Archive for April, 2006

WebTrends Marketing Lab Breakfasts – Brussels

April 28, 2006

WebTrends MArketing Lab Breakfasts

Get a professional insight regarding Web Analytics,
from 8:30 to 10:30 AM

Attend one of these Web Analytics Breaskfast series that will be held in Brussels @ the OX2 offices. Entry is free, pre-registration is required.

You'll learn:

  • Why unique visitors are the gold standard for measuring marketing-and how to turn that data into euros;
  • Leveraging powerful 5-Point Scenario Analysis to improve the performance of your web site;
  • Getting the most value out of your Search Engine Marketing campaigns;
  • Best practices for managing and measuring the fragmenting media channels;
  • The five KPIs you need to monitor in order to enhance your web marketing performance;
  • The latest trends in marketing, and how web-smart organizations are succeeding in the rapidly changing world*.

Who should attend:

  • Marketing Executives,
  • Marketing Managers,
  • Merchandising and E-Commerce Managers,
  • Web Producers,
  • Business Analysts.

More info http://www.webanalyticsacademy.eu

Posted in Events, Web Analytics, WebTrends | Comments Off on WebTrends Marketing Lab Breakfasts – Brussels

Web Analytics driving Ford’s auto production

April 23, 2006

Yesterday in the Web Analytics Yahoo group, Jim Novo reported how Ford was using Web Analytics to adapt their auto production (during a presentation at the Santa Barbara's 2006 eMetrics). They found out that the car configurations done online where pretty similar with the later orders that were made by the public.

Here's part of Jim's post (He concludes perfectly this post):

"What is probably more important, from an analytical culture perspective, is
that this gigantic metal-bender with very long lead times is actually using
this web data to modify production plans because it has been such a
reliable predictor of demand.

This concept was so far outside the expected norm that in the Q & A, I made
a fool of myself by asking Stacey Coopes (from Ford) if I had heard her
correctly. The conversation went roughly like this:

Jim: Are you saying that Ford is actually using web demand data to drive
auto production?

"Yes", she said.

Jim: "You mean, to actually schedule production, order parts, configure
factories?"

"Yes", she said

Bottom Line – I simply do not want to hear anyone ever again whining about
problems with getting management to pay attention to web data. If Stacey
can make this kind of thing happen at Ford, you can do it where you are.

This is a monumental achievement."

I'm certain the Web Analytics business unit @OX2 couldn't agree more.

Posted in Web Analytics | Comments Off on Web Analytics driving Ford’s auto production

WebTrends is also my (to become) favorite tool

April 19, 2006

Because Siegert today was making fun of a new article on Clickz.com today entitled, The Ideal Web Analytics tool, I decided to take a look.
It’s indeed always funny to see such a title and then just underneath “sponsored by WebTrends”

I read the article and I agree. I’m trying to figure out what I love most.
” Ultimately, the real value lies in the ability to be able to gain insight into visitor and customer behaviour. This requires a number of things:

  • the ability to quickly segment and looks at different groups of visitors and customers based on any number of criteria
  • the ability to be able to aggregate and summarise data in a way that makes it easier to observe patterns and trends
  • the ability to integrate site centric data with other data sources to get a holistic view of the customer“

Also tricky thing is that it doesn’t actually quote on WebTrends or it’s specific components but mostly shows the business requirements related to the use of a web analytics and how it should position itself within other channel related data.
I agree with the vision and the road ahead.
Looking forward to the journey.

Ah, yes, the article in itself, written by Neil Mason

Posted in Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News, WebTrends | Comments Off on WebTrends is also my (to become) favorite tool

Tridion and WebTrends

April 19, 2006

As we @OX2 finished integrating WebTrends with our Content Management System, On[i]Sys some weeks ago, I was wondering if the same kind of reflection had been haunting other CMS vendors on my market.

I also got an interesting question from one my new clients regarding integration between DreamWeaver and WebTrends and found that indeed, something had existed. More on http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/webtrends.html

Anyhow, I moved on and typed into Google "Tridion" & "WebTrends", looking not only for possible integrations but also remembering that some time ago, a Tridion client told me about Tridion developping it's own Web Analytics solution and what I thought about it.
Well, to be quite honnest, I didn't know about it and wouldn't actually care less.
As an enterpreneur, I know how important it is to stick to what you know.
For those who know me, it's quite obvious I'm the "best of breed" kind of person. T
hat also explains for me why we chose for WebTrends in terms of Web Analytics solutions – amongst others such as Google Analytics.

Anyhow, getting back to Tridion and WebTrends in Google, top result is: http://www.tridion.com/Company/Careers/read.asp?component_id=10210.
By the way, for those who might tell me this is old, the publication date can be found in the source code (unless Tridion goes through an entire publication process for all content over and over again, which I doubt: it's not optimal and useless) and thus the publication date states <meta name="DC.Date.X-MetadataLastModified" content="2006/04/11 14:28:51"/>. Interesting meta: answers one of my clients questions of last week: who publishes content & at which frequency?

I'm diverting again.
The point is that Tridion is recruiting an Online Marketeer for Amsterdam.
And the Roles and Responsabilities of the Online Marketeer will be "Measure online effectiveness using web analytics tools like Webtrends."

Thanks guys for supporting my view related to WebTrends.
And let me know if there is more to Tridion & WebTrends, will you? or Web Analytics as a matter of fact. Can't seem to get results from your Search unfortunately 😦

Posted in Web Analytics, WebTrends | 4 Comments »

Web Side Story HBX 3.5 What’s new?

April 11, 2006

I was reading a French website about Web Analytics and read that HBX had released their new version (sorry I was away in Venice these last days so I just have discovered now). What seems to be the new two key features are: audio/video & mobile devices measurement. Sorry to say, but I don’t see anything I haven’t seen on version 7 of WebTrends at Belgacom, one of our customers, one year ago.
What seems to be ‘unique’ is the fact that they are ‘native’ what does this really mean? That they are by standard with HBX? Ok, nice feature, but as Robbin Steif (lunametrics.blogspot.com) said these past days most website responsibles are still asking themselves what Web Analytics can do for them so I guess that they might start with ‘regular’ Website Analytics before proceeding with mobile or streaming measurement.

This reminded me that WSS bought ATOMZ, a CMS solution. I guess that their strategy is integration and they have chosen to buy a CMS solution to integrate with.
WebTrends in their new Version 8 (Marketing Lab), with the Data-warehouse it goes further than just an integration and remains closer to his core business.
Also, the possibility to distribute through Sharepoint is a great asset. From my point of view, WebTrends has chosen to stick to what they know and deliver best of breed solutions.
Each WA solution should limit itself to what he knows best.
For example at OX2 we develop CMS and we know how to build them and how to integrate them, we have decided to integrate with WebTrends and together we make a great combination. Between best of breed or integration, we choose best of breed.

Nice additions WSS but nothing really new if I may say so (you may comment or explain me in what these features are really innovative if you think so).

Posted in Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | Comments Off on Web Side Story HBX 3.5 What’s new?

Some thoughts about Omniture going Public

April 6, 2006

This morning I read on the Yahoo’s Web Analytics Group that Omniture is going to go public. What does it means? They need money. As WebTrends has released his new version and WSS has bought Visual Sciences (also Coremetrics just bought IBM’s Surf Aid) they need to accelerate their pace. What I’m concerned about is that this will distract them from their next release which is due by the end of the year (at least that’s what I’ve heard). Bottom line of the news: They need money to pursue the Web Analytics competition.

Posted in Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | 2 Comments »