Author Archive
February 6, 2008
It had been brewing for quite some time as my little Web Analytics unit has been expanding its consulting offers related to Web and Customer Analytics well beyond the Belgian borders, actually all over Europe, in order to help companies reap the benefits of measurement and accountability of the online media.
While WebTrends first landed on my desk, in another lifetime back in 1999, as a business analyst, I felt help would inevitably be needed to get the most out of what Web Analytics coud bring to any business. And so when René asked me to help him set-up OX2, an Interactive Agency, back in 2003, my initial request was to set-up a Web Analytics team as well.
To be honest, a lot of people felt that back then, we were kind of weird, which we totally understood but as the online medium is the most masurable of all channels and following my background as an economist, it really made sense for me to not only have a team to support clients in their online strategy but also prove that what we were saying made sense and added to the bottom line. Accountability through measurement was thus our early mantra as hard data remains undisputable when having to make strategic business decisions.
The early days – as from 2003 – allowed us to patiently build up our Web analytics expertise and team, first with WebTrends and adding gradually European supported solutions such as Google Analytics, Omniture, IndexTools, Unica, amongst others.
We also gradually moved from log file analysis to tagging, from using the reports within the Web Analytics tools to custom made automatised dashboards, which integrates data coming from other sources as well, ranging from campaign information to actual margin related data for ecommerce websites, moving beyond pure turn-over in order to get as close as possible to a companies’ impact on the bottom line.
To make a long story short, we were looking, from our little Belgium, for a pan European partner/acquirer that shared our accountability vision, had been thinking about Dashboards, Balanced Scorecards, Strategy Maps – thank you Kaplan & Norton – in order to reap the full benefits of our favorite channels’ measurability potential.
In a short: data driven strategy.
I’m convinced that LBi shares our vision to build an accountable future and am looking forward, as well as my team, to a fruitful collaboration.
Links:
Tags:customer analytics, IndexTools, interactive agency, lbi, lbigroup, Omniture, ox2, Unica, Web Analytics, WebTrends
Posted in About us, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | 9 Comments »
October 16, 2007
It’s always a pleasure to go to the eMetrics summits and hear from Brett Crosby what’s new and what Google has been working on in a very concise way. 15 minutes tops, crystal clear and true value for your money 😉
Last eMetrics in Washington, Google announced the launch of Google Website Optimizer. This time around, they are pushing a bit further by rolling out some very exciting features and holding true to their word to continuous support of their Urchin software version.
I’m pretty sure Julien will comment further about these new features. Let me just announce the big steps. So, what’s new with Google Analytics?
In a nutshell:
- Internal site search
- Event tracking of Web 2.0 Rich Internet Apps
- Outbound link tracking (TAGLESS!)
- Optional new GA.js code
- Urchin software from Google in beta version, only sold through GAACs.
Getting a bit deeper into the different features, Internal Site Search will show you the who, what & where of your internal search module. Reports will include time spent after search & reports of what happens afterwards. You can tie this back to your goal conversions and your e-commerce. I already know of a couple of clients who are going to be utterly thrilled with that!
Event tracking of Web 2.0 apps will allow you to track RIA in Ajax, Flash, Silverlight & Air and it will not inflate artificially your page views. It’s based on an event hierarchy of objects, action & label. Your object can for example be your player, the actions the buttons you use such as play, pause, etc. and the label will displays the name of the content.In your reports, you’ll be able to cross segment this with your other data such as geography for example.
As mentioned, outbound links will be tracked without additional use of tags. Gosh, that’s going to make life soooo much easier!
If you want to be able to use those 2 last features mentioned, you’ll have to update you code to include the new GA.js tag. It will also allow you to automatically detect SSL/HTTPS so that won’t be an issue anymore. Thank you very much! The new tag uses object-oriented code so it’s more compact and faster. And as a the cherry topping the cake, if you switch over from your urchin to your new GA code, EpikOne’s SiteScan is at your disposal, for free! Yeah!
