”.

As is typical of academic research and testing, there is an extensive review of the results of other WOM Marketing studies all the way back to the 1970s upon which the hypothesis for this test was formulated.

Review:

This is a classic piece of research that is not only helpful for the evidence and results produced, but also demonstrates a great many ideas and techniques that should be employed in Marketing analysis. Some of the concepts could very well be used to bring more precise definitions and measurement practices for WOM and the social construct in general to the web analytics community.

The discussion of the difference between the need for a persuasive argument versus building awareness is something web analysts should keep in mind so they can make sure they understand the real needs of the Marketer or Product Manager. For products with high awareness already, what is really needed to increase Sales in persuasion of the people already aware, not more awareness. New products with zero awareness obviously need increased awareness.

Per this study, this persuasion versus awareness question affects the choice of who to recruit for WOM campaigns. Loyal customers are the best persuaders and are best used when the product already has high awareness. If you want to drive sales through increased awareness – the goal of many WOM campaigns online – you should be recruiting less loyal customers and encouraging them to talk not to their friends, but to their acquaintances. This approach appears to be contrary to the “opinion leader” or “fan” approach now thought of as best practices. Because of this, a lot of books on social marketing may need to be rewritten, at least as they pertain to generating incremental Sales…

At the very least, some of the discussions around tracking or proving the value of social media need to change given the results of these tests. Seems to me a test like this that is carefully executed using the scientific method is what social advocates have been dreaming of, yet the results don’t lean in the direction these folks generally support. It will be interesting to read their reactions, if any. After all, many online Marketers really don’t care if programs generate profit and are more comfortable following the ancient offline mantra of “any exposure is good”.

As a practical implementation matter, the above suggests changes to the design of many WOM programs and any incentives provided, depending on the goal of the WOM program. The most common program structure – to look for opinion leaders that have lots of “followers” - generates more sales when the product already has high awareness, a situation that requires persuasion. Yet online, this program structure is often used to introduce brand new products. The implication is perhaps this: when launching a new product, the Social programs focused on Opinion Leaders or Fans should be implemented after Advertising has created awareness to maximize their effectiveness.

The more difficult question to answer from an implementation perspective is this: if you want to generate awareness, how do you recruit less loyal customers (not fans) and have them spread the word not to their friends, but acquaintances?

One answer to this question is forced by one of the brilliant ideas in the test design. The authors used BzzAgent in perhaps an unexpected way – not as the hip, cool people who are thought leaders with lots of followers, but as a group of people who were not customers of the product at all and are simply paid to spread the word. It is this group that generated the highest incremental sales.

The opposing group – best customers in the restaurant loyalty program – did not generate as much incremental Sales activity as the BzzAgent crew. This makes sense because among the loyalty program customers, most of their good friends probably were already aware of the restaurant through casual conversation. In other words, the available audience “to be made aware for the first time” was much smaller with loyal customers.

There were some non-controllable issues in the field test that may have affected the outcome, such as different demographics between the BzzAgent people and loyal customers of the restaurant chain. This is common in field tests, but contrary to what we usually see with success stories outlined in by vendors in the online marketing space, these issues were actively researched by the authors and completely disclosed, leaving it up to the reader to decide if these issues nullified the results in any way. Extensive mathematical simulations were run and the potential for any of these issues to significantly affect results discarded.

Personally, I would have preferred to see split market testing, where not all 15 markets in the chain were involved in the test and results compared to this not-involved control group. I’d guess the nature of the work done by BzzAgent and the operating methodology of the restaurant precluded this structure for the test.

Plus, the authors counter these challenges with a very clever solution - creating an online test where they completely controlled all variables. The design of this test was ingenious, but more importantly, the results confirmed those of the field test – the effectiveness of WOM programs depend a lot on whether a product needs awareness or persuasion to drive incremental Sales, who exactly is doing the buzzing, and to whom. Once again, generating conversations where they did not already exist is the key to driving incremental Sales, and this is most likely to occur when less loyal customers spread WOM to acquaintances.

At the risk of repeating myself but understanding the results of this study will be met with a lot of skepticism, this kind of effect is seen in Marketing measurement all the time, and especially so when Marketing to best customers. So the results are not really surprising in any way; it is often difficult to drive incremental Sales when Marketing to best customers because they are highly likely to buy anyway without any Marketing effort, and interactivity simply amplifies this phenomenon. The results of this study fit right into the existing model hand and glove.

The good news for online social buzz advocates is this: online WOM can drive incremental Sales – which is no surprise, given the decades of data from offline studies – and a scientifically designed and executed study proves that. The not so good news is WOM drives incremental Sales when implemented very differently than the way most people currently approach the challenge. The question, as always with Marketing programs like this, is did you make more money that you spent? I’d venture a guess there are a lot of “preaching to the choir” programs going on in social right now that are not profitable.

As a Marketing person, this is what the research means to me. WOM will spread all by itself among Opinion Leaders and Fans, so one should be careful with investing in this area and be clear that persuasion is the result, not awareness. On the other hand, WOM for awareness can be invested in when it’s somewhat intrusive, passed by less loyal customers to acquaintances. In other words, WOM drives awareness when the execution is similar to Advertising, creating conversations where they did not already exist. But this notion of “Intrusive Social” creates somewhat of a Paradox for many of the Social advocates who view intrusive practices to be “anti-Social”. One has to wonder if when it comes to generating awareness, Advertising might be the better way to go.

This research is a great piece of work from a couple of very creative analysts, and well worth your time to review. Also, a hat tip to BzzAgent for being so open with their practices and sharing the data for this very important study.

If you are primarily a Marketing person and more interested in the end Behavior than the Analytics, just skip over the Math sections, as these submissions are peer-reviewed and would not be published if the Math (or test design, for that matter) were faulty. As such, in your pile of research on Social, this piece should be given a lot of weight. Junk science doesn’t make it to publication in the academic journal world – as opposed to many of those blogs you probably read!

A single copy of the full journal reviewed above is available to members of the Web Analytics Association. To request a copy, email .

21-Sep-09 10:00 AM

September 2009 Featured Article: Unica

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Using web analytics to complete the circle of Life Time Value, not a replacement.

You’ve had your web analytics solution for a while, you’re finally getting around to all those great features and functions that you emphasized to justify resources and expense.... but what about the actual data/information itself that your web site has been pumping into the solution for months/years? Are you getting the most out of that strategic asset?

One of the most exciting things about analytics is being able to manipulate data and address specific business issues with the functionality available at your fingertips (theoretically) yet often times this isn’t the case in practice. For a variety of reasons, practitioners spend a great deal of time engaged in the manual and technical tasks of set-up and validation to answer a historical reporting question asked for by the business days ago. How is that us analysts can break through both of those barrier?

