Interview- Dennis R. Mortensen

In our series of interviews with Web Analytics professionals, the saga continues…

Dennis R. Mortensen is a pioneer and expert in the Web Analytics industry, having working in the field of Internet analysis and statistics since 1996. He is an accredited Associate Web Analytics Instructor – University of British Columbia and a frequent speaker on the subject of analytics and online marketing. He was the COO of IndexTools, a top tier enterprise analytics vendor, until it was acquired by Yahoo! Inc. Today he is the Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! You can follow his insights on web analytics and online marketing on his blog: VisualRevenue.com/blog

What is the USP of your WA solution?

Under the new name and strategic objective I strongly believe that IndexTools a Yahoo! service has a USP which is very close to: Enterprise class Analytics with ease of use in a Free package.
Or a more fun and easier to remember USP: 80% of Omniture for Free! :-)

From your experience, do you see a difference between the WA market in the US and Europe? (Could be level of services, budget, technology,…)

It is a confirmed fact, as declared by Forester research, that from a market size ($ Revenue) point of view – the US is by far the single biggest Web Analytics market. It is on the other hand, important to recognize this fact for what it is, that this is measured in the willingness to buy and deploy a paid for web analytics solution. That does not mean that the interest and/or performance is any lower in Europe – in contrary, I would – and this is of course subjective – say that Europe is definitely at par with the US.

Adding to this comment I would like to point towards a recent study I conducted and its conclusion: That in contrary to what is commonly understood, European web analysts are on an average more advanced than US web analysts. This fact is based on two fundamental conclusions; namely that European Analysts are requesting and creating more Enterprise level reporting and analysis and working less with simpler reports.

Source: 1,911,913 reports requested by Web Analysts using IndexTools (Q3 2007)
(VisualRevenue.com/blog – Dennis R. Mortensen)

Immediately following this question, comes the question about which region is in fact the most advanced. I did a follow-up study about the factual (quantitative researched) state of the web analytics Industry; where I asked the question:

How do the three supposedly most advanced regions of Europe compare in level of Web Analytics advancement?

Looking at the Advanced Report Requests usage in the UK, Benelux and Scandinavia compared to a global average – we see two distinct conclusions. That the Benelux region is the most advanced Web analytics region in Europe (of the three analyzed) – but more excitingly, that the advancement of Web Analytics in the UK is not only below the global average, but also surprisingly below US levels!

Source: 5,509,003 reports requested by Web Analysts using IndexTools (Q1-Q3 2007)
(VisualRevenue.com/blog – Dennis R. Mortensen)

What’s your opinion on Eric Peterson’s suggestion to setup a separate WAA for Europe?

I rarely disagree with Eric, however on this point I see little benefit in creating a separate WAA for Europe, I do nonetheless understand the reasoning behind it. But the solution is, if you ask me, more in the line of better membership revenue distribution, better activity distribution and better EU communications etc. All of this can be accomplished by changing the rules and regulation of the organization.

So to conclude I vote for one united WAA.

What will be the next step or hot topic within WA? How do you see the evolution?

I think we will start to see two shifts in the industry:

• A move from web site analytics towards web presence analytics
• A move from data conclusion towards towards data predictions

Both SUPER exciting topics! An in regards to A – I would like to reference the Online Business Measurement Quadrant for better understanding:

The Online Business Measurement Quadrant structure, try to shed some light on what we have to measure and in particular the very different environments we have to measure it in. The 4 quadrants represents:

• Controlled On site Content
• Controlled Off site Content
• Uncontrolled On site Content
• Uncontrolled Off site Content

Dennis continues: “Where I think it becomes obvious that even something as supposedly simple as collecting the activity becomes an obstacle.“

It is still fairly easy to collect good click stream data (Controlled On site Content), but I think you (as me) can see the difficulty in figuring out what to collect when somebody comments on your brand on some random blog (Uncontrolled Off site Content) – not even considering HOW we would want to analyze it and even more exciting HOW we would like to relate it to the data collected in other Online Business Measurement Quadrants.

Types of content

• Controlled On site Content
  Traditional marketing messages published on the corporate website, micro websites etc.

• Controlled Off site Content
  Traditional marketing messages published on third party website sites, widgets etc.

• Uncontrolled On site Content
  Brand commentary, Ratings and other User Generated Content published on the corporate website, micro websites etc.

• Uncontrolled Off site Content
  Brand commentary, Ratings and other User Generated Content created and published on third party websites.

What was your top outcome of the eMetrics? Did you achieve it ?

With the recent acquisition of IndexTools by Yahoo! one objective was to be a comforting face for goodbye (IndexTools no longer) and a exhilarating face for hellos (welcome to a Yahoo service) … AND I spoke to more than a 100 people during the three days and was VERY happy with how the response was (VERY POSITIVE).