Last but not least, Urchin software from Google is out in beta version, sold only by GAACs. It’s the software version that supports both page tagging and classic log files (if you still need that) and the good thing is that you can have both GA & Urchin running with a single tag. Urchin software from Google will therefore allow you to reprocess data and audit your raw logs if needed.
In terms of pricing, it’s a single fee of 2.995$, including all modules. It’s free if you’ve bought advanced support and if you didn’t, don’t worry: we will apply what you paid for moving from Urchin 5 up to Urchin 6.
So, on that note, thank you Brett, Google and the entire fabulous Google Analytics people working on this great product. And last but not least, happy birthday Avinash!
Julien back to you. Greetings from Washington.
Aurélie
Posted in eMetrics, Emetrics Summit Washington 2007, Events, Google Analytics, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | 6 Comments »
September 20, 2007
The advent of free Web Analytics tools puts pressure upon pricings. Media buying agencies are working hard to report useful results. Advanced Web Analytics clients are adapting their data gathering strategies to feed online data into data warehouses and revisiting the very concept of business intelligence.
We all agree that we have to make decisions based upon data. Where to start?
With which tool, using which team to support findings – and actions -, which consequences would it hold upon the very core of your organisation? (more…)
Posted in Business Tips and Tricks, Google Analytics, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics | Comments Off on Web Analytics embracing Customer Analytics
September 16, 2007
My conference journey started out on Thursday, when I hooked up with a couple of Belgian clients at the eDay in Rotterdam, before heading back to Brussels together with Eric, after his brief radio interview, where I was lucky enough to play around with his iPhone. To be quite honest, I’m not really an early adopter but if you touch it, believe me, you want one and leaving your credit card at home doesn’t really seem to work 😉
The car ride back home went fast – as we both like to drive fast – and discussed on the way recent evolutions of the Web Analytics industry, including Megan Burns’ latest Forrester wave that had been officially released a couple of days before.
To be quite honest, the night was short and the next day promised to be quite long as I picked up both Dave and Eric to head to the Federation of Enterprises in Brussels in order to have breakfast around 8 am.
When setting up the Web Analytics Day in Brussels, our intention was mainly to get practitioners from major Belgian companies – and picked up a couple of international attendees in the process – in order to allow them to get a full review of what Web Analytics is actually about, looking beyond the pure acquisition of a web analytics tool. As Eric’s Web Analytics is Easy presentation also emphasized, using his RAMP analogy, the first letter stands for Ressources which include both technology as well as people. The other acronyms respectively stand for Analysis, Multivariate testing & Processes. (more…)
Posted in About us, Events, Gatineau, Influence analytics, Omniture, Social Networks, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Day, Web analytics Demystified, Web Analytics Industry News, WebTrends | 6 Comments »
August 28, 2007
This is exciting, my little Web Analytics Business Unit could’t be happier with the upcoming Web Analytics Day to be held on September the 14th in Brussels!
We had some experience setting-up a Web Analytics Day back in 2005 and managed, in those early days to get almost 100 people to listen to what we had to say during workshops and conferences. This time around, man oh man, it’s going to be a ball!
Some of my favorite speakers are coming: Eric Peterson to talk about process!, KPIs & Web 2.0. Wandering Dave Rhee to discuss his favorite subject: Social Networks! and last but not least, the World Federation of Advertisers with its very own Stephan Loerke to discuss how Advertisers are becoming Accountable.
And it’s not all because we’re also going to let the vendors show off in order to fill you in on what they’ve been up to and how they see Web Analytics evolving. Omniture‘s going to surely show off Genesis while WebTrends will be presenting Marketing Lab 2 (ML² for those familiar with the topic), IndexTools‘ wonderful Dennis Mortensen will certainly crack a joke while assuring you his solution is the most cost effective one and flegmatic Ian Thomas from Microsoft will also be emphasizing his view upon Web Analytics… and free tools. In addition we have also Nedstat, the biggest Dutch Web Analytics vendor who will be represented by Krist Verhelle and finally Extenseo, the leading SEO company in Belgium that will speak about Web Analytics & SEO.