Driving down the latency from a business person’s request to a valid data-driven response?
Offering business people an increasing choice of intelligence, including both historical reports and analysis (what happened?) as well as predictive analysis (what do we believe is going to happen and which visitors do we believe are going to exhibit a certain behavior in the future?)

More and more often companies are asking web analysts to quantify the value of visitor. As practitioners in the data mining world are well aware, this is a complex analysis to perform and not something typically found falling out of a “report”. What they also know, however, is that an accurate LTV in conjunction with other predictive attributes often becomes the basis for implementing highly targeted “Longitudinal” (staged messaging over a period time) messaging strategies. The great news in today’s market is that the tools to perform this critical analysis are finding their way into the toolbox of the web analyst and stand to forever enhance both the their standing and value to senior executives and stakeholders.

What are those tools and how can web analysts begin figuring out how to use them?

The primary tools are not just software products, though software plays a vital role.

First of all, an analyst needs an analytical data mart of web behavioral information at the individual visitor level. This type of analysis is not done in the aggregate.

Secondly, the analyst needs to understand the nature of customer’s engagement with their company and fully understand the data itself. In order to use data to model behavior, the analyst’s role is to see through the noise and run valid experiments using raw data, derived variables, roll-ups, etc.

Third, the analyst needs at least 2 critical software capabilities:

They need an analytical solution that gives them the flexibility to manipulate the data and visualize it as you would in traditional reporting, but it must be highly dynamic- this is a real-time iterative business problem, not a batch reporting one.
They need an easy to use statistical mining application that can consume the working file of analytical data, determine the appropriate statistical algorithm and variables for answering the question at hand, and the automated ability to build/train/deploy a completed model. The last critical piece of necessary functionality/capability is part technical, part business process. The analyst needs to champion a closed-loop process for enhancing their web data mart with their predictions and tracing actual behavior (regardless of channel) to determine the success of their predictive experiment.

One of the most exciting aspects of Unica’s entrée to the web analytics marketplace is our deep experience in helping companies implement this sort of analytical rigor and the very unique set of web analytical and predictive solutions that can help a web analyst who is today doing reporting become a web analyst who is briefing executives on how customers and visitors are going to behave in the future and how much they are worth to the company.

About the Authors

Lee Isensee, Marketing Architect, has been in online delivery, ecommerce, and analytics for 15 years and is highly regarded for his work in web analytics and attrition measurement, conversion optimization as well as enterprise data warehouse integration.

Rick Fuller, Account Manager, has been in the marketing automation and web analytics space for a decade. Rick's background and experience includes BI/OLAP, online personalization, web analytics and traditional direct marketing technology solutions.

8-Sep-09 10:00 AM

Can Using Real-Time, Raw Data Be Cost Effective? Opening Up the Discussion

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Web Analytics Guru Avinash Kaushik has outlined in his book that the ROI you can get from leveraging real-time, raw data is so low it does not make sense for most companies to implement it or care about it. His conclusions are not based on the inherent inutility of using real-time raw data but rather the cost and complexity hurdles that have to be surmounted in order to get the kind of ROI that would make this type of analytics solutions justifiable.

And since most of us are fans and students of his book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day (I include myself in both of these categories) we do not take issue with this idea; also we do not take issue with it because his book is so chock full of pearls of wisdom that everyone gleans some insights from it regardless of their level of experience.

However I want to open up for discussion on how working with real time raw data can be cost effective. And, it can provide greater ROI if and only if the analytics product’s surrounding eco-system is set up in a way that enables the data to be leveraged effectively. In fact, my theory is that:

Real Time Data Can be Leveraged Cost Effectively
Both Real Time and Raw Data have Beneficial Repercussions throughout every Analysis
Both Real Time and Raw Data Create More Actionable Metrics
Real Time Raw Data Ensures Greater Accuracy (no caching) and Timeliness
Real Time Raw Data Future-Proofs Your Analytics Solution

I absolutely agree with Avinash Kaushik that real-time data does not matter to a company unless they will actually take action on the reports; that is what in the long run drives the ROI of the tool.

In general however the ROI on any analytics tool will be greater if each person on every team that touches the website has the power and the understanding to create little frequent changes; i.e the power of crowd-sourcing for managing a large, dispersed multi-national website is immensely greater than having one smart analyst in one location interpreting all the data. No matter how smart they are, one analyst can never react in a timely enough manner, nor in a localized enough manner, nor even be able to digest all the complex statistics fast enough to glean the insights that create the actions that drive the ROI.

Therefore, if each person on each team can react daily to even just one real time data point, you will be creating a competitive advantage over those that have only one analyst in a lagged time frame. The actions will be created by those that are familiar with the data and in a time frame that provides real monetary value ( Just think of the rapid changes that create additional revenue in eCommerce, Travel, News Content, Trend Marketing, etc.)

Therefore the tool you choose needs to complement the real time data with an easy to use interface and unique user management so that each marketing person can have the metrics that matter to them provided to them on a daily basis. If each person is responsible for certain KPIs ( Key Performance Indicators) and the tool provides an intuitive enough interface or an export capability so that these people will potentially not even have to learn how to use the tool, then you have a winning combination. Real time data with unique user management and easy to understand reporting is very effective and can drive the ROI required. However, you have to have the complete eco-system in one tool and at a reasonable price point in order to make implementing it worthwhile.

And, even more importantly, I would agree with Avinash that you need to also ask yourself whether your website gets enough visitors exhibiting the right behavior to ensure that the real time data choices you make will result in statistically significant outcomes. He does confirm that “..statistical significance is not just about raw numbers..” but more about the impact of the changes you can make in real time. However, if it is clear that your business can impact the ROI by leveraging real time data, then you should also be looking for a tool that can handle significant volumes of data in real time with ease (i.e. as much as 1B page impressions a month) If you have a large amount of data that you are processing then even smaller changes you make can have quite a large monetary impact.

The same idea is pervasive about leveraging raw data for analytics – i.e. it might be great in theory, but provides poor ROI because it is too costly.

However, having the raw data enables complete flexibility in every analysis, as well as future proofs your analytics solution – increasing the tools’ long term value and again providing more effective ROI.