Dennis

Interview – Web Analytics in US and Europe, with Jim Sterne

One of our outcomes of going to the eMetrics Summit in San Francisco in May was to find out the major differences between the web analytics market in the US and Europe.

Actually the idea started after a post by Eric Peterson, Europe and the WAA, in which he started the discussion to split the WAA into a USWAA and a EUWAA, as, in Eric’s opinion, both markets should be educated and targeted differently because of the differences in budget (Europe is 2 to 4 years behind) and level of expertise.

We already commented on the idea to split the WAA on this blog, but we wanted to digg a bit further and hear the vision of several experts which have been working on both continents.

So before, during and after the eMetrics Summit in San Francisco, we have been (and still are) talking to practioners, consultant and evangelists about the possible differences in both markets and what they think will be the next hot topic/tool/service.

The next few weeks, we will be posting these conversations and our findings on this blog. We invite you to take part in the discussion, and are eager to hear your ideas.

So here we go with the first interview and who else than Jim Sterne to start our series with!

Jim Sterne, Founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit (www.emetrics.org) and Chairman of Web Analytics Association (www.webanalyticsassociation.org) has been in online marketing strategy consulting since 1993. Jim was one of the pioneers of using the internet as a marketing medium, is the author of several books and articles, and a true evangelist of web analytics. Even after 15 years in this business, Jim Sterne remains wildly enthusiastic about the matter.

His main goal for organising the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits is to bring a lot of people together who are equally passionate about marketing optimization as this makes a great conversation and helps the market to move forward.

As WAA Chairman and having organized numerous eMetrics Summits in the US and Europe, Jim Sterne has a perfect view on the geographical markets tendencies and the adoption of web analytics as such.

According to Jim , the European market is not behind anymore and two types of companies can be indentified:

• large and small companies at the low end of adoption - are doing “some things” with their web analytics tool, they are looking at reports but are not really engaging or using this data.

• large and small companies at the high end of adoption -are very much more engaged, and is using the web analytics data for some very advanced marketing strategies and business insights.

According to Jim: “Many companies are doing advanced work in the US, but there are equally as advanced companies in Europe, just spread over the different European countries.But the difference is that there are more of these highly adopted companies in the US than there are in Europe.

The US is bigger, and therefore there are more advanced companies in the US. But companies in the US also started using web analytics earlier. US companies have always been very interested in experimentation and pioneering.
They find a new technology, jump in and test it. They want to have even a little competitive edge by being there a little bit earlier.
And in Europe, companies will wait and see, and if a new technology works they’ll adopt it.“

Because of these differences in adoption rates, together with the cultural and linguistic differences within the European market, a hot lead discussion is currently held in the blogosphere whether to split the WAA is a USWAA and a EUWAA, or not.

As Chairman of the WAA, Jim Sterne is open for all suggestions and acknowledges that there are plenty of initiatives to take. He is convinced that the European market place should act more autonomous and be more in control of what they are doing. The big question, however, is to figure out how to do this. At this stage there is too little information:

” What is absolutely clear is that we have to figure out how to engage local members to be more involved in Association association activities. Does that mean, within the current structure, changing the structure or having separate organisations? These are all large organisational change questions that create many more questions. My goal for the very short term is to figure out: how do we go about answering those questions? “

As hot topic in the current and future web analytics market, Jim Sterne is very enthusiastic about behavioural analysis and targeting.

“ Behavioural targeting has been an idea that has been around since a long time, but the tools are finally starting to be more sophisticated and the capabilities are starting to live up to the promise. There are vendors who offer solutions that can watch contextually which subject matter you rare interested in, how quickly you move, how frequently you come back, etc and therefore show you a different ad, show you a different article, send you a different email and many more options. This kind of automated marketing is starting to take hold. “

Read all about Dennis R. Mortensen’s opinion and vision on this blog next week.

Omniture – holds the future of analytics?

Omniture’s Q1 2008 financial results were as rosy as ever, and after listening to a year’s worth of earning’s calls, the transcripts are almost interchangeable…higher revenues, higher profit margins, more sales reps, more upselling of Genesis partner services.

Omniture’s product strategy is focused on providing options and services on integrating web data to both marketing and offline data, the logical next step for web analytics.

Yet, how much of the potential marketplace for analytics is actually going down the integration path?

Share us your opinion on Omniture’s direction:

• Is your organization doing this?
• Or, does integration simply mean linking web analytics with Google AdWords?

Also according to Internet Retailer magazine’s “2008 Internet Retailer Top 500” (IR 500) ranking of the top retailers on the Web — nearly 60 percent of the top 50 companies on the list and 38 percent of the entire IR 500 use Omniture.

Omniture is a bellwether company in the web analytics industry, but one trying to execute on the promise of web analytics integration in order to sustain its growth.