But don’t forget, it’s also about the networking, about asking the questions you’ve always wondered about but were afraid to ask or blog about!
René’s in charge of food & cocktails so you can be sure all this exciting knowledge will be graciously floating on top of your cocktails. Hopefully, he’ll even think about the chocolates!
This is really a day about knowledge, about getting the most out of the online channel and the challenge we’ve all been embracing for many years now, building up an accountable society.
Join us, challenge us! Without you, we couldn’t made this wonderful European Dream Team happend!
Looking forward to meeting you on Friday the 14th of September at the Federation of Entreprises of Belgium. More information: www.webanalyticsday.eu.
Aurélie
Posted in About us, Events, Omniture, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Day, Web analytics Demystified, WebTrends | 4 Comments »
July 30, 2007
As I was finishing up my meetings with René in Amsterdam on Friday afternoon – we are finally back in Brussels, after 2 weeks of France & The Netherlands – I read a mail coming from Mehdi on my BlackBerry, proudly announcing Avinash Kaushik had announced his Top Ten Web Analytics Blogs for July 2007 and our little pan European effort had ranked number 5. Lou Bega started singing in my head.
Mehdi’s enthusiasm was very touching as well as he joined us a couple of months ago, as young Google Analytics Jehdi apprentice. It’s refreshing to work with Mehdi as he is curious and being a former controler, has a different perspective on things. I am happy to discuss monetization of Web Analytics with Mehdi, while he gets his technical apprentiship from master Julien. Mehdi is also a natural communicator and loves to pass on knowledge. He will thus take over Google Analytics workshops from Julien, with some more support than Siegert and I had in our early beginnings 😉
While Siegert is still enjoying the Italian country side, Guillaume came back from France to upgrade our Unica installation, allowing me to play around with it some more. Fun!
Julien took a look at a Xiti account and we further discussed our interest to meet some Xiti people…
Yes, this is an open invitation: our position remains vendor independant and we are always open to discovering new, interesting, foreward thinking web analytics tools. It’s most of all about convincing my little business unit of the interest and added value of the tool in order to answer business questions, in a return on investment perspective for a web analytics project that would incorporate processes, analysis and results.
And René is of course setting up our Web Analytics Day that is set-up to take place in Brussels, on September 14th 2007, at the Federation of Belgian Enterprises.
Between that, a couple of clients and revered partners fill my days. Eric Peterson is one of them and he has things to say about Technorati rankings, upon which Avinash’s list is partially based. (more…)
Posted in About us, Blogging, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics | Comments Off on Mambo number 5
July 25, 2007
I met today with Google’s recently appointed country manager for Belgium, Erik Portier. We had a good discussion and it was a pleasure to meet in order to discuss our position as Google Analytics Authorised Consultants (GAAC). I was just a bit sad we couldn’t be of more assistance to help him promote his chair with 3 legs, as he calls it, SEO+GA+AdWords=how Google Belgium can be of service.
On top of that, his interest goes out to “Geo products”, Google Maps and Earth.
Thank you for your time, Erik, it was a pleasure.
In the mean time, another Eric on the other side of the ocean published an interesting free report entitled “The Problem with Free Analytics – July 2007“, which is now available for download. I read the report some days ago while we were spending some fabelous days in the Sarthe region in France and basically agree with Eric about his conclusions. You can read more about his opinion and reflections on his blog.