When all data can be correlated in any way in all time periods, this enables much more detailed views, segmentation, and most importantly, retro-active on-the-fly queries. In other tools you need to know ahead of time what sort of analysis you think will be important in the future; with the raw data you can slice and dice the data any way you would like at any moment. You can add any special unique metrics in any time frame. Therefore leveraging raw data becomes imperative as you compare and contrast different campaign success metrics in different time periods ( Even Avinash Kaushik cites that as your “..strategic objectives evolve [y]ou should expect a 20% churn in your main KPIs every six months…if they are not changing at least that much, either not a single dimension of your business has changed on the Web in that time (highly unlikely) or your KPIs are stale.. ” p.349.)

In addition, raw data’s ability to provide a granular enough view so that you will get user level data also makes the ROI on the tool much higher than those tools giving you aggregated information. Who wouldn’t want to receive a timely email with a special discount coupon for a pair of pants that you had just put in your shopping cart but then abandoned because they were too expensive?

Thus, the level of detail that raw data provides creates action oriented metrics – not vanity metrics. For example, knowing that your conversion rate is increasing is great and can make a website owner proud (i.e. vanity metrics) but what are the next steps that one should take to continue to help increase this traffic? High conversion rates could be the result of non-reproduce- able actions, such as moving out a deeply discounted product line. With a raw data based analytics solution, you can drill down to find out exactly how this conversion rate was increased and by which visitor segments on which search engines, thus enabling the online marketer to know exactly what action to take next (i.e. buy more keywords on certain search engines, reach out to certain publishers, etc.)

Thus, granular, extensive, sophisticated data analysis along with the ability to perform any retro-active analysis on the fly is the key to providing better ROI and getting longer term value from your analytics tool.

In sum, real-time raw data actually can be cost effective if the attributes of the tool enable your team to leverage action-oriented metrics now as well as any unknown future metrics at a reasonable price point.

About Cecily Robyn Lough

Cecily Robyn Lough is currently Director of International Sales at Webtrekk GmbH in Berlin, Germany. She has over 15 years experience in pulling actionable insights from online marketing data. She believes that Webtrekk’s current analytics solution does have the ability to make raw, real-time data cost effective for web sites that need up to a billion pieces of data segmented on-the-fly. Please contact her (details below) for more information or connect up with her at at Webtrekk and LinkedIn.

11-Aug-09 4:00 PM

AT Internet Reveals its Achievements of 2009, Demonstrating considerable growth and international expansion

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:00:00 GMT

Bordeaux, 26th January 2010 – AT Internet, leading International web and mobile analytics company announces its achievements of 2009 including a new partner in Brazil and a new Data Centre in China in 2009. AT Internet was founded in 1995 and with 3,500 clients it is now the number one analytics software provider in Europe by number of clients and in France by turnover, as well as measured page impressions. AT Internet, still a private family owned business, has experienced growth on average (over the last three years) of 30%, reaching a turnover of 8 Million Euros in 2008. Turnover for 2009 is estimated at more than 9 Million Euros. 2009 saw 150 new clients added to its already significant portfolio, some of which include: The England 2018 FIFA World Cup™ bid; Kingdom of Bahrain; Microsoft Europe; Axel Springer International AG; Carrefour; Styria Media Group; Schibsted and the University of Staffordshire. AT Internet continues to fulfil its international expansion...

Nedstat and Kampyle partner to combine customer feedback with web analytics

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Ramat-Gan, Israel, and Amsterdam, 26 January 2010 - Kampyle, a provider of feedback analytics to web sites and companies, today announced it has become an official partner of Nedstat's technology platform RING™. Customers using the joint solution can merge real-time user feedback with online analytics data to receive more insight into what users want, and connect personally with them to help foster brand loyalty, and improve revenue, conversions and user experience. A software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, Kampyle answers the critical why behind user behaviour, helping companies directly address and improve their offerings to enhance online engagement and customer service. The Kampyle customer feedback data is integrated with Nedstat’s Sitestat, a solution that empowers marketers to optimise customer interactions and improve conversions by making online experiences more personalised and relevant. The Nedstat and Kampyle integration helps companies use authentic customer...

Turnkey Web Analytics in a Box Appliance

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:00:00 GMT

TURN KEY WEB ANALYTICS IN A BOX APPLIANCE POWERED BY CORADIANT Google Partnership Brings First of Its Kind, Easy to Deploy Web Analytics Solution SAN DIEGO – December 9, 2009 – Coradiant Inc., a leader in Web Application Performance Management, today announced the immediate availability of Analytics In A Box, powered by Coradiant technology, a secure, turn key appliance that passively taps and collects Web traffic data and provides complete reports via Google's Urchin Web analytics software, which is tightly integrated with the appliance. Organizations benefit from a lower total cost of ownership, and quicker access to market intelligence via on-demand analytics. IT operations are streamlined by eliminating log file maintenance and reducing JavaScript tagging. Analytics In A Box deploys behind corporate firewalls; data is securely stored within the appliance, reducing privacy and security concerns. Analytics In A Box provides a comprehensive view into customer Web...

Constructing Web Analytics

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:00:00 GMT

BUENOS AIRES, Nov. 25 – Last Friday 20 November, at Palermo University a new edition of HOWA –Hands on Web Analytics– took place with the participation of the most outstanding experts on Web Analytics of Latin America. HOWA/BA 2009 began with the welcome words of Jim Sterne and Avinash Kaushik. The chairman of the Web Analytics Association spoke of the relevance events like HOWA have: “South America has started like blossom as a center for Web Analytics… and it takes people as Juan who are willing to fan the flames and raise the interest…” After that, Avinash Kaushik explained the importance of analyzing data: “the web is revolutionizing how we engage our customers and is the data in the center of that existence that helps you understand your consumers like no other channel on the planet”. HOWA presented the audience with an exceptional agenda of world class speakers who succeeded in maintaining the HOWA spirit: Enrique...

Nedstat launches advanced Campaign Attribution

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Amsterdam, 8 December 2009 – Nedstat announces the release of its advanced Campaign Attribution feature in Sitestat. Campaign managers can more precisely than ever determine what the contribution of their different online campaign channels was to sales. The new insights provide a clear understanding of the true performance of each campaign, allowing marketers to allocate budgets more effectively and increase returns on campaign spend. An online sale often results from various marketing touch points a consumer had with a company. He or she may have reached the company’s website by clicking on a certain keyword, two days later on a link in an e-mail newsletter and one day later again through an affiliate network. When all of these activities result in a sale, the question is which campaign channel gets what part of the credit. Traditional analytics solutions typically give the credit to either the first or the last campaign channel, in many cases leading to inaccurate...

