Web Analytics Rock Stars

Greg Dowling is the former global head of analysis for Nokia. He recently left that role to join the senior management team at Semphonic, one of the top web analytics consultancies in the world.

Greg was our client at Nokia, where we worked together to build a global measurement organization that covered the implementation, analysis and data visualization of web and mobile data from Nokia’s consumer services products. He is a good friend for answering the following questions:

1.  The measurement world is buzzing about mobile, yet there seem to be very few practitioners out there that really know the space. Was your phone ringing off the hook with recruiting offers at Nokia?

Well of course you handle all of my recruiting Corry and I would never take a call from another recruiter. However, I have to say that it was ringing, just not as much as you might expect. While industry pundits have been claiming that 20XX will be the “Year of Mobile”, the majority of brands haven’t really embraced mobile fully as of yet. For example, it’s projected that in 2010 only 10% of brands and agencies will have mobile as a line item in their marketing budget and that another 20% are planning to experiment with mobile. So only one-third of the market is looking to do something with mobile in 2010 even though it is the fastest growing and most rapidly adopted personal technology in the world. At the end of 2009 there were 4.6 billion mobile subscribers representing 70% of the world’s population. It has eclipsed Internet growth by a ratio of almost 3:1. With unlimited data plans proliferating and smartphones poised to be almost half of all mobile device sales by 2013 according to Gartner – up from just 8% in 2008, it’s time to embrace mobile marketing and put your strategy together now. This obviously includes a mobile measurement and implementation plan – not an easy thing given the complexity of the mobile measurement space…

2.   I know that you had several internal and external career opportunities to consider. What made you choose Semphonic?

I have been agency side before as part of a digital strategy and analysis organization, but my team was always a ‘part of’ a larger client engagement and not the central focal point of the relationship as it is in a pure analytics consultancy. When I began thinking about joining a web analytics consultancy it was a simple choice – Semphonic. Semphonic has been in this space a long time – 13 years to be exact, and has a stellar reputation as the world’s largest independent analytics consultancy. With a respected team of industry experts like Gary Angel, June Dershewitz and Phil Kemelor, add to that a great roster of clients, the opportunity to build out the New York office, AND focus on mobile analytics – it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

3.   Gary Angel seems like the nicest guy in the world. Tell me the truth – he’s really a total a-hole behind the scenes, isn’t he? Nobody can be that nice.

That’s too funny! Well, I have known Gary for years and have worked with him on several occasions across many different types of engagements. Going back five years ago at Jupiter Research when he briefed me on Functionalism, to most recently at Nokia where he was instrumental in not only assisting me establish Nokia’s global measurement standard, but also leading the hands-on implementation work for several Services. Gary and I have also shared the stage at industry conferences in the past and I think he is one of the most compelling speakers I know. A true master at conveying complex subject matter simply – not a widely held skill, I might add. Truthfully, I can say without a doubt – he is not only the smartest guy I know in the analytics space – but one heck of a nice guy.

4.   You spent ten years becoming an expert in web analytics and the past one or two in mobile. What are you going to focus on for Semphonic? Both? Or is mobile going to be your sole focus?

Both. My title is Vice President of Mobile Strategy & Measurement, but I will focus on all aspects of enterprise analytics including strategy, implementation, reporting, and analysis. Mobile for me is just another channel that needs to be measured. The mobile product offering from Semphonic will seek to provide our clients with the competitive advantage they need to succeed in the mobile space. Our consulting services will range from mobile strategy engagements, where we assist clients is assessing their mobile readiness and the suitability of mobile to their current product offering, through to mobile measurement implementation, reporting, and analysis. The goal is to provide our clients with actionable insights and definitive tactics to make them successful in the burgeoning mobile arena. Oh and of course, I will be hiring…

5.   Given the strength of the Semphonic brand and the growth rate of the web analytics services space, I would guess that they are fighting off acquisition offers from the big agency families. What are the chances that you are working for Omnicom, Publicis (again) or WPP in a year or two?

Strike one, Corry. I actually did work for Omnicom while at Colangelo, so that only leaves WPP as one of my last agency “yet’s”. Of course, I can’t speculate on Semphonic as an acquisition target, but I have to say I think we are in a great position and would be a very attractive acquisition. There are very few boutique web analytics consultancies with hands-on implementation experience AND world class thought leadership – and Semphonic tops the list.

