John Lovett's Blog at Web Analytics Demystified

Okay…I’ve been quiet about the Coremetrics acquisition by IBM for long enough now. While the dust still won’t settle until sometime in Q3’10, when this deal passes FTC scrutiny, I’m compelled to weigh in and offer my $.02 USD mainly because there’s been some good dialog in the blogosphere from people I respect like: Eric, Joe Stanhope, Akin and more recently Brian Clifton.

I’ll take a slightly different approach and use the acquisition to talk about the state of the web analytics marketplace. For starters, let me just say that this acquisition was inevitable. So too will Webtrends be acquired by some player looking to incorporate metrics into their overarching set of technology capabilities. And as I blogged earlier this spring, yet another even bigger fish will eat the existing big fish and we’ll utter oooh’s and ahhh’s as the analytics technology market evolves into a vital organ for all businesses with a heartbeat. While not immune to arrhythmia, this course of events shouldn’t really take anyone by surprise. I’ve been saying this for a while now and even penned “Web Analytics is Destined to Become an Integrated Service” back in May 2009 when I wrote the Forrester US Web Analytics Forecast 2008-2014 (subscription required). I’ve been advocating web analytics as a function within the marketing organization, which seems to be a logical orientation. However, it’s interesting that the consumption of analytical technologies has come from a smattering of different perspectives.

Here’s how the post-acquisition landscape looks:

Creatively Speaking…

Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture undoubtedly took many by surprise (myself included – although you’re never allowed to admit surprise as an analyst). The promise Adobe made to investors was that they would incorporate the market leading web analytics technology into the creative life-cycle by enabling measurement at the point of content creation. Perhaps that’s not exactly how they positioned it, but that was my impression and they’re now executing on that promise. Say what you want about acquisitions and the slow moving integration process, but Creative Suite 5 debuted in April just six short months after the deal closed, with measurement hooks from FlashPro and Dreamweaver into both SiteCatalyst and Test & Target. They’ve also accomplished this remarkable feat using a visual interface allowing content editors and non power-users the ability to begin measuring their digital assets. This utilization of analytics places measurement at the operational level, yet by and large it’s still within the marketing group.

The Marketer’s Toolbox…

Enter Unica with their rebranded Marketing Innovation product suite where NetInsight (formerly Sane Solutions) web analytics sits at the core. While both Omniture and Coremetrics made pre-acquisition strides to amass a truly effective online marketing suite, they were merely playing second fiddle to Unica Campaign, Interact and Marketing Platform solutions. Unica is widely acclaimed as a leading Campaign Management tool and sits proudly in the marketing departments across many an enterprise business. They’ve worked web analytics into the DNA of their overall marketing perspective and use it to power the automation and decisioning that many organizations strive for with lust and admiration. Their utilization of analytics really does empower analytics as a lynchpin for integrated marketing.

Shoppers World…

With speculation still swirling about the how’s and why’s of IBM’s intended use of Coremetrics, it’s tough to ignore Coremetrics’ strength in the retail vertical. While Coremetrics has an impressive client based outside of retail, including publishers and financial institutions among others, they’ve clearly got some good mojo going with their triple-A retail clients. Just thinking of how Big Blue will assimilate the nimble teams of relentless Coremetrics marketers in San Mateo and Texas makes me slightly nervous. Not for any loss of focus by the Coremetrics team on their dedication to client support or from their delivery of leading analytical capabilities that they offer – rather – where will this newly acquired asset live within the IBM estate? The way I see it, two possible scenarios can play out here:

1. First is the scenario that Akin speculates upon whereby IBM is folded into the Websphere group and serves to illuminate the value of customer interactions within website platforms across IBM’s customer base. This would greatly benefit Websphere customers although it would narrowly define a finite application of a technology that is so much bigger than just online commerce.

Or;

2. The scenario that Eric envisions (and one that I believe would benefit our industry exponentially) is the one where IBM becomes the “business analytics” juggernaut in the enterprise. If this were to occur, IBM would need to integrate its SPSS and Cognos acquisitions to get really crafty about delivering extremely high value digital insights.

These are two very different outcomes and both speculatory, but I’m rooting for the latter simply because it has the potential to push analytics so much further along. My sources tell me that some long-time IBM’ers feel this way too. One confidant with access to IBM brass even shared with me that internally the acquisition will be deemed a failure by some at IBM if Coremetrics isn’t integrated with SPSS and Cognos. That’s great news, because wholesale failure of business analytics isn’t an option.