AT Internet announces the release of BuzzWatcher

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:00:00 GMT

The first application of its kind to be fully integrated within a Web & Mobile Analytics platform Bordeaux, France, 25th November 2009 - AT Internet, a leading international Online Intelligence company has today announced the release of BuzzWatcher, a website monitoring service that allows customers to measure the buzz and online reputation of their products and services. AT Internets’ buzz analysis tool can be integrated as part of a web and mobile analytics platform allowing customers to get a 360 degree view of their on-line marketing activities and the impact on their on-line reputation. This allows modern marketers the ability to make strategic marketing decisions based on up-to-the-minute information. BuzzWatcher measures activity on social media channels (including social networks, video platforms, RSS feeds, blogs etc,) in real time. The data generated by BuzzWatcher can be filtered by keyword and/or channel, and can also be used to focus on a particular area such as...

iPerceptions Acquires WASP Product Line to Empower Site Owners to Optimize Web Analytics Performance

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:00:00 GMT

NEW YORK--(Business Wire)-- iPerceptions Inc. (TSX.V:IPE), a leading provider of Voice of Customer web analytics, announced today that it has acquired the groundbreaking Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP) product line to continue to empower site owners with powerful tools to improve web analytics implementation. The WASP tools complement iPerceptions 4Q and WebValidator solutions by providing site owners and web analytics professionals with an easy and low-cost way to do quality assurance, understand how their web analytics solution is implemented, and make fixes that improve data quality. iPerceptions will continue to make the existing product line, including a free test drive version, available through Web Analytics Solution Provider as part of its solution suite. We are seeing a pronounced shift towards tactical insights in the world of web analytics, said iPerceptions President and CEO Claude Guay. To achieve tactical results, organizations must begin to put muscle behind...

Stream Sense supports native HTML5 video

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Amsterdam, 27 October 2009 - Nedstat announces the release of native HTML5 video support for Stream Sense™, the most accurate and comprehensive online video analytics application in the market. HTML5 is the next major revision of HTML and supports video without additional plug-ins. Stream Sense™ is already compliant with all browsers that currently support HTML5 video. Sitestat customers that are field testing with HTML5 video can use Stream Sense™ and get full insight into how their video content in HTML5 performs and direct feedback on how their visitors use it. HTML5 is a milestone that will have a big impact on how publishers and consumers use video, says Thomas Pottjegort, Senior Technical Architect at Nedstat who is leading the Stream Sense™ development team. Although HTML5 is still in working-draft status, it is important for our customers that we already provide this support so that they can report on all their video usage including what’s in trial with this new...

The New Experience - Announcing the Release of AnalyzerNX

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:00:00 GMT

PRESS RELEASE Bordeaux, France, – September 28th 2009 The New Experience Announcing the Release of AnalyzerNX Bordeaux, September 28th 2009 – AT Internet, leading International web and mobile analytics company today announces the launch of its brand new product AnalyzerNX. AnalyzerNX is part of AT Internet’s continuing advancement and leadership in Online Intelligence, the company now unveils the successor to Analyzer II: AnalyzerNX. This innovative solution is part of the unique Digital WorkSpaceNX. Based on fourteen years analytics experience the solution has been completely re-built from the ground up, considering all the needs of the modern, digitally enabled business and placing all the necessary decision-making tools at marketer’s finger tips. AnalyzerNX has a flexible and intuitive interface that guarantees quick and completely customisable access to information via the Digital WorkSpaceNX dashboard. The dashboards highly customisable nature allows users (which...

Nedstat announces e-mail optimisation upgrade

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Amsterdam, 28 September 2009 - Nedstat announces the next version of its e-mail optimisation application. With the addition of LIVE SEGMENTATION to the RING™ e-mail integration, online marketers can target their campaigns more granular than ever and achieve significantly higher conversions. The reporting directly shows the conversion uplift from re-mailings facilitating efficient, no- nonsense campaign management for marketers. The integration has been adopted by most leading e-mail providers throughout Europe. The new features dramatically elevate the targeting capabilities for e-mail campaigns. Sitestat's re-mail wizard which enables the instant selection of non-converters for targeted re-mailings has been augmented with the LIVE SEGMENTATION option. With a single mouse click, campaign managers can select any segment of their choice and focus re-mailings on even more refined groups of recipients. A new filter in LIVE SEGMENTATION enables an instant focus on visitors who had...

Vice President, Measurement Sciences sponsorship to live in Australia

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: Vice President, Measurement Sciences sponsorship to live in Australia Description: Company Overview Experian® Marketing Services is a leading global information services company that helps clients maximize their marketing investments and, through our expertise, target the right strategy and tactics to achieve their objectives. Our insight into client’s businesses enables them to find new customers, keep their best customers, forecast new markets and locations, and measure marketing effectiveness. Experian Hitwise is our global online audience measurement and competitive intelligence product line providing insights on how over 25 million internet users interact with millions of websites daily. We work with some of the largest commercial datasets measuring petabytes of online behavior on a monthly basis, all collected via a global distributed processing platform of hundreds of servers and measurement points. Our products provide online marketers the tools to maximize...

Senior Interactive Analyst (Contract)

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: Senior Interactive Analyst (Contract) Description: Experience: Exceptional Experience. Organic is all about the exceptional. We are a leading digital communications agency – the first, in fact – focused on designing and building exceptional experiences that help make the online channel really work for leading companies. We work on everything digital – from websites to online marketing campaigns, from mobile applications to digital billboards – for companies such as Chrysler Group LLC, Warner Bros. International, Geek Squad and Bank of America. We are passionate about emerging platforms, and this helps keep us on the edge of the hottest and most interesting stories in the industry. And, as a leader in the marketplace, we have the opportunity to work on really exciting projects. Organic has an open, diverse culture that encourages participation and innovation. We reward exceptional work and creative ideas. At Organic we believe in working hard and...

Global Director of Analytics

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: Global Director of Analytics Description: Our client is a leading software company based in the Bay area. They are looking for a leader for their digital analytics efforts. He/she will inherit a team of five analysts (online and offline) and will build the team over the next 12-24 months to eight. The Director, Web Analytics & Reporting will have the unique opportunity to help build an analytics proficiency for the organization, providing support that satisfies the demands of the key businesses. The Director will build, manage and lead a global team of web analytic managers and analyst to achieve business results. The Director is responsible for the collection, analysis and distribution of data supporting all critical businesses in the company. The Director is accountable for the creation and delivery of both standard and ad-hoc web analytics reports, as well as the implementation of strategic, analytical analyses to support the continual improvement of the...