The coincidence of events is interesting as we also discussed with Erik (that’s the one based in Belgium) about how we could help each other, by collaborating on client needs and support. We’ve seen a recent increase in interest from companies using free tools in order to get the most out the data collected. Indeed, without human resources, any tool won’t miraculously spit out insights. And being an Authorized Google Analytics Consultant, we’re happy to help. I would actually encourage you to contact Julien and Mehdi if you have any questions and please, challenge them! Even though I’m also GA Certified, I must admit I haven’t really stumbled upon a question I couldn’t answer and am happy to help spread the usage of such a great tool.
I’m convinced there’s still lots to learn ad share in order to make online communication more efficient.
As a KPI for Google Analytics, following this report and the discussion with both Ericks, I would suggest a view upon the number of Goals set by profile… if I may humbly suggest…
I wonder if the average would be closer to 0 or to 4, and if it’s moving up or not, taking into account the number of profiles created, of course. It would, for us as a GAAC, at least show wether we are doing our job well or if, compared to other countries, we might need to continue providing human resources in order to get more out of the tool and help companies set-up the processes required to assure success in their Web Analytics project.
My 5 euro cents before heading off to Amsterdam. Thoughts are welcome, please don’t hesitate.
Kind regards,
Aurelie
Posted in Google Analytics, Web Analytics, Web analytics Demystified | Comments Off on Free Analytics tools, what could be the consequences of such a choice?
July 9, 2007
As I was discussing an e-Commerce Google Analytics project last Thursday with Julien, I saw the ZAAZ’s Web Analytics book lying on his desk. I quickly gleaned through the index as Julien was finishing up his emails to Omniture and noticed in the last chapters a mention of Interactive Agencies.
Julien promised to hand the book over as soon as he’s finished as I’m quite curious to read what the ZAAZ boys have come up in their position as an Interactive Agency and long term Web Analytics professional consultants. Jason Burby has always been a beacon of light in my web analytics journey, ever since his first presentations landed on my desktop through the help of WebTrends. So, I’ll have to be patient until Julien finishes the book and I’ll keep on reading Naom Chomsky’s Failed States, which seems to be costing me some sleep lately.
In this post, I just wanted to share my experiences over the past couple of years as a web analytics consultant, through different projects, within multiple sectors and using different tools as well as multiple actors, ranging from IT to marketing, including other Web/Interactive Agencies. Please don’t worry, clients and vendors, I won’t get specific as I do respect confidentiality. (more…)
Posted in Business Tips and Tricks, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics | 4 Comments »
June 6, 2007
I’ve been all over Europe lately, scouting out Web Analytics talent, as anyone in the sector looking to hire and push forward this great line of work we’re all in aka Web Analytics. I have to admit that my home country, the Netherlands, had never been really high on the list, for several reasons. I won’t go into that.
To my astonishment, I did however witness last week during the “Eerste Nederlandse Webanalyticscongres” some high level activity going on over there and already blogged a couple of days ago about Postbank as banking remains close to my heart.
I did want to go into what I learned from an interesting guy called Bert Wiggers, who’s reponsible for different websites such as www.nu.nl, www.overzicht.nl and the topic of this post, www.kieskeurig.nl.
So, what is Kieskeurig? (more…)
Posted in Events, Web Analytics | Comments Off on Kieskeurig.nl @ First Dutch WebAnalyticsCongres – Online & Offline Correlation
May 31, 2007
We arrived late last night in Zeist, an even smaller town than the place I grew up in the North of Holland, and had a nice chat with Eric before heading for a good night’s sleep. I must admit that I’m running under 5 to maximum 6 hours of sleep per night lately but hey, can’t commplain, I didn’t have to get up at 4:30 this morning like Dennis‘ fine Indextools.