Switzerland…

So here we have Webtrends as the only standalone web analytics player remaining from the set of truly original US-based technologies. They’re doing a good job of playing the part of Switzerland as they not-so-quietly establish a platform of Open Analytics whereby data flows in -and- out of the interface fueling other operations around the business. While this is not the same as an integrated approach, Webtrends is taking a strong stance on have-it-your-way analytics. Their open APIs and REST URLs make it easy to leverage their data collection and pump data to any application within the enterprise. Thus, they too offer an integrated approach yet do so by maintaining a position that supports rather than delivers the adjacent marketing functions.

The Low End Theory…

Any post about the state of the analytics marketplace would be remiss if Google Analytics wasn’t included in the conversation. I include the Big Googley in the Low End Theory – not because they’re trailing – but because they’re sneaky smart. Just in case you haven’t been watching, since Google acquired Urchin Software, GA has been quietly amassing millions of installations across businesses large and small adding to the democratization of web analytics. I’d argue that they’re not doing this in a concerted enterprise-wide way, but they are probably gaining the most ground across the enterprise by sheer adoption and hands-on utilization. What this means is that pockets of users are deploying Google Analytics for very focused use of the data and the organization is becoming more accustomed to seeing GA data and using it to make key decisions in their day-to-day operations.

Many other analytics programs are delivering similar value to business users, yet in an extremely isolated manner with tools like KissMetrics, Twitalyzer, Visible Measures and Radian6 just to name a few. This is truly the low end theory because the data is rarely seen by anyone outside the marketing group, but it’s driving key activity around specific marketing functions without the larger business really taking note. Think grassroots baby – under the radar – with potential super smartie effectiveness.

Can Marketing Come from the Heart?

By now you should be asking yourself; So where’s this all going? Despite how each of the companies I described above fit into the overall aspect of a company’s business, I think that we can all agree that analytics is about understanding business performance. Here is where Eric’s vision of the Coming Revolution in Web Analytics fits into the story and the quietly powerful behemoth that’s already penetrated the enterprise garden sits in wait down in Cary, North Carolina. Whether it’s SAS, another player, or an amalgamation of services from multiple players – analytics needs to be at the heart of the organization. Here’s where my analogy pays off…because if this is to happen, then data becomes the lifeblood of the enterprise and analytics allows companies to relate to their customers and offer more tuned in and relevant products and services. Marketing should control this blood flow but use it to power the brain and the working limbs of the organization. While this may start to look like Business Intelligence, I believe it’s different because it requires real-time information, automated decisioning and ultimately creativity. These are qualities that I have yet to see from a BI tool. But maybe I’m naive.

Before this diatribe gets any longer, and you dear reader need resuscitation I’ll call it quits. But I’ll offer fair warning that this is just the beginning of my thoughts on the matter and there’s more to follow. I’d also love to hear what you think.

Posted Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 | 11 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

This is purely speculation. I have no inside knowledge into the possibility I present here other than hypothetical conversations with peers. Sean Power brought up the topic over dinner recently, which caused me to start thinking seriously about the realities of Microsoft buying Adobe. He blogged about it way back when Adobe acquired Omniture. At that time, I was at Forrester and when we got wind of the deal, we had an all-hands meeting to make sense of the awkward acquisition. Upon arriving at consensus, I quickly penned a missive about why the acquisition of the leading web analytics and optimization firm made sense for a creative software firm like Adobe. Yet, like most others, we had to squint at the deal to see any logic in it at all. Now it’s starting to become clear why Adobe shelled $1.8B to add some attraction to its offering for a much larger suitor.

Adobe controls big chunks of the digital customer experience. Specifically, they play a major role in content creation through the CS5 suite of products. While web developers aren’t necessarily building their global digital offerings in Dreamweaver, surely they are using elements of Creative Suite to do just that. Further, any document where the author wants to control its integrity will lock it down by saving it in PDF format. And now through the acquisition of Omniture, they gained the ability to measure and optimize consumer utilization of those assets as well as the web sites and marketing efforts of leading brands across the globe. We’re just starting to see the fruits of this curious marriage between the two firms in the announcements of tracking capabilities within the CS5 release. Yet, these tracking methods are not meant for the traditional users of Omniture’s set of highly robust analysis capabilities; they are designed for content creators and developers to gain insights about the digital assets they’re producing. I like to think of this as tricking people into using web analytics by not actually telling them that they’re using data to make day-to-day business decisions. Brilliant actually. This introduction of tracking capabilities within CS5 falls precisely in line with what my partner Eric Peterson describes as the bifurcation of the web analytics marketplace. Analytics at the low-end are offering information that is helpful (dare I say critical) in making decisions about business activity. At the top end are trained web analysts who crunch the data to tease out the insights and offer recommendations based on a holistic representation of data from numerous disparate sources. With Omniture Insights providing the analysis horsepower at the top of this scenario and CS5 empowering the bottom, all of the sudden, Adobe becomes an invaluable resource for enterprises that deliver services in online, offline, B2C, B2B or B2B2C environments. Now, let’s introduce Microsoft into this mix.