6.    You have been on the agency side, the client side, you have been an industry analyst and now you work for a top consultancy. Unless I am missing one, the only thing you have not done is work for a vendor. What advice would you give about what “types” of people succeed best in each environment?

Strike two, Corry. As matter of fact I have been on the vendor side. In 1995 I managed the New York operations for an online environmental database vendor named Environmental FirstSearch. We had an Internet enabled Visual Basic 5 application that looked very much like Google Maps (except a decade earlier) in which, instead of distance and direction to hotels and restaurants, we populated our interactive maps with hazardous waste sites and chemical spills – good times!

The “types” of people that succeed in any business are those that are passionate about what they do. Folks that take inspiration from challenges and make limitations an opportunity for improvement are bound to succeed. On the agency side it is critical to have a strong sense of urgency as related to client engagements and go out of your way to make the client feel like they are your only customer. Strong communication skills and a knack for business development don’t hurt either. On the client side I found the most success in being able to articulate the current capabilities and inherent limitations of my company’s product offering. Not being afraid to tell it like it is was a great asset of mine. If something isn’t working right, fix it. It’s better to ask for forgiveness later, then to wait for permission now. On the vendor side it’s simple – listen to your customer.

Thank you Greg. Best of luck with your new opportunity. See you at X Change!

Tags: data visualization, digital analysis, digital strategy, interview, mobile measurement, semphonic
Posted in: Interviews, Online Analytics by Corry Prohens
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Across all analytical marketing professions, data integrity is guarded and protected like money in a vault. A major advantage of web analytics over traditional market research methods is the ability to collect and analyze all data, not just sample data.

Do you remember the exit polls of the 2000 Presidential election, where myopic sampling methods caused a major fiasco when TV networks prematurely declared Bush the winner of the presidency? If only pollsters could have polled every person voting in every county, not just samples. Do you think the whole controversy could have been avoided? How can 8,132 voters accurately represent a nation of 280 million? As pollsters learned, they can’t. This is the strength of web analytics: data collection of an entire population.

But what happens when web analytics don’t collect data of an entire population?

A Coming of Age Story

During the X Change show, I had the chance to talk to lots of analytics pros who work in the trenches every day. One story in particular caught my attention and -it seemed like- everyone around me.

It’s the story of a young analyst, who worked as consultant at Omniture for several years. He recently hit the jackpot landed a job heading up analytics for a rapidly growing SaaS company. When the time finally came to do his first big presentation for the executive team, he was disappointed to find some of the data he wanted to present looked anomalous. For some reason, data on the entire population wasn’t collected.

Without the time or resources to track down the cause of the wonky data before the presentation, this young analyst chose to use an asterisk on the PowerPoint slide. It was a heartbreaking story of a once bright and shiny young analyst, learning about the real world.

Welcome to the Real World

We’ve all experienced what this young analyst felt. It’s like learning that Santa Claus isn’t real; it’s innocence lost; the kind stuff that makes nice people become bitter, cynical, and jaded. It’s having to undermine your data with an asterisk because somebody else messed it up!

The problem is that Analytics aren’t front and center in requirements or processes in most companies. All too often, the analyst is left out of the conversation. When that happens, who is looking out for the data? It isn’t the content team, it’s not the director of marketing, and it definitely isn’t IT. How can an organization make data-driven decisions without the data?

Fact: When the right JS isn’t on the most important pages, your organization doesn’t get the data it needs to get ahead – or even to just stay in the game. Lost data causes the best-designed strategies to become little more than high-minded wishful thinking.

What you see in your analytics suite is skewed data. If you recognize it, it’s a lucky catch. But I’ve found that in so many cases, data just isn’t being collected, and what’s worse, it’s really difficult to see it’s not being collected! A classic case of the unknown unknown. Even if it is, sometimes it’s useless because the JS isn’t configured (no page names, for example.) The result: an asterisk on your PowerPoint slide.

Bottom line: tracking down individual pages with individual data collection problems in an environment where you don’t know what you don’t know, is like trying to find a needle in a haystack on the surface of Mars with the rover!

Improving data through planning and process

The adoption of some simple (and minimally invasive) practices can go a long way toward improving your data. The assistance of a few purpose-built tools can actually prove that the data collected is complete, valid, and actionable. Personally, I’m a fan of this three-pronged approach: Development QA, Quarterly Audits, and Continuous monitoring.