Lack of sleep is partially my own fault as I’m into some readings and tend to forget the time but also because I’m working on a couple of projects in one of my favorite sectors, banking. As some of you might know, my background is partially in banking and insurance (Swiss Life and Deutsche Bank) so I felt compeled to blog after the fine presentation I saw this morning by Jos Verwoerd from Postbank here at the Webanalytics Congres in Zeist (The Netherlands). Also note that his presentation was made by his co-workers, amongst which he cited Ewout Vis, who’s holding a workshop this afternoon that I’ll also be attending. I’m afraid I didn’t catch the name of the other guy but I’m sure we’ll have some interesitng discussions this afternoon. (more…)
Posted in Events, Web Analytics | 4 Comments »
May 22, 2007
I’ve been playing around with blog stats in order to gauge interest and readership of the different posts we’ve rolled out over the past year and wanted to share some reflections. These findings and ideas thus stem from a simple copy-paste of blog stats for the last 365 days of this blog. I actually did this following a question asked by Chris Gemignani at the Emetrics’ blogger table about our blogging voice and if we had trouble finding it.
I do.
Maybe because I share this blog with my husband and the rest of my team.
Maybe just because I’m not always certain what people are actually interested in reading and how I could best optimise the time they graciously share with us by reading this blog.
And certainly because there are some wonderful Web analytics bloggers out there (too many to name and please watch René’s next blog post on the bloger table to get a list of very fine and smart people talking about fascinating Web Analytics related things).
So, in order to reach out to my blogging voice (again), I fist stumbled upon a post René wrote more than a year ago intitled “Why this blog?”.
The last 2 paragraphs are of interest and actually still apply and I will not comment on my waking up my husband at 2 AM… It goes like this
“Our aim is to make the market going forward and adopt Web Analytics. The era of websites seen as purely cost centers is over. Now we need to define business objectives and measure in order to report the ROI on the one hand and optimize the online initiatives on the other to maximize the returns.
We are also conscious that the Web Analytics learning curve is long and this is why we try to feed our clients with our knowledge to help them reach self sufficiency.”
Yeap, this still applies, right on! (more…)
Posted in About us, Blogging, eMetrics, Emetrics San Francisco 2007, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics | Comments Off on Finding a blogging voice
May 15, 2007
Finally home and settled in after a very long week in San Francisco. Still a bit jet lagged and Bruno was nice enough to remind me this morning that per hour difference, I should count on 1 full day to get used to European timing again so I’m figuring that within 7 days, all should be fine again with my internal clock. One only hopes! as I’m leaving for London again next week.
First of all, it’s been a fabulous experience in San Fran thanks to the likes of Jim, Avinash and of course Eric. Truely this experience beats my last 29th birthday for the 2nd time, when I decided to hop over to Shangai to check out the scenary in China some 5 years ago. Having 500 people singing happy birthday to you and one of the major Web Analytics gurus taking time out of his presentation to put “that poor woman on stage” is a memory I’ll always cherish. Thank you for that, for your support and dedication to this passionate field. I’m sure we’ll all experience some very interesting times ahead and I’m really looking forward to future collaborations. (more…)
Posted in About us, eMetrics, Emetrics San Francisco 2007, Events, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics | Comments Off on 29 for the 6th time at Emetrics San Francisco
May 1, 2007
I just did a rapid search on the Yahoo User Groups with the term “ComScore“.
Just to see if the discussions we’ve been witnessing currently had crossed our paths before.
And they did: 160 results, dating back to the 7th of August 2004. In the last 10 results, I’m amused to find names such as Jim MacIntyre, current WebSideStory/Visual Sciences CEO and working already in January 2005 for VS, Google’s Brian Clifton a voice back then from Omega, Fred Kuu and … hum, Sage metrics turned Omniture, for some.
So, the discrepancies in numbers is not a new debate. Normal, it’s not the same way of counting 😮 No surprises there.
What started it off this time?
Apparently, and I’m still picking this up from the Yahoo User Group to start with, on April 16th, ComScore announced through a press release that “Cookie-Based Counting Overstates Size of Web Site Audiences. Frequent Cookie Deletion by 3 out of 10 U.S. Internet Users Leads to Overstements in Audience Sizes by a Factor of High as 2.5“.