MSFT has labored [successfully] to own the consumer desktop with its operating system, indispensable productivity tools (MS Office), and not-so-universally, rich media with Silverlight. Not to mention that they’re still working diligently to capture consumers with Bing, MSN and a slew of other services pointed at end users. All this traction across MSFT properties gives them a lofty vantage point from which to monitor consumer behavior across digital channels. Adding a stack of ubiquitous software for content creation and some world class measurement capabilities may be quite attractive to the Redmond rotund. They’d immediately challenge Apple on a new level of customer intelligence and empower their enterprise customers with a whopping new set of capabilities. Despite the new consumer view to be gained from this possible acquisition, the real benefits are a nicely wrapped enterprise solution complete with: MS servers, a .NET framework, SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, Dynamics ERP, and a kitchen sink of bells, whistles and anything else you might want. Given the opportunity to deliver, measure and manage the customer experience at a really deep and integrated level seems like an appealing bet to me.

I won’t droll on about how or when this impending acquisition will occur; mostly ‘cause I have no idea. But I will hedge by saying that others suitors may actually line up before MSFT comes calling. Google for instance could parlay a nice entrance to the packaged software market and gain the ability to create, deliver and measure that largest advertising network on the globe. For that matter Apple may be strategically sparring with Adobe’s crystal palace in a deliberate attempt to soften their value. Swooping in for an acquisition after some fierce battling on the street wouldn’t be completely unheard of…now would it?

Posted Sunday, May 23rd, 2010 | 6 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

I’ve been pondering this blog post for a couple of weeks now since I took the WAA Certification Exam along with eight others in the inaugural proctored exam at eMetrics in San Jose.

To be totally honest, I probably didn’t need to take this test. For starters, I’m not a traditional web analyst that’s down in the trenches doing the hard work of analysis, reporting and translating the massive amounts of data we’re all so fond of collecting into insights and recommendations. While these web analysts have something to prove to their organizations about the value of their jobs and the expertise they posses – frankly I have nothing to prove.

Additionally, I work for a well established consultancy with a great brand reputation and I’m not planning on looking for a new job anytime soon. Our clients are most likely going to work with us regardless of our certification status. Yet, I wanted to take this test because I do advise my clients on what they should be doing with web analytics from a strategic perspective. I speak frequently about analytics and how to interpret and deliver data in the most effective ways. So my vantage point cannot be void of practical knowledge that dictates what’s possible in a realistic world.

Thus, I took the test in part to illustrate to myself that I not only talk the talk, but am willing to put my practical skills to the test. And yes…I passed, so you’ll be seeing the CWA (Certified Web Analyst) designation show up on my credentials.

Further, many of you voted recently to elect me to the Web Analytics Association Board of Directors; and I thank you for that. I took the WAA Certification Exam, so that I could lead by example and educate others about what I genuinely believe to be a valuable test of digital measurement knowledge. I encouraged all of my fellow board members to take the test as well and several have done so and more are sure to follow.

But because I went through the experience of taking this exam, I am uniquely qualified to share my experiences that stretch way beyond the speculation of any detractors that criticize this exam. Thus, I give you the Good…the Bad…and the Ugly of the WAA Certification Exam.

The Good…

This exam is a true test of analytical knowledge that requires both business acumen and a deep understanding of applied web analytics. Like all things analytics – it’s not easy. In fact, it’s downright hard. The guidance offered by the WAA regarding a recommended 3 years of practical experience is sound advice. And even then, this exam will require web analysts to dig deep into their skill set to come up with not just acceptable answers, but the best answer. Out of the initial nine exam-takers, seven passed the test, which is good. Yet, the minimum passing grade for the exam is 60% and the mean scores for our inaugural group was 61.7% (maybe I should have saved that for the ugly). The high score among all test takers thus far was 70%. While this may open questions about whether or not this test is too hard, to me it shows that there is plenty of runway for analysts to showcase their superstar skills with high scores. And if it was easy, where everyone could pass, then what validation of knowledge would that really be?

As my fellow WAA Board member Vicky Brock Tweeted: “As an employer I’d hire folk who ace this, as it tests analytical skills not recall”. Vicky also shared thoughts on her experience here. Much like Vicky, I believe this exam is a good test of knowledge that requires prospective certified analysts to know their stuff, which in turn demonstrates that the credential holds distinction.