Director, Web Analytics

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: Director, Web Analytics Description: Stylesight, the world's leading online trend forecasting service, has an immediate opening for a Director, Web Analytics. 0 0 0 The Director, Web Analytics will be responsible for proactively leveraging analytical insights from clickstream data to drive site optimization and decision making across the organization. Stylesight is made up of a team of seasoned and accomplished industry insiders whose extensive careers traverse the fields of fashion design, trend analysis, forecasting, reporting, merchandising and apparel manufacturing. We understand the business of fashion and fashion as a business. Required Experience: Online web analytics experience required. Minimum 5-7 years of experience providing relevant marketing and web analysis. Familiarity with web analytics implementation and HTML/Javascript coding Proficiency using site reporting/analytic tools such as Omniture, DFA, Webtrends, Visual Science,...

User Experience Analyst

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: User Experience Analyst Description: o Assist with and develop appropriate design documentation throughout the product lifecycle, including UX strategy documents, user interface prototypes, user interface specifications, site maps, flow diagrams, wireframes, and usability findings reports. o Work on the efforts to research and analyze user characteristics and needs through such techniques as user profiling, competitive analysis, contextual inquiries, and task analysis. o Participate on a team to develop use case scenarios that support product requirements. o Lead the effort to design innovative, conceptual prototypes that translate product requirements into screen flows and user interactions that constitute the user experience. o Work on the effort to prepare for, facilitate, and analyze the results of usability tests of the conceptual and detailed designs. o Iterate, based on frequent user feedback, the conceptual designs into detailed designs. o Collaborate with...

Web Analyst

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: Web Analyst Description: I. Primary Purpose We are seeking a highly qualified individual to join our talented team of professionals as a Web Analyst. The ideal candidate must be able to think not only quantitatively and analytically, but also creatively. This position will focus on all facets of analytics for online marketing and will be relied on to provide insightful analysis to make effective, data-driven recommendations for site enhancements, testing opportunities and increasing customer value. II. Key Responsibilities · Support the analytic needs for online marketing by analyzing data from a number of sources · Develop marketing dashboards, consolidate and validate the data and analyze KPI’s · Provide insights from the data to develop A/B and multivariate tests and create post-test analysis and recommendations · Deliverables to include weekly and monthly reports, and analysis of: website behavior, customer experience,...

Manager of Web Analytics

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: Manager of Web Analytics Description: This position will provide strategic input to senior management, focusing on: · Improving online conversion rates · Lowering customer acquisition costs · Increasing profit per visitor for multiple high-volume e-commerce web sites This will be accomplished by combining a solid understanding of our business with thorough analysis of both consumer behavior on our website and of specific marketing programs. This position will also guide the creation of requirements to enable our technical team to ensure that our analytical tools are in synch with the business’ needs. Required Experience: · Bachelor’s degree · Experience with Omniture’s Discover Product (aka Visual Workstation) · Experience accessing and querying databases · 5 years or more experience, at least 2 of which are focused on website analysis, and at least 1 of which is focused on marketing...

Online Marketing Manager, Email Marketing

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: Online Marketing Manager, Email Marketing Description: The Online Marketing Manager will manage Wirefly and partner’s email marketing programs. The manager will utilize aggressive testing to maximize campaign performance and isolate campaign driver effectiveness. EMAIL MARKETING RESPONSIBILITIES · Develop and implement effective e-mail marketing strategies including contact strategy, segmentation/ targeting, ongoing testing and content & creative optimization. · Perform detailed analysis across programs, campaigns and segments and make actionable recommendations for improvement. · Manage daily communication with external e-mail partner. · Ensure that the process (scheduling, development, set-up, review, QA, deployment, and reporting) is managed effectively. · Provide tactical recommendations on deliverability, creative, data hygiene, privacy and segmentation. · Coordinate and provide reporting to all...

Web Optimization Analyst

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: Web Optimization Analyst Description: Restaurant.com is seeking a Web Optimization Analyst to join the growing Insights and Analytics team. The Insights and Analytics team is responsible for spearheading data-driven strategy and recommendations across all facets of the business from website optimization to customer segmentation and business strategy. This is a mid-level position with the primary responsibility of managing the moving parts of analytics and reporting across restaurant.com web properties and business lines with an emphasis on testing and providing keen insight to the Marketing, Strategy, and Executive Teams. The ideal candidate will be an experienced web analyst with direct exposure to A/B/n split and multivariate testing (MVT) with extremely strong business and analytic acumen. Job Responsibilities include: 65% Collaborate with internal teams to develop clear business and measurement objectives Plan for accurately capturing end-to-end user interaction data...

Web Analytics Manager

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Title: Web Analytics Manager Description: Overview The Web Analytics Manager collaborates with internal departments and ensures that the data collection, analysis, reporting, and forecasting needs of the organization are met. The Web Analytics Manager plays a “hands-on” role helping to define the data, analytics, and reporting needs of the business and fulfilling those needs utilizing state of the art web analytic tools. Responsibilities Report on and analyze web traffic (type, volume, and path) and product performance for multiple product lines Utilize analytics data to assist in organizational decision-making Continually identify opportunities to improve reporting and analysis; create and refine key performance indicators (KPIs) Provide user-relevant reporting dashboards; create and maintain daily, weekly, or monthly summary reports, as necessary Conduct website behavior analysis including user path and site performance, and make recommendations as necessary ...

Manager User Experience

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:00:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Manager User Experience Experience: 2007-2008 Senior Analyst, Channel Analytics Web Strategy Group, Wealth Management Technology Solutions TD Waterhouse Ltd. Toronto, ON. Lead RFP web redesign initiative for TD Wealth web properties (www.TDWaterhouse.ca/WebBroker), inviting tier-1 web design agencies from North America to bid on project. Lead contact for agency communication; facilitated pitch meetings; wrote RFP; defined criteria and created comparison matrix to assist stakeholders in bid assessment; provided feedback throughout process. Redesign initiatives included persona development, qualitative analysis and redesign of web properties. Collaborated with TDCT EBank (parallel RFP initiative) in agency selection process to ensure one agency was signed for both redesign initiatives (provided assessment criteria was fairly met). Delivered dashboard for www.TDWaterhouse.ca and WebBroker depicting current visitor activity, VOC...

Web Analytics or Database/CRM Marketing

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:00:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Web Analytics or Database/CRM Marketing Experience: Professional Development FIGURS, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 05.06 - Founder & Principal Consultant CANADIAN TELEVISION FUND (CTF) 09.07 - VITAL INSIGHT GROUP; BMW 06.09 - 08.09 BLUE NORTH; LIVING WATER INTERNATIONAL 04.09 - 06.09 MARITZ CANADA; RESEARCH IN MOTION 07.08 - 04.09 DIGITAL CEMENT; KRAFT 05.08 - 08.08 PROWERK; AVIVA 03.08 - 05.08 TRIPHARBOUR 01.08 - 07.08 INDIGO BOOKS & MUSIC INC &am Skills: Analytical Skills Brand Awareness Analysis (Aided and Unaided) Campaign Evaluation (Call Center,...