Development QA

1. After pages are built in dev, use a tool to audit the analytics implementation on each page.
2. After the pages move to staging servers, all pages should get a complete “pre-flight test”. The auditing tool should be run in live mode, allowing server calls to be made. The success of these server calls should be checked in the analytics solution.
3. Audit new pages after they are pushed out to production to ensure the implementation is still intact and ready for prime time.

Quarterly Auditing

Every page over the entire site should be audited quarterly to confirm analytics are working correctly, to identify any problems, and to show complete implementation for reporting purposes. Specific items to watch for are:

a.   All pages are tagged

b.   JS File is linked and working

c.   Pixels are loading

Continuous Monitoring

Landing pages, checkout process, unsubscribe forms, and other mission-critical pages or multi-step processes should be continuously monitored to ensure the pixels always fire. This prevents long periods of data loss.

Outcomes

With some forethought and the right tools, you can make huge strides toward ousting the asterisk. Processes, such as I’ve discussed here, can remove much of the ambiguity and doubt in analytics data. By confiscating the weapons that management uses to attack analytics recommendations, you can help your organization make use of the insights you find.

The Possibilities:

1. Metrics and significant data associations are presented as the facts they are, not just hypothesis or observational data.
2. Valuate web analytics to management, advertisers, and publishers.
3. Earn upper-management / executive action based on Web Analytics observations and inferences.
4. Earn funding for marketing initiatives.

John Pestana is a co-founder of Omniture, and has recently co-founded ObservePoint, makers of web analytics tag auditing and monitoring software. More information on tag auditing and pixel monitoring tools can be found at http://www.OustTheAsterisk.comand http://www.ObservePoint.com

Tags: actionable analytics, metrics, web analytics
Posted in: Direct Marketing Analytics by John Pestana
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Paul Lee is the Director of Professional Services for Unica in Asia/Pac.  Our team has worked with Paul to place some of the first web analytics professionals for Unica in Australia.  Unica is growing their web analytics (NetInsights, etc.) business in the region aggressively, so we asked Paul to sit for an interview.

1. On which parts of Unica’s product suite are you focusing for the Asia/Pac market? What is the reason for that focus?

Historically, Unica Asia/Pac has had a focus in the direct marketing space. Customers here have seen the demonstrated benefits of Unica’s suite from markets abroad and have realised that it is indeed the most comprehensive and progressive solution to support next generation marketing needs. Unica is now expanding into the on-line marketing arena as marketers recognize that the online channel is becoming the key marketing channel, and provides a wealth of opportunities for marketers. Online behavioral data is a mission-critical asset that businesses can leverage to increase revenue, improve results and deliver differentiated and more personalized customer experiences. As web data and web marketing needs to be managed in much the same manner as any other critical business data Unica’s heritage in data-driven marketing technology solutions sets it apart from competition in terms of being able to help clients with their progression online.

2. What are the main differences between the Asia/Pac marketplace for web analytics and the EU market and the US market?

Generally speaking, the Asia/Pac marketplace is not too dissimilar to the EU or US market other than perhaps in terms of scale. With the penetration and usage of high speed internet being some of the highest in the world it is logical that more and more businesses will be attempting to establish marketing dialogues with these online customers. It is also fully expected that customers in Asia/Pac will seek advantage in leveraging a platform that can integrate cross channel marketing initiatives.

3. What do you see as the main competitive advantages that NetInsight has over your competitor’s products (webtrends, omniture, etc.)?

Unica’s approach to online marketing is advantageous in a number of ways. Unica NetInsight is based upon superior technology compared to our competition. NetInsight uses a soft tagging approach to data collection instead of traditional hard coded page tags which allows marketers the flexibility to keep up with the pace of business change. This approach minimizes the need for marketers to decide up-front what site goals and visitor segments need to be implemented via page tags, which typically have been complex, prone to error, slower to deploy and more intensive to maintain.

NetInsight is also designed with a flexible and open data architecture which means that marketers can now drill down into web data like never before. NetInsight stores data down to such a granular level that users can implement segments, reports, metrics or dimensions for analysis far easier than before and all this can be configured through a single role-based interface – providing businesses with unsurpassed flexibility. At Unica we’re proud that our product is ‘Democratizing’ access to web analytics by extending self service for web marketers and empowering them, and in turn the business they represent, to grow and be successful.

NetInsight is also clearly differentiated via its deployment flexibility. Unlike other vendor offerings, it is available both as an on-demand or enterprise software solution with the ability to shift seamlessly from one delivery model to another, over time, with the same product. Whether the shift is due to business growth, IT or compliance requirements, Unica’s solution can adapt with you.