Micheal Wexler, Eric Peterson & Joe Wilson made sure the announcement was brought forward to the Yahoo community and it spurred of comments, a lot! (more…)
Posted in Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | 1 Comment »
April 28, 2007
Raphael Nolens invited us into a cycling journey into Web Analytics in Düsseldorf, playfully showing us the stages Pioneer Europe went through in order to fully reap the benefits of the online channel today.
It all started out with a leap back in the past where ever since 1996, Pioneer Europe had been going through redesign projects, year after year. Faced with different cultures and quality issues – some sites were down for half a day before anyone actually noticed, which was acceptable at the time – Pioneer decided to set up a European Web Governance Team back in 2001.
The fixing of the leaking buckets started with performance issues, as the websites where too slow. In 2002, 12 new websites where released, running under a single centralised database and a homogeneous web design, across all countries.
Since then, Rafael has been working hard to improve the Internet presence through a continuous improvement cycle.
The challenge mainly relied in the fact that international companies are not organised to work together. That’s where the bicycles started to show up: you have to peddle hard and together, working as a team. A sprinter does not hold the same responsibilities as team members trying to push their team leader across the finish line.
In the light of non aligned strategies across countries, pan European companies tend to follow different strategies ranging from DIY to zeppelins that gobble up a lot of euros, are highly inflammable and need to be rebuilt each year.
Pioneer saw this differently and more specifically in the light of small & effective ways of spending those euros sensibly. Like climbing up a curved road zigzagging through, assuring that onward movement, brought by your team of climbers and sprinters. And indeed, as Avinash would say, small is beautiful 😉 (more…)
Posted in eMetrics, Emetrics Summit Düsseldorf 2007, Events, Web Analytics | 1 Comment »
April 18, 2007
I love Europe! I couldn’t say it enough and it’s kind of encrypted into my genes, being Dutch, French-speaking, living in Belgium and managing OX2’s Web Analytics business unit while my Spanish husband, René, takes care of the rest, the Interactive Agency.
Yes, honey, the hotel is fine and I’m so sorry, I missed your birthday but I promise, I’ll make it up. Trust me when I say that there are some Michelin stars restaurants you haven’t tried yet 😉
So, that’s for my personal message home. Please feel free to come up to me in Düsseldorf if you know of some good places to eat. I usually we ar green and even though I do not have dreadlocks, one could say I’m dressed rather casual 😉 Because that’s what the Emetrics Summits are actually all about: Networking! (more…)
Posted in About us, eMetrics, Emetrics Summit Düsseldorf 2007, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics | 8 Comments »
April 8, 2007
No, this is actually not a post directly about Web Analytics, as this can be considered more widely, so please accept my apologies for that.
This is a post about 3 different sources of information that sprung onto me during and after the Emetrics Summit and I’ve decided to tie together.
The tieying together decision stems from a The Economist article I read this morning under the sun, next to René, as we are finally enjoying some days of relaxing. Well, it actually turned into hours as we are both behind our laptops again and the sun is setting slow but surely over Brussels.
My initial reflexion stems from sales of web analytics licenses, the name of the game for my sales counterparts who have the priviledge, well some of them, to work for web analytics vendors. As these people are usually driven by quarterly sales, they often rejoice about sales of large bundles of licences. To be quite fair, so did I during the first year of my little Web Analytics business unit and quickly found out that this might actually not be the right way to go… Luckily for me, in my second year of professional Web Analytics, licenses didn’t actually mean that much as the services part heavily took over. After all, it’s what you do with it that counts, not the tool in itself as so many of us have been crying out for some time now. (more…)
Posted in Emetrics Summit London 2007, Thoughts and Ideas, Uncategorized, Web Analytics | 2 Comments »
April 5, 2007
Our respected competitors and leading web agency in Belgiun, Emakina, launched last Tuesday a website called Rent a Wife (and here’s the URL, you can check it out on www.rentawife.be).
