On Wednesday 21 January 2009 These Days organized, together with Michaël Notté, WAA Country Manager Belgium, the first Web Analytics Wednesday in Antwerp. It was a great a great success and hopefully the start of a very active web analytics community in Belgium.
74 people subscribed for the event, and about 50 showed up at the These Days offices. The majority of the attendees were agencies and consultants, 3 vendors showed up (Google, Nedstat and Unica) and only a small part were practioners.
The evening started with an introduction of the Web Analytics Association (WAA) by Michaël. His first public appearance in his role as WAA Country Manager.
Although the WAA already exists since 2003, only about 8 participants were member. But after Michaël explained what the WAA is all about – providing quality education, developing standards and best practices, conducting research and advocating for issues that advance the industry – no doubt more people will take up a membership asap.
The intro of the WAA was followed by an open discussion with the present webanalytics enthusiasts to outline the future of webanalytics community in Belgium. The topics discussed included…
- The general role of the community: The general idea is that this community should not be limited to Web Analytics itself but also open for all SEM and media/advertising people as well. The community needs to educate the e-marketing market about the opportunities and benefits that web analytics can bring them. This web analytics community will also reach out to bigger associations such as the IAB or the Belgian Direct Marketing Association to set standards and, again, educate the marketeers and advertisers. Besides the WAW, the community will explore the opportunities to organize a dedicated 1-day event about web analytics and optimization.
- The Web Analytics Wednesdays: This open event will be held on a regular basis (every 2-3 months) during which the focus will be on practical and best practice cases. The web analytics vendors will be given the opportunity on an accasional basis to show present new features and tools, but need to sponsor the drinks :).
- Taskforces: The idea is to create expert groups that focus on specific area’s of interest such as SEA, behavioral targeting, etc. The outcome will be best practise guidelines and white papers which will also be presented at the WAW.
Take a look at the presentation ‘Building a Web Analytics community in Belgium’ below:
After the discussion it was time for a practical case study. Siegert Dierickx (Web Analytics Manager) and Raphael Nolens (Strategic Consultant) of These Days presented the web analytics and optimization strategy they applied at Pioneer Europe.
The global approach is based on continuous improvement, but before the optimization phase could start, a well-defined process was put in place, based on 6 main steps:
- Define business objectives
- Select tools & data colledtion methods
- Build reports & dashboards
- Teach users & automate distribution of reports
- Analysis
- ACTION
The case was illustrated with a lot of practical examples. Siegert explained the main KPI for the Pioneer web sites: Brand Interaction Hour (BIH). This KPI calculates the total number of hours that the visitor (i.e. consumers and prospects) are in contact with the brand Pioneer during their visits. This main KPI is also used to calculate the effectiveness of the different campaigns based on the cost per BIH, which could range from 2€ to 2.000€! Based on this KPI These Days has been able to optimize the campaign strategy and remove campaigns of which the time spent on-site was 5 seconds on average.
Raphael showed a demo of the brand new reporting tool that was developed based on the Google Analytics API. This tool allows to report in real-time on the product performance, by combining data from the Content Management System (CMS) and Google Analytics. From now on it is possible to compare trends for different products and categories, and between different countries.
And then it was time for networking, which is probably the most important aspect of a WAW.
This is the perfect opportunity to meet new web analytics people, continue the discussions and get some drinks on the house!
A date and content for the next WAW still needs to be defined, but keep an eye on this blog and join the LinkedIn and Facebook groups. See you all then!
Check out also other posts about the WAW at These Days:
- Kaizen Analytics, by Michaël Notté
- Web Analytics & E-commerce, by Nicolas Malo
- Search Marketing, by Steve De Veirman
[...] Analytics Wednesday in Ghent 11 03 2009 Following the successful WAW in Antwerp at These Days last January, the next event takes place in Ghent (my favorite city) on 25 March 2009. And we hope [...]