Archive for October, 2006

After eMetrics, an urge for Web Analytics European professionalism

October 23, 2006

European Web Analytics Excellence

The eMetrics summit held in Washington last week was attended by some 480 participants, of which only 9 companies from Europe were present! Amongst which, Italy was represented by Giovanni (left) from BigBang, Scotland by Vicky Brock* (right) from Highland Business Research and us, little Belgians. Avinash (middle) is an exception, I’d call him a world citizen and one of our greatest inspirators.

The week before attending, I received an email from Brian Induni, Web Analytics Association President, regarding a possible subcommittee about certification or how to define Web Analytics professionals.

During the course of this week, I was reminded of the fact that web analytics products are not a silver bullets, independantly of the one you choose. Some products are better than others, will adapt better to your needs; with the Golden Palm going to what I call the analyst nirvana, Visual Sciences. I mean WOW!

All presentators and attendees agree on the fact that Web Analytics is hard!
Education remains the essential underlying theme of sucessfull web analytics projects and as Avinash pointed out, curiosity and spending at least 20% of your time “providing analysis no one asked for and only you can perform” is actually where INSIGHT can be found. Gosh, that was so true!
Please note I used the term insight and not reporting or reports. It’s not about reports as these can be spitted out by any tool. The WSS whitepaper I commented upon (thanks Eric for your comments) last week defines KPIs for the media sector. Such reports can be set-up of course in WSS’s HBX but also WebTrends, Instadia or Coremetrics, amongst others.

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Posted in Business Tips and Tricks, eMetrics, Emetrics Summit Washington 2006, Events, Google Analytics, Technical tips and tricks, Web Analytics, WebTrends | 2 Comments »

The Web Analytics product spectrum: from Google Analytics to Visual Sciences

October 23, 2006

Visual Sciences - See ResultsI came to the eMetrics summit with a lot of questions and reflections about my own work over the past few years. Amongst which, some were answered; others emanated into new interrogations. Just like what happened in May in London, when I first attended an eMetrics summit, the first time I heard Avinash Kaushik speak about expensive consultants 😉

Once again, my products related spectrum freshened up, this time in Washington, by attending on the 3rd day the end-to-end presentations of Google Analytics and Visual Sciences.

The spectrum is one of price, reflecting the ungoing discussion about the issue surrounding product pricing and whether web analytics products should be free. I must admit not having a clear opinion on that and can only express my view as an economist. Using Web Analytics tools right, undeniably assures increased utility for your company. Your company would thus be ready to pay for such a service.
The price tag you’ll decide to put upon the acquisition of products and hopefully service, should reflect the commitment your company is willing to take while walking the path towards data driven decision making.
Also note that data driven decision making is about culture. Not all companies have such a culture in them and upper management will have to work hard to establish, or at the least reinforce, it.
A global Web Analytics strategy, that should unfold into data driven decision making, can be adresses in 2 main ways: decentralised and centralised.
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Posted in eMetrics, Emetrics Summit Washington 2006, Events, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | Comments Off on The Web Analytics product spectrum: from Google Analytics to Visual Sciences

eMetrics Summit – Washington 2006 : A big thank you to you all!

October 22, 2006

I wanted to thank all the people that presented and that I had the pleasure to speak with during the eMetrics Washington. It has been a great experience!

My first thanks goes to Jim and Mathew (Avinash you’re right in calling eMetrics the Finlay-Sterne show ;-)) for hosting this event. Jim is such a nice guy, as Aurélie says you cannot but love him 😉 There’s a song by Leonard Cohen called ‘The walz’ that springs Aurélie’s mind every time she witnesses a presentation by Jim Sterne. Keep it up and I hope that we will be able to present one of these days at eMetrics our european perspective 😉 (more…)

Posted in About us, eMetrics, Emetrics Summit Washington 2006, Events, Web Analytics | Comments Off on eMetrics Summit – Washington 2006 : A big thank you to you all!

OX2-Panos IAB Best Efficiency Case + Audience Award Winner

October 21, 2006

IAB - Interactive Adbertising BureauThis thursday, I arrived from eMetrics at 8 am. I went to a have a little nap as I needed to prepare myself for 2 presentation. One that I was addressing at the CMS Congress and one at the IAB NetCafé as we had been winners (along with other 2 cases) of the Efficiency IAB Best Case of year 2006.

It was an hectic day and I was completly jet lagged…

At the IAB I was doing the presentation with our customer Thomas Dusart from Panos. As mentioned we where one of the 3 winners along with i-merge and Isobar.  Once the 3 presentations were adressed, the audience could vote by SMS for the most efficient case of the year (what they call the Audience Award). I wanted to thank the audience that voted for us and allowed us to win this second award.

I must admit that I wasn’t expecting to win these two prizes as it was the first time that we presented ourselves in a competition.
I’ll be adressing again the presentation at Customer First the next 25th of October, so if you’re in Brussels and the efficiency subject is close to your heart, don’t hesitate to step forward and I’ll gladly exchange thoughts.