Web Analyst - Web Analytics Manager

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Web Analyst - Web Analytics Manager Experience: Online Business and Web Analytics related experience: Sep 08-May 09 HP.com (Web Analytics) Interim Country Manager - HEWLETT-PACKARD, Leixlip, Ireland http://www.hp.com/ie Hp.com is the marketing organisation managing the online marketing activities for the different HP business units. The responsibility range from consulting the BU on the best online marketing practices to optimize Marketing spending for online campaigns. The job involves finding actionable insight out of web analytics data. Conduced a major reassessment of the existing online marketing activities in HP Ireland in order to optimize the effectiveness of the marketing spending. Greatly improved HP.com satisfaction of BU stakeholders Created and deployed processes for early evaluation and tuning of online marketing campaigns relying on a strong web analytics approach. Managed the deployment of the new redesigned SEO...

Web Analytics Manager

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Web Analytics Manager Experience: July 2009 – Web Analytics Manager – Gulliver’s Travels, Barbican Contractor, responsible for analysing the traffic of wholesale and retail travel websites with WebTrends 9 on-demand. Delivered an in-depth path analysis of the 4 main GTA websites, made recommendations to simplify the booking journeys by reducing the number of pages by 1/3, capture missing conversion opportunities and improve the overall usability of the websites. Delivered a comparison with the main competitors in the wholesale and retail sectors to support the recommendations. Defined the strategy to reduce the impact of bot/spider/screen scraping traffic to improve the data quality. This included SEO recommendations to avoid search engine penalties. April 2008 - Web Team Manager / Senior Web Developer – fish4 Trading Ltd, Hammersmith Responsible for a team of 2 local developers, replaced with 2 developers in Sofia, Bulgaria. Improved...

Web Analyst, Manager of Analytics (MBA)

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Web Analyst, Manager of Analytics (MBA) Experience:

-6 (six) years experience in the areas of online strategy/interactive

marketing and analytics, and e-commerce, in numerous industries - including corporations,

government, and agencies

-Exceptionally quick study in mastering new software and concepts, and

adapting to challenging environments

-Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

-No travel restraints

Skills:

-Omniture Certified Professional

-6 years of web analytics experience in Omniture SiteCatalyst, Omniture HBX, Google Analytics, and WebTrends

Omniture HBX and SiteCatalyst Report Builder EXPERT

Education: MBA, BS Certifications: Omniture Certified Professional Ideal Job Description:

A web analytics opportunity which utilizes my extensive experience in web analyst but also overall online strategy with in any size organization which utilizes Omniture SiteCatalyst, Omniture HBX, or Google Analytics.

Preferred Work Schedule: Any Desired Compensation: negotiable Location: Atlanta Location State: GA Willing to Relocate: True

Web Design / Technical Writing

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Web Design / Technical Writing Experience: EMPLOYMENT AND VOLUNTEER WORK United Cerebral Palsy of Pittsburgh, Web Management Intern, February 2009-April 2009 Assisting in backing up content from the legacy website Updating and editing content for inclusion in new site design Macy's, Seasonal Associate, December 2008-January 2009 Providing customer assistance in the Caseline department showing customers various jewelry items from locked display cases and assisting with the selection of purses, scarves, and gloves Straightening and stocking the jewelry, purses, and winter accessories Assisting in straightening the Juniors and Intimates departments including dressing mannequins New American Independent Party, Volunteer Web Designer,...

Web Analyst

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:15:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Web Analyst Experience:

Ogilvy Canada: Since June 2008, Web Analyst

Assist in Business decision making process by gathering and analyzing data from different data sources/tactics & providing recommendations based on it.
Creating and presenting relevant reports related to all aspects of web tracking to the concerned audience
Creating Dashboards to give Insights

H.T.C Group Ltd. (UK)/www.digisaurus.co.uk

November 2004-November-2007, E-commerce Manager

Responsible for:

Business Development via Internet and E-Commerce
Development and Management of Ecommerce site for the company
Online Advertising, Promotion, E-mail marketing campaigns and working with Search Engine experts to optimize website content for search rankings
Analyzing & Reporting of web site functionality, sales and statistics
Mentoring & Managing junior web executives

Achievement:

Increased the turnover from zero to two million dollars in very first year.

March 2004-October 2004, Web Marketing Executive

Skills:

Areas of Expertise

Web Analytics
E-Commerce
Internet Marketing
E-Business
Content Management
Business Development

Education: Award of Achievement in Web Analytics, MBA e-business, Web Intelligence(Pursuing) Ideal Job Description:

An e-Business professional with a year experience in Web Analytics & more than four years of experience in planning, building, launching, managing and marketing of successful e-commerce business.

Solid background and qualifications in all core e-business functions - Online Promotions, Search Engine Marketing, Web Analytics, Content Management, MBA in e-Business, MBA in Marketing & Award of Achievement in Web Analytics. Seeking a challenging career in Web Analytics, e-business and web based marketing.

Willing to Relocate: True

Omniture Certified Web Analyst, MBA

Fri, 15 May 2009 20:45:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Omniture Certified Web Analyst, MBA Experience: Web Analyst, myShape.com, 2009 *Analyze web metrics marketing data to identify optimization opportunities for a B2C eCommerce company, Manage processes of A/B testing for landing page optimization Internet Business Analyst, TCA, 2008-2009 *Analyzed web metrics, revenue models, acquisition models, retention models, online, marketing strategies and performance Analyst, globalsources.com, 2004-2006 *Analyzed web metrics to identify new product development and optimization opportunities for a leading international online marketplace Skills: · Data Analysis & Reporting: Statistics, Advanced Excel, Access, SQL, PowerPoint, SPSS · Web Analytics: Omniture SiteCatalyst, WebTrends, Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer · Online Marketing: SEO, SEM, Email marketing, Social media...

Web Analytics Consultant

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Web Analytics Consultant Experience: Avenue A | Razorfish, London, England Marketing Technology Strategist April 2008–Present • Identified the opportunity, and created a web analytics and digital media measurement and consulting group within the wider online strategy team • Created a process to engage existing clients as well as business development teams to provide Web Analytics implementation and data reporting services • Increased annual revenue of this new team from zero to £300k (forecasted) in just two months • Attended both of Omniture’s Advanced Segmentation and Implementation training courses (currently working towards Omniture certification) • Strengthened the integration between strategy, analytics and media groups by creating processes as well as ownership for sharing knowledge (Wiki, collaborative live documents, internal training and presentations) • Helped to win business from multiple Fortune 500 companies including McDonalds,...