Lastly, NetInsight is part of Unica’s leading marketing product suite. For companies that need a broader next generation marketing solution, for example email, campaign management, marketing resource management, website personalization across on and offline channels, Unica is uniquely placed to take your business on this journey. Only Unica truly offers a comprehensive interactive marketing solution enabling companies to engage customers, prospects and anonymous web visitors in an interactive cross-channel dialogue.

4. How do you think your professional services / support organizations stack up against those of your competitors?

Unica is very committed to web analytics success in Asia Pacific and despite a global financial crisis of a depth and scale never before seen, our professional services team has been expanded in every major geography, giving good coverage of major business centres in the region. We have also made investments in Customer Engagement resources to ensure that we do our utmost to enable customer success and have our customer’s solutions optimally tuned so they are gleaning the benefits of our best in class platform. For our NetInsight on-demand offering, Unica has invested in Technical Account Management resources to ensure that online marketers and IT stakeholders alike have ready access to experts within the region as required. In addition to this, Unica has also made further investments in enhancing service levels provided from our Asia Pacific technical support centre, along with the implementation of online portals and user forums to foster greater customer intimacy and also to facilitate networking and knowledge sharing.

5. What is the perfect NetInsight customer?

The perfect NetInsight customer is one that wants to get up and running quickly and also has a vision beyond just web measurement and into integrated on and offline marketing. They would typically be on a growth path beyond just reporting into optimization and segmentation and has an eye toward interactive marketing, that is, behavioural targeting on a site and into the future perhaps even beyond the web site. Unica is confident that there are many businesses like this in Asia/Pac.

6. What are your biggest human resource challenges in the Asia/Pac region?

Characterised by the diversity of more than 35 distinct sovereign countries, each with a blend of cultures and languages spread over vast physical distances, the business environment in Asia/Pac is as challenging as it is unique. These characteristics present special needs and considerations with respect to human resource management, some of which include:

• Geographic coverage and alignment. Countries within the region have vastly different business environments, protocols, cost structures and expectations. This often requires an in-country or close- proximity presence in order to be successful. Equally, having a distributed organisation requires innovative solutions to foster communication, collaboration and development.
• Language and cultural considerations. Like localized software, human resource also requires ‘localisation’. There are quite a few countries in the region, where English is very much a second language in business. It is often advantageous to have local staff or partners with language skills and sensitivity to local customs and cultural requirements. HR policy and regulations also differ across each country so a working knowledge of these differences, along with processes to deal with them, is critical.

Tags: marketing, NetInsight, paul lee, unica, web analytics
Posted in: Interviews by Corry Prohens
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Aaron Gray spent the last eight years as a consultant and executive at two of the top web analytics vendors (Webtrends and Coremetrics). Like many web analytics practitioners, Aaron recently left his job and started a career as an independent web analytics consultant. Since many people in the space seem to be interested in this career path, we asked Aaron to answer some questions for our Rock Stars blog.

Here is the interview:

1. After eight years in the vendor world what motivated you to change paths and start your own business?

a. The timing seemed right, really. I started my career independently, and was recruited into a small analytics player back in 2001. I personally benefitted immensely from being on the inside at multiple vendors, but I really wanted to get back to what I enjoy most, which is helping people to get significant value from their investment in web analytics. To be able to do that from a neutral third party perspective is quite freeing.

2. There are a lot of independent consultants and small web analytics consultancies springing up. How do you plan to differentiate yourself and your services?

a. I’m capable of delivering a wide range of services, from analytics strategy to in-the-weeds conversion optimization. But I’m focused on strategy and program execution. My sweet spot is what I’ve started calling “web analytics turnaround.” There are a lot of companies out there who have invested in the technology, but have languished there and are not seeing any return on their investment. If the whole company were performing this way, a turnaround team would likely be brought in to right it. Working with companies in this situation, I help them turn that investment around so that they start getting positive business value from web analytics as soon as possible, and continue to build on those returns over time.

3. Do you have any plans to build a consultancy around yourself at this point or would you prefer to stay an individual consultant?

a. I have formed a company, Greater Returns, through which I deliver my consulting services, but it’s just me. I’m quite happy to work as an individual. It gives me a lot of flexibility to choose the type of projects I accept. Often times, there is a team, or at least a group of people in place at the companies that hire me, and my job turn that group of people into a team by getting them aligned around an analytics strategy and helping them build sustainable business practices that provide tangible business value to the company. Sometimes my work involves implementing new technology, but more often it is simply putting to better use what is already there. I’m just a temporary leader – a catalyst.