Some figures: (campaign duration=18 days!)

# of visits to the website : 58.627
# of page views: 1.057.769 (18 pages per visit)
# of page views the busiest day: 155.071
# of games played: 109.024
# of games/sent eCoupons: 2,6
# referal visits: 16.024
# eCoupons sent: 41.701
# eCoupons printed: 35.319
# eCoupons exchanged in POS: 20.659 (58,9%)
# eCoupons fraud atempts: 189 (less than 2 per POS)
Near 60% of eCoupons exchange rate
Cost per profiled email address: less than 2 euros!

You can download our presentation as well as i-merge’s and Isobar’s (Creatives done by Emakina). Congrats to both of you, nice campaigns 😉

Posted in Web Analytics | Comments Off on OX2-Panos IAB Best Efficiency Case + Audience Award Winner

Web Analytics Journey Index (WAJ)

October 20, 2006

Web AnalyticsThis morning, I was surfing through different blogs to get some insights about people’s thoughts on the eMetrics Summit. Aurélie and I just attended it. It was a great event. Jim, I think it’s the best investment I’ve done this year! And I must admit that we’re still digesting… 😉

While surfing Technorati, I saw on Robin’s blog a title that quickly cached my attention: “eMetrics Summit: Eric Peterson vs. Matt Belkin“. When I saw the title, I was intrigued to read the content
The post describes the different views of Eric that has proposed processes as the next Web Analytics next ‘hot topic’ versus Matt defending the importance of quick wins.
I agree with Jim and Chris, both opinions can coexist. But I think that Eric’s point is much more important and that the market was expecting some guidance from Eric, as he has been doing in the past, with his great books and other initiatives. So thanks Eric, as Aurélie and I believe that you were right on the spot. After your presentation, her comment was: ‘this really makes sense’ 😉

After reading Robin’s post, I came up with a formula that I wanted to share with you: (more…)

Posted in Business Tips and Tricks, eMetrics, Emetrics Summit Washington 2006, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics | 9 Comments »

Arrival at Emetrics – Washington – The Big Picture

October 16, 2006

Emetrics LocationAfter a 8 hours long plane trip, I arrived a Washington DC where the weather was magnifient. The sun was shining and the temperature was 16 degrees (Celcius). As always when I come to the US, my first impression relates to size. Everything seems bigger here. So I entered a big cab and went ahead to the Sheraton where the Emetrics conference was taking place, not very far from the airport. Aurélie was already there as she came one day early to attend to the Web Analytics Association Training Day. (more…)

Posted in eMetrics, Emetrics Summit Washington 2006, Events, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics | 3 Comments »

WSS Whitepaper: New Metrics for the New Media, a comment

October 10, 2006

I downloaded the new WebSideStoryNew Metrics for New Media white paper this morning from the Digimedia.be newsletter that had entered my mailbox. At the end of the day, I took the time to rapidly glance through it’s content as the title sounded quite appealing: New Metrics for New Media.

It’s actually quite daunting how suddenly there is an increased interest for the revenues generated by media companies. Ever since the Economist landed a complete 3 page article on the subject this summer, I have the feeling that suddenly an entire sector is waking up. (more…)

Posted in Business Tips and Tricks, Thoughts and Ideas, Web 2.0, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | 3 Comments »

Integration of Web Analytics tags, a daunting task?

October 7, 2006

I got a remark this week from one of my possible future clients – doing a PoC, Proof of Concept for them – where he mentioned that it seemed actually quite difficult to introduce tags into the “application” we wanted to measure. The application was actually a Flash file and as far as Flash files go, yes, it’s a bit of a hassle but nothing really spectacular as long as you get all the little details right.

It’s actually quite funny how this question came back a couple of times lately and the answer to such a question remains invariably “it depends”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not really complicated and as for any kind of task, it does require some preparation. I often compare it to cooking a dish: integrating the tags is like shopping for your ingredients. Once you’ve got all your ingredients in place, the fun part starts but without one particular ingredient, you might get your dish completly wrong. (more…)

Posted in Business Tips and Tricks, Google Analytics, Technical tips and tricks, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News, WebTrends | 2 Comments »

LesFemmes AuPouvoir.be: mais où est donc passé le pouvoir?

October 1, 2006

FemmesAuPouvoir.beJe ne comprends pas. Je suis désolée mais je n’y comprends rien. On peut m’expliquer?

Je n’ai pas pu m’empêcher de remarquer vendredi dernier les campagnes abribus de Carrefour et alors qu’en ce dimanche soir je surfais sur le site de la Biennale de Venise, suite à ma lecture mensuelle du Deco Idées, tout en écoutant RTL-TVi en attendant Pirates des Caraïbes, j’ai entendu la pub de Carrefour à la télé. Oui, l’info de type multi canal, je connais.

Rendez-vous donc sur www.lesfemmesaupouvoir.be. (more…)

Posted in Google Analytics, In French, Thoughts and Ideas, Web 2.0 | 5 Comments »