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