Web Analyst

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Desired Position Title: Web Analyst Experience: Interactive Marketing Analyst Integrative Logic Marketing Group Lawrenceville, Georgia 4/2008 – 1/2009 Served as WebTrends administrator for multiple client sites to provide quantitative reporting, actionable insights and analysis on e-mail, search and online media campaign performance. • Partnered with account managers to frame business problems into key performance metrics and developed regular reporting and results presentations supporting these initiatives. • Collaborated with web programmers and developers to ensure proper data collection methods (JavaScript and campaign tags) were implemented. • Extracted and compiled online and offline data from WebTrends and SQL to assist internal and external clients in making more intelligent and data-driven decisions. • Explored and presented new ideas for data collection and analysis by researching current web analytics and online marketing trends...

WAA Webcast Series

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:46:50 GMT

Home :: WAA Webcast Series WAA Webcast Series: Top 5 Changes to Search Marketing Analytics for 2010 When: Thursday, February 18, 2010 Time: 12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT Register Online Join SEM practitioners from Marcel Media and Unica's specialists in this webcast to keep pace with the unstoppable innovation in search engine marketing and the related analytics. New capabilities offered by the search engines today have expanded the web of possibilities into mobile, social, and other types of PPC ads. Web analysts tasked with optimizing their company’s pay-per-click (PPC) vs. natural search have a complex set of questions to weigh. Tune into this webcast for advice from the front-lines on SEM optimization with web and other kinds of analytics tools. In this webcast you will learn: Top 5 changes with search marketing in 2010 that you should be aware of Analytics methods for optimizing new types of search, e.g. the real time web, mobile, etc. Top DOs and DONTs for...

The Web Analytics Association

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:44:05 GMT

The Web Analytics Association leads and supports the members by providing quality education, developing standards and best practices, conducting research and advocating for issues that advance the industry. Learn more about your place in the WAA. WAA Webcast Series: Top 5 Changes to Search Marketing Analytics for 2010 When: Thursday, February 18, 2010 Time: 12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT Register Online Join SEM practitioners from Marcel Media and Unica's specialists in this webcast to keep pace with the unstoppable innovation in search engine marketing and the related analytics. New capabilities offered by the search engines today have expanded the web of possibilities into mobile, social, and other types of PPC ads. Web analysts tasked with optimizing their company’s pay-per-click (PPC) vs. natural search have a complex set of questions to weigh. Tune into this webcast for advice from the front-lines on SEM optimization with web and other kinds of analytics tools. In this...

WAALTER Award: WAA Leadership and Technical Excellence Recognition

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:16:26 GMT

Home :: WAALTER Award 2009 WAALTER Award: WAA Leadership and Technical Excellence Recognition See the 2009 Winners! The Web Analytics Association has established the WAALTER Awards to recognize companies and individuals who are leaders and innovators in the field of web analytics. The objective is to encourage creative and innovative projects or initiatives that embody the web analytics industry’s best practices. In doing so, WAA hopes to improve the collective knowledge and success of web analytic practitioners. The 2009 WAALTER Award will recognize companies and individuals who have demonstrated thoughtful and measurable leadership and innovation in the field of web analytics in 2008. The winning entries will be announced at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit – the official Summit of the WAA - in May, 2009. The Entry Packet The entry packet is the information posted here on the website in printable format, including award category descriptions and...

The Web Analytics Championship

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:24:38 GMT

Home :: WA Championship In order to participate, please register. You must be a WAA Member to participate. We will be sending out login information for the Google Analytics, Yahoo! Analytics and WebTrends accounts starting November 1st (or in 48 hours if you register after November 1st). Use your preferred vendor or look into each tool in turn. They are all terrific, but then again, so are you! So be prepared to bring your best insights to the game. What? The WAA is hosting a Web Analytics Championship where Web Analysts will be able to review the site and traffic data for webanalyticsassociation.org. Analysts can submit their analytics reports, insights and observations about the site to the WAA, where the most insightful presentations will win prizes! When? The WA Championship will run from November 1st through December 1st, 2009. The login details to all the web analytics application accounts will be sent upon registration. Who? WAA Members Only may participate in the WA...

Corporate Members

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:05:32 GMT

Home :: About WAA :: Founding Corporate Members The WAA is proud to have been founded by some of the biggest players in the Web Analytics industry. Click on the links below to learn more about our dedicated and pioneering benefactors. Founding Corporate Members Coremetrics Coremetrics is the leader in marketing optimization. Its products help businesses relentlessly optimize their marketing programs to make the best offer, every time, anywhere, automatically. More than 2,000 online brands globally, transacting more than $20 billion this year, use Coremetrics’ Software as a Service (SaaS) to optimize their online marketing. Coremetrics’ solutions encompass advanced online web analytics and integrated marketing optimization applications, including search engine bid management, email targeting, ad impression attribution and cross sell recommendations to acquire customers more cost effectively, increase conversion rates, and increase lifetime customer value. Coremetrics is...

WAA Webcast Series: Web Analytics is Easy! with Eric T. Peterson

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:48:05 GMT

"Web Analytics is Easy!" with Eric T. Peterson [ARCHIVED]

When: Wednesday, Aug 29th
Time: 12 pm EDT (9 am PDT; 17:00 GMT)
Webcast: View the "Web Analytics is Easy!" Webinar through WebEx
Slideshow: "Web Analytics is Easy!" [1.3mb .pdf]

Join Eric T. Peterson, consultant, practitioner, and best-selling Web analytics author as he outlines his strategy for making Web analytics easy! Based on volumes of recently collected data and nearly a decade in the field, Mr. Peterson will demystify many problems common to Web analytics and get your company headed in the right direction.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the volume of metrics and reports that analytics professionals receive every day, but if you set specific goals and can avoid some of the common mistakes, web analytics can positively transform your organization. Regardless of the technology you use or your level of experience with Web analytics, this is a must-see Web analytics presentation.

At the end of the webcast, Mr. Peterson will be available for an extended Q&A session EXCLUSIVELY for Web Analytics Association members.

This interactive webcast is presented by the Web Analytics Association for WAA members only, and is sponsored by eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit and Web Analytics Demystified.