4. A lot of the independent consultants that we place with our clients are very tactical. They are often either focused on the technical aspects of implementation, reporting, or writing analysis on data sets… My impression is that your experience (at least your recent experience) has been more strategic. Are you able to / willing to do these types of more tactical engagements, as well?

a. I started my career in analytics, back in 2001, defining reporting needs, building complex report configurations, pulling and analyzing data sets, and recommending changes to user experience to drive improvements in conversion rate. I made a lot of money for my clients doing this type of work, and I still like to do it from time to time. I’ll often roll up my sleeves and do this type of work as part of a more strategic turnaround engagement. It’s important to be able to show the team on the ground how to put the data to work, if they don’t already know how.

Would I take on a tactical engagement like this without the strategic component? Sure. I’m doing some tactical work right now for a company I have a long-standing relationship with. That tactical work is a good way to get it and show value. If I’m doing my job right, I can show the company how an investment in a strategic engagement will yield far higher dividends than they’re already getting from the tactical work.

5. How do you plan to market yourself… get your brand out there?

a. Well, there’s the Greater Returns blog, which you can read at www.greaterreturns.me. I’m also very lucky in that I’ve been in this business for a while and have built a lot of relationships over the years. Most of my work so far has come from those relationships. The type of work I do can have a significant impact on the internal success of the executives who hire me. The best marketing I can have is word of mouth and personal recommendations from these executives.

6. What is your greatest challenge at this early stage?

a. Honestly, the biggest challenge right now is smoothing out the flow of projects and revenue. I’m still in the “feast or famine” cycle that is so common with consultants. I would like to smooth out the cycle so that I don’t have a lot of down-time between engagements, and don’t have too many stacked at the same time.

7. If you had things all your way, what would your professional life look like in 5-years?

a. This is such a funny question. When I look back at how I’ve answered this question in the past and compare that answer to where I am now, it never lines up. So, I don’t really believe in the question itself. The world is full of opportunities and I’m sure I will come across some in the next five years that I can’t even fathom right now. That said, if I had all things my way, I’d be able to work 9 months out of the year, spending most of the summer with my kids. They’re a lot of fun to fly kites with.

Tags: Aaron Gray, analytics consulting, Coremetrics, web analytics, webtrends
Posted in: Interviews, Online Analytics by Corry Prohens
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Our company always dabbled in the global market, but over the past 15-18 months we have really focused on building our network in the UK, EU and Australian web analytics and search marketing communities. Just as in the US, each market has sub-markets. Learning the nuances of the attitudes, cultures, needs, wants, proficiencies, etc. in each country has been really cool.

Recently I connected on LinkedIn with Daniel Waisberg, the Head of Web Analytics at easynet search marketing. He has some excellent credentials in the search marketing and web analytics community: he is a contributing author for Search Engine Land, is a frequent speaker at eMetrics Summits and he is the current Marketing Chair for the Web Analytics Association. I was really curious to know about the Israeli community and the type of work that they are doing. He was kind enough to agree to the following interview:

1.   How would you describe the level of sophistication around web analytics and search marketing in Israel and the greater Mediterranean?

In general, Israel is a hub of innovation. With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and startups, Israel has the 2nd highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world (the first is Silicon Valley in the US). Many startups fail, and some succeed, with a few growing to be big players in the Internet scene with a strong focus on conversion. For example, some of the strongest companies in the online gambling, adult entertainment and FOREX verticals that have pushed online marketing to the edge in many aspects have started in Israel.

It is important to highlight that the above companies naturally consider Israel to be a relatively small market, and they target the international market. This approach also applies to easynet search marketing.

2.   How much of your business is with Israeli-based companies at the moment?

There is an Israeli proverb that says: "Don’t look at the pianist, look at his hands". In the same way, we believe it is more relevant to understand the target audiences and geographies of the clients than where their employees are sitting. What we look at is where businesses are operating, not where they are based (in the same spirit as in the best seller The World Is Flat from Thomas Friedman).

Some of our clients are based in Israel, others are not. We look at our clients and focus on where and what we need to do with their activities (in over 50 countries), the number of languages (currently 36), how their users’ perceptions may change from one geo to another, and how to make sense of all the complex data within our optimization operation.