This website is supposed to be a joke and should, according to the agency, be taken as such.
The website actually tries to sell DVDs and in order to explain the service – you can rent for example 3 DVDs, keep them according to your own needs and send them back through the post at will.
The discussions about the ethics of this so called publicity campaign have been ranging all through the country as all major papers picked up the story. Apparently, one could therefore state that the so called buzz around this campaign can be considered as being successful.
The thing is, the viral essence of this campaign can already be questioned through the way it was communicated as, being disturbing, this campaign was easily picked up by the off line media (with a little help from this leading agency).
Add to that that no tags can be found on the pages of the website, I actually wonder how they are actually going to measure traffic!!! (more…)
Posted in Thoughts and Ideas, Uncategorized, Web Analytics | 6 Comments »
March 31, 2007
After a very nice bath, a good nights rest and some usual Saturday grocery shopping, I finally got René out of his week-end siesta and decided it was time to start my first post about the Emetrics Summit we attended, together with Siegert, during the end of this week in London.
As usual, there is a lot to digest after such an event but, in contrary to last year, it was more about networking and confirmation of our own issues and findings than real new knowledge and great surprises. Call me ‘blasée’ or just really focused.
In any case, please allow me to start with some kind of rant through a list of things I heard from vendors and found misplaced, ridiculous, utterly stupid and shows how little some of them (not all by afar) actually know about the business they’re in.
I’m aware of the fact that these are harsh words but as more and more vendors seem to be walking the education path for their own personnel as well (on top of their clients apparently), I would just like their statements to be more than simple words.
(more…)
Posted in Business Tips and Tricks, eMetrics, Emetrics Summit London 2007, Events, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | 3 Comments »
March 26, 2007
As we just came back from Ireland where some members of the Web Analytics European Dream Team (WAEDT) followed the Google Analytics Authorised Consultant Training (GAAC), I thought like sharing what we’ve learned back in Dublin, unfortunately – to Julien’s discontent – one week after St. Patricks’ Day. Hey, Jules being allowed into those great Google offices is already quite an experience, you can’t have it all but next time, I promise I’ll buy you a Guiness!
It was a great honor to be part of the 30 or so members of the European GAAC training in order to discuss best practices and optimal uses of Google Analytics. It’s not every day that Google reaches out to third party consultants and discussing with Danish, Italian, Spanish, Irish, German, Dutch & English representatives was really a treat, while you actually realise that issues in these countries are quite similar to what we see in our little Belgium (I know, I’m Dutch but as I’ve been here for over 15 years, one could assume I’ve been adopted, right Sieg?).
It was also interesting to see all those features explained, one after the other in order to get a more complete picture of what is actually going on with this product and how far reporting can stretch for what remains a free tool. As Brian Clifton already mentioned during the eMetrics summit in London last year about the price quality ratio of GA, it’s unbeattable. I would add to this that after Dublin, I’m actually even more convinced than ever.
But let’s start with the beginning… (more…)
Posted in About us, Business Tips and Tricks, Google Analytics, Web Analytics | 10 Comments »
February 26, 2007
OX2 a envoyé un petit comité exploratoire au 1er forum eMarketing à Paris, qui se tenait du 12 au 13 février 2007 dans les bâtiments de la Cité des Sciences de la Vilette, comité composé de Julien et de moi-même.
Voici un focus qui porte principalement sur les conférences du 13 février sur le ROI et les Web Analytics.
(more…)
Posted in Events, In French, Web Analytics | 4 Comments »
February 11, 2007
One of my favorite former employers, Deutsche Bank, will be holding as from the 12th of February their Securities 2007 Small Cap Growt Conference in Naples, Florida. The reason I’m wirting about this is the mention of Omniture’s participation, during last week’s audio cast. Interestingly enough, they weren’t the only ones I overheard last week that would participate.
As I was researching for an article about Business Intelligence & Web Analytics this week, other companies mentioned the exact same event.