Premier Corporate Members

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:45:16 GMT

Home :: About WAA :: Premier Corporate Members The WAA is proud to have the support and participation of many significant players in the Web Analytics industry. Click on the links below to learn more about our diverse premiere corporate members. Premier Corporate Members: Full List Adversitement B.V. AT Internet BitBang ClearGauge Compete, Inc. Digital Forest e-dynamics GmbH Expedia ForeSee Results Interwoven iPerceptions Microsoft MTVN New York Times OgilvyOne Worldwide PFS Web PREDICTA SAS SCL Analytics Shiny s.r.l. Stratigent LLC Tealeaf Trafic Unica Corporation Webtrekk Adversitement Adversitement is an e-marketing consultancy...

WAA Certification

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:13:47 GMT

Home :: Education :: Certification The Web Analytics Association Certification Test will provide a common reference point for understanding the depth and breadth of knowledge in the field for both practitioners and employers. Certification is a statement of competence in the web analytics field for the certified individual. In general, certification enhances the likelihood of employment and advancement within a field. Benefits include the probability of a higher than average salary for practitioners and a more productive human asset for employers. The Board of the WAA has directed the Certification Test, like the WAA and UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics, to focus on the analytical and business skills of the applicant. The test will not cover the technical or implementation skills associated with web analytics, and will not be specific to any tool. This means that practitioners do not need an IT background to pass the Certification Test. The process of developing the WAA...

Web Analytics Association Base Camp Overview

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:00:04 GMT

Home :: WAA Base Camp The WAA Base Camp includes two or all three of these workshops in each city: Introduction to Web Analytics 101 Applying Web Analytics 102 Search Analytics for Search Marketers 201 Learn more or register now! Learned a ton. Really got a lot out of the day. Appreciated the flexibility in the presentation to go off course to respond to questions we had. Thanks for making me more knowledgeable and valuable as an employee. Check out the 2010 WAA Base Camp events! Toronto, Canada, April 6-7, 2010 San Jose, CA, May 3-4, 2010 Washington DC, October 2010 Washington DC, October 18-19, 2009 San Jose, August 10, 2009 San Jose, May 3-4, 2009 Toronto, Canada, March 29-30th, 2009 Washington DC, October 20th, 2008 Las Vegas, NV, October 12th, 2008 Chicago, September 24-25, 2008 Los Angeles, September 24-25, 2008 Boston, September 18, 2008 New York, September 10, 2008 London, 19 May, 2008 San Francisco, May 4th, 2008 ...

Events

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:44:25 GMT

Home :: Events Calendar of Events Calendar listings include WAA produced events and WAA corporate member events. Corporate members must login in order to post an event. WAA produced events include our monthly Webcast Series, the WAA Base Camp and our official conference, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. The WAA also is a co-producer of the WAA and UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics. eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit The Official Summit of the WAA Marketing executives, managers, and business intelligence experts have been meeting at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit since 2002 to increase the return on their marketing investments. This global conference and expo is recognized as a driving force for the application of marketing analytics, process, and technology for optimizing marketing value and informing business decisions. München, March 23-24, 2010 Toronto, Canada, April 6-9, 2010 San Jose, May 3-7, 2010 WAA Base Camp...

WAA/OCRI Breakfast Meeting Survey

noemail@webanalyticsassociation.org — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Objectives:

To evaluate the February 7th WAA/OCRI Breakfast Meeting event.

Release Date: 8-Feb-08 9:00 AM
Expiration Date: 8-May-08 9:00 AM

Web Analytics Association RSS Feed

Predictive Analytics World coming February to San Francisco

eTail West 2010

WAA Members get 40% OFF the full 2 day conference price, offer valid for qualified retailers only

Online Analytics from a Managerial Perspective

Web Analytics Strategies Conference & Expo

Digital Marketing ExpoCon Austria

WAA Public Sector 2009 Survey Analysis

Dynamic Customer Management and the Value of One-to-One Marketing

Executive Summary:

Review:

Why is this important to you?

Impact of Different Promotions

Related Readings

The Effectiveness of Combining Online and Print Advertisements: Is the Whole Better than the Individual Parts?

Executive Summary:

Review:

Viewpoint: Now or Never – An Urgent Call to Action for Consensus On New Media Metrics

Executive Summary:

Review:

Assumptions, Explanation, and Prediction in Marketing Science: “It’s the Findings, Stupid, Not the Assumptions"

Executive Summary:

Review:

Implications for Practitioners

Are Your Business Goals Aligned with Insights drawn from Your Web Analytics?

Basic Metrics

Advanced Analysis

The Most Important Analytics Reference Document: Definitions

Variables

Definitions

Variable System Names

Putting It Together

Modeling the Determinants and Effects of Creativity in Advertising

Executive Summary:

Review:

Firm-Created Word-of-Mouth Communication: Evidence from a Field Test

Executive Summary:

Review:

September 2009 Featured Article: Unica

Using web analytics to complete the circle of Life Time Value, not a replacement.

Can Using Real-Time, Raw Data Be Cost Effective? Opening Up the Discussion

About Cecily Robyn Lough

AT Internet Reveals its Achievements of 2009, Demonstrating considerable growth and international expansion

Nedstat and Kampyle partner to combine customer feedback with web analytics

Turnkey Web Analytics in a Box Appliance

Constructing Web Analytics

Nedstat launches advanced Campaign Attribution

AT Internet announces the release of BuzzWatcher

iPerceptions Acquires WASP Product Line to Empower Site Owners to Optimize Web Analytics Performance

Stream Sense supports native HTML5 video

The New Experience - Announcing the Release of AnalyzerNX

Nedstat announces e-mail optimisation upgrade

Vice President, Measurement Sciences sponsorship to live in Australia

Senior Interactive Analyst (Contract)

Global Director of Analytics

Director, Web Analytics

User Experience Analyst

Web Analyst

Manager of Web Analytics

Online Marketing Manager, Email Marketing

Web Optimization Analyst

Web Analytics Manager

Manager User Experience

Web Analytics or Database/CRM Marketing

Web Analyst - Web Analytics Manager

Web Analytics Manager

Web Analyst, Manager of Analytics (MBA)

Web Design / Technical Writing

Web Analyst

Ogilvy Canada: Since June 2008, Web Analyst

H.T.C Group Ltd. (UK)/www.digisaurus.co.uk

November 2004-November-2007, E-commerce Manager

March 2004-October 2004, Web Marketing Executive

Areas of Expertise

Omniture Certified Web Analyst, MBA

Web Analytics Consultant

Web Analyst

WAA Webcast Series

The Web Analytics Association

WAALTER Award: WAA Leadership and Technical Excellence Recognition