3.   How hard is it to find talent in your disciplines within Israel? Do you recruit globally and relocate people to Israel?

Finding talent is always a challenge. And finding talents that fits into a certain organizational culture is even harder.

Still, on the execution end, Israel is a fruitful center for innovative people that think outside the box and hold a high self-motivation to excel. Also, Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita, so people are quite computer and Web savvy from the get-go. We don’t recruit globally for people that do the delivery, they are from Israel.

The harder part is finding sales and business development people that can reach out to prospects and potential partners abroad. And on this end, we do have some global recruitment. In general, we seek the appropriate international partners that may be interested in cooperation.

4.   How large are the web analytics and search marketing communities in Israel? Are they active / passionate about the space?

It is quite small, it is not well established and far from what it is in the US and UK. Yes, there are innovative people that are self-taught and some have gained rare experience, but as a community it is still in its early stage. easynet search marketing initiated and launched ‘Lost in Conversion’, the first Web Analytics event in Israel in early 2009. This session took place at the underground venue of the GarageGeeks (another interesting hub for innovation, Sergey Brin also visited there when he was in Israel) and aimed to start a more public discussion about web analytics methodologies, best practices and some emerging Israeli companies in the field – including ClickTale, NuConomy and Feng-GUI.

There is still a long way to go to make the community more established, despite the individuals within the space being very passionate. As of today, they are sporadically active on the Web as well as within some events in the US and UK.

5.   easynet’s website says that they work with clients in over fifty countries. Where are the clients in your personal portfolio based?

As mentioned above (see #2), my claim is it is more relevant to analyze your client portfolio in regards to where their target audiences are. Some of our clients are based in Israel, others are not. Today, we manage SEM activity in over 50 countries. Not all our clients appear in our portfolio for various reasons.

6.   What does the company generally lead with in the market? Do they generally lead with their products and then sell the services around them or vice versa?

We are a full service SEM company. We use our proprietary technology (easynet edge) internally to deliver ROI for our clients. We don’t sell products, we sell a full service. In general, we believe that you need a pilot with the plane to actually drive results. Sometimes, you’ve got a plane but not the appropriate pilot. Sometimes, you don’t have the plane. You need both in today’s harshly competitive SEM and analytics field, where many are fighting for the user’s attention, click and conversion.

A bit about our technology -

PPC optimizers of the Web’s most competitive markets know that their competitive edge lies in effective analytics and decision making. Search engine marketing (SEM) accounts span thousands of keywords, ads and multitude KPI’s. In order to improve the results of search advertising, optimizers need to constantly analyze numerous dimensions to reveal opportunity and loss in conversions and client values. We’ve got a platform, built by hands-on experts in the fields of SEM and BI (business intelligence), that enables our optimizers to:

• Using BI technology, quickly and effectively "slice and dice" numerous segments of the search advertising activity, in any granularity level
• Analyze search marketing profitability by integrating search traffic data with advertiser’s CRM (e.g. salesforce) data
• See a holistic picture of search engine marketing by integrating data from various traffic sources, including Google AdWords, Yahoo, Facebook, Bing, organic search engine results, Google Analytics and others
• Set and monitor specific performance targets and alert mechanisms around them. Optimizers and their managers can easily check on if targets are achieved on an ongoing basis

Gain insight into numerous unique selling points, revealing why they may or may not be working within certain regions and/or sections of the content network

7.   What do you personally enjoy working on the most: Search optimization, site analytics, competitive intelligence, etc…

What I really enjoy about Web Analytics is that it gives you the possibility to diversify, it enables tasting from the better of all worlds. I love learning new things and our field never gets boring. But if I would have to choose one field that always brighten my eyes, it would be competitive intelligence; that’s where I started and from there I got introduced to Web Analytics. It is amazing to be able to understand your competitors’ customers and reach them where they are most likely to be. Tools like Hitwise are like an oasis in a desert, they provide you with valuable information to help you deciding what to do.

However, in a recent paper I published with Avinash Kaushik, Web Analytics 2.0: Empowering Customer Centricity, we write about the importance of an holistic approach, which builds the complete picture of customer behavior in websites: in-site and off-site, online and offline, quantitative and qualitative. So you got to love it all!

Tags: analytics rock stars, average conversion rates, conversion rates, Daniel Waisberg, easynet search marketing, measuring social media, quick tips, social media, social media campaigns, Web Analytics Wednesday
Posted in: Interviews by Corry Prohens
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