Reason enough to take a peak at who would be there and what would be made available.
The following link sums up the companies attending with links towards their webcasts, if these are made available (which is not clear at this moment).
Companies attending that are currently of interest to me are: RightNow Technologies, Unica, Omniture with Josh James & Michael Herring, Informatica Corp., WebMethods, .. and I’ll leave you discover the rest.
Interestingly enough, this site also encouraged me to take a look at Deutsche Bank’s fine Think Tank, led by Prof. Norbert Walter. (more…)
Posted in Business Tips and Tricks, Events, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | Comments Off on Deutsche Bank’s Small Cap Growth Conference 2007
February 9, 2007
As I’ve been talking to more and more web analytics vendors over the course of the past few months, I’m starting to feel very unconfortable about the discrepency in timing and objectives between my little Web Analytics business unit and …. them.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about company culture lately and I can’t help myself but come to the conclusion that we are very different. This difference in company culture stems from the differences in short term objectives. Add to that that we are European company and you might end up with some friction.
My reassurance lies in 2 things:
- Even though (short term) objectives are not identical, long term ones are;
- the market is big enough for all parties involved.
As Avinash stated on his post about Indianapolis’ redemption, this is not a zero sum game.
One vendor has understood that their business is to build tools. They leave the usage of the tool and it’s potential upgrades to it’s partners and clients. In the form of a collaborative network.
(more…)
Posted in Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics | 3 Comments »
February 5, 2007
Sorry about the silence.
I was breathing out, taking the liberty to focus internally on the growth of my department and my clients needs.
These are evolving as budgets are increasingly being shifted towards web based initiatives and the online channel.
And we all know what this means: increased accountability made possible through better use of the knowledge and decisions taken based on our preferred sector, yes, Web Analytics!
In parallel, pressure is also being put upon a number of sectors such as media/press, energy, financial, … to find new ways of creating value, gain or sustain market share in order to assure financial growth of the corporations these sectors are made of.
Financial markets are becoming less asymmetrical with regards to information (yes Pascal, MotleyFool is a wonderful site!) and share holders are more dispersed than they used to be. OK, Wall Street’s still there as the financial beating heart of our planet (for more information, read Jacques Attali, Une Brève Histoire de l’Avenir) and as Jacques would have it, the innovative heart would also be on the same continent (this time for Xavier: you seem to be on the right side of the Ocean… for now).
But as Jacques would also have it, economical hearts move and unlike some former bosses in my career would have it, we are indeed on our way to a technological revolution.
By fear of sounding too much like Che Guevara, let’s just assume that, as Bob Dylan would peacefully sing, “The Times They Are a-hangin'”. (more…)
Posted in Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | 1 Comment »
November 22, 2006
René is trying to get me to adopt his wonderful Mac. Actually he started by begging me to write an article about Visual Sciences as I promised Eric I would do.
Yes, I’ve been silent because I haven’t been doing my homework actually. Just digesting my US eMetrics experience and taking care of my clients as well as the integration of a new team member to my little panEuropean Web Analytics business unit. Welcome Julien, our French team member. So busy, busy, or as Siegert would say with his smiling Flemish accent druk, druk, druk 😉
But yes, of course, Visual Sciences. (more…)
Posted in Business Intelligence, Business Tips and Tricks, Emetrics Summit Washington 2006, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | 11 Comments »
November 19, 2006
I was asked to enter in some kind of best Web Analytics project competition at the end of last month and felt actually unconfortable with the questions asked.
My first reflex was to think about the fact that I couldn’t give out any results from my clients in order to protect them and their business model. My second thoughts emanated once I started reading the questions asked in the form I had to fill in.
I’m sharing here my comments to the organiser of the competition I sent him a month ago: (more…)
Posted in Business Tips and Tricks, Technical tips and tricks, Thoughts and Ideas, Web Analytics, Web Analytics Industry News | 1 Comment »
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