Other vendors are following the same strategy. This could well become the final frontier for traditional web analytics vendors.

In a market that is now 13 years old, web analytics is no longer in its infancy. It may in fact be plateauing in features that are of real importance. Now we’ll see if customers can finally catch up and use the data to drive web value.

Yahoo! & WPP sign strategic partnership

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Embattled Yahoo Inc has struck an advertising partnership deal with WPP Group that will let WPP buy ads on Yahoo’s online ad exchange.

In a statement, the companies said that as part of the deal, WPP advertising agencies would, through its 24/7 Real Media arm, develop a proprietary advertising media trading platform that takes advantage of Yahoo’s Right Media exchange.

WPP will also work with Yahoo to develop a WPP marketplace, giving WPP’s ad agencies wider access to potential advertising inventory, or places to advertise, across the Internet, as well as insight into how to buy ads cost-effectively for clients.

The WPP-Yahoo marketplace will also be open to outside publishers, helping to increase the overall volume, while cutting the costs, of the WPP ad-trading marketplace.

Source: Yahoo! News

Talking about Yahoo! and its services…
The new logo (on the short term) of their analytics services (after the acquisition of IndexTools) will look like this:

eMetrics San Francisco – Part 1

Back from a fantastic trip to San Francisco!

My jet lag is fainting away a little but my brain still buzzes with lots of ideas and things I need to follow-up. While all this is still fresh, I thought I’d share with you some of the insights from last week’s eMetrics Summit, the world’s largest gathering of people working in online measurement and optimisation.

There are numerous tracks to satisfy beginners as well as more experienced practitioners: Web optimization, Marketing Optimization Management, Campaign optimization, Search Analytics, Email metrics, Advanced Web Analytics and Integrated Marketing.

My three key summit findings demonstrated me that the “way” web analytics is used these days, is gradually changing and some of these changes are setting the path for the future. Here are my three outcomes:

Testing & optimization

Bringing the “testing” culture and the right tools (software and methodologies to do it) into a web-enabled project (website, e-mail or ad campaign) is a key process step in order to optimize and achieve success. The web also allows us to quickly deploy these and continually improve as such.
Jason Carmel, one of my Wunderman colleagues at ZAAZ demonstrated the balance needed between testing & optimization in his presentation “Effectively using kittens for Optimization and Usability”. Jason made me laugh although his presentation was serious shit! I was allergic to your kittens though.

Actionable analytics

It’s all about money! For many companies, the only action that matters is driving revenue into the company and profit to the bottom line. But since we live in an Age of “Accountability” and Sarbanes/Oxley we should take web analytics serious in order to prove the value of online initiatives are well spent.

In order to be accountable, you should present the right data and not spend 90% of your time on reporting on “What happened” and only 10% on “What you should do next”. Therefore some mistakes you should not make during the route:

• Misuse of data or data overload to analyze
• Not-saying-anything reports
• Inconsistent KPIs
• Stuffed Top x/Y dashboards
• Incomplete web analytics implementation
• Lack of testing or endless debating about visual design and copy

Instead, you should hunt for the insights and be “Web Analytics Ninja” as Avinash Kaushik stated in his presentation “Hunting Actionable Insights“:

• Analyze “What has changed”
• Try to share the “Context” of these changes next to the numbers
• Give insights, advice, recommendations or steps to take

This will help you in taking action based on the actual behavior of site visitors and as such support the decision making processes

Business analytics

My last outcome highlights Thomas Davenport’s great keynote that describes the transition from web analytics to business analytics.

Just like the web, web analytics started in IT, and then marketing found out about it and took control. We are there now, but successful data-driven businesses (and they do exist!) understand the value of the web and have optimized some of their most important business processes around it.

These companies do not manage their data in silo’s but integrate and combine it with web metrics; all because of the accountability that Web analytics delivers to business metrics. The web is infinitely measurable and now more than ever we have data to support our marketing assumptions.

Although web analytics represents only a debatable small percentage of a business’s spending, the value of analytics data is working its way upstream.

The industry is maturing to a level where we will not only talk about using web analytics for marketing optimization, but we will be talking about analytics for business processes optimization and strategic level changes. As such Web analytics and e-business will finally receive their own seat at the board room table as deserved.

To summarize:

• We can say that most companies still impose to project optimization or testing cycles because they cannot find the flowers by crunching in tons of metrics weeds.
• But for those companies that understand how to optimize based on actionable web metrics, insights and recommendations, huge benefits can be demonstrated.

Besides my outcomes, the Emetrics Summit is not only a great event to learn and see what’s going on but also great for networking. Everybody who practices or is interested in Web Analytics should be there.

Congratulations to Jim Sterne for once again putting on a great event and see you next time!

Be sure to track us back, since more eMetrics stuff will be posted in the forthcoming days.