The format is a familiar multiple choice answer system with four possible answers. Like most diligent test takers, I relied on the process of eliminating the ones that I knew were incorrect and then sorting through the remaining choices. This typically left me with two answer choices that could work, but knowing that one was better than the other, I was largely going on instinct to make the right choice. There is also a word question section that offered business scenarios and data sets leaving you to solve problems within the context of a specific business. These questions were the real gems of the exam and guaranteed to make your head spin. I love these types of questions, but perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment.

The big elephant in the room is the price. Without question, taking this exam is a financial commitment. I shelled out the bucks from my own pocket to do it because I believe in the value of certification. We as an industry are gaining momentum so quickly that analytics and data-driven cultures are all the rage today. The use of data is permeating organizations from the tactical to the strategic and ending up on the boardroom table, and in some cases, in financial analyst reports that end up on Wall Street. Yet, despite these significant gains, we have no designation to acknowledge that our Web Analysts are qualified for the job. This certification exam is that designation that will identify the truly proficient practitioners. In my opinion, this exam is worth every penny and I strongly believe that as more and more professionals acquire the CWA accreditation it will become the gold standard by which job candidates, consultants and trusted advisors are selected. When we reach this critical mass, those who aren’t Certified Web Analysts will be questioned with just cause…So why aren’t you certified?

The Bad…

I’ll be the first to admit that their are still some kinks in the system so it’s not perfect. Yet, nobody is so I’m willing to offer some leniency. For me, just downloading the application to sign up for the test was a chore. I offered feedback, so hopefully a fix is in the works now [there is], but when I registered the editable PDF application only worked if you had Acrobat writer on your machine, which I don’t. So after filling out the entire form, I couldn’t save it. I ended up printing out the pages and then scanning them back in to submit my application. Now, that’s more than I’d expect from your average exam taker, but I was on a mission. Also, be prepared to dig out your resume because the application requires listing all of your previous employers, their addresses, manager names and phone numbers. I was toggling between the application and my LinkedIn profile just to complete the darn thing.

**UPDATE** There is now a web based form that serves as the application, so no more downloading the PDF.

Next, it was very challenging for me to prepare for this exam. I did utilize the documents offered by the WAA including the Knowledge Required for Certification and the practice questions. The practice questions were actually great. They helped me to decide whether I was going to take the test and did closely resemble the actual questions on the test. I just wished there were more of them. The Knowledge Required document also contained a great deal of useful information, but after pouring through the 37 pages of material, I was still left feeling unprepared. The document mirrors the UBC course material, so it is thorough in describing what will be offered in terms of knowledge, but the meat of the work isn’t included in this document. It was all menu and no entree. So essentially, the document tells you what you will be tested on, but doesn’t teach any of the concepts. While they clearly state that: “Taking these four courses is not required to sit for the certification test.” those that do will be much better prepared than I was. I know that these courses are incredibly valuable and students rave about their success, but most professionals like myself don’t have the time to endure them – despite their value.

The Ugly…

So, I already ranted about the preparation materials and the costs above, but the Ugly for me was determining if I would actually re-take this test if I failed. The feedback that I received from the WAA did contain results for the four sections that were included in the test (Analytical Business Culture, Case Studies, Marketing Campaigns, and Site Optimization) and my scores for each section. Yet, this was the extent of the feedback on my performance. It was up to me to decipher which questions may have been within each of the four categories and where I needed to focus my efforts to better prepare for a re-test. To the credit of the Association, most standardized tests are scored this way and offer similar amounts of feedback – but most tests of this magnitude also have test preparation courses that teach the skills of taking the test and offer extensive feedback on skills necessary to score well on the exam. Thus, it was ugly for me because I can sincerely admit that I wouldn’t have paid to retake this test because I do not know how I would have prepared for a second exam.

The bright spot in this potentially ugly situation is that the WAA Board is committed to endorsing organizations that choose to develop WAA Certification Exam training programs. Since this test is still very new, these programs have yet to emerge, but the opportunity is out there. I want the WAA Certification Program to succeed for the WAA and for our industry. If the test-takers are better prepared to take the test through the help of a training program, then that’s a win-win. This type of prep course would offer me the confidence I needed to take the test again if I had failed…or for those of you taking the exam for the first time. Stay tuned for more news on this front as it develops.

The Summary…

This post is already getting long in the tooth and I’ve said a lot. The bottom line for me is that this exam is a strong indication of the digital measurement skills that an individual brings to his or her organization. Passing the WAA Certification Exam means that an individual is an expert in the field of web analytics. It’s an accomplishment that anyone in our industry should be proud of, and one that should receive accolades on top of accolades.

But that’s enough of my rant…What do you think?

I look forward to starting a long-term dialog on this topic, so please comment, email me or otherwise shout your opinions from the rooftops.

Posted Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 | 5 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

I’ve been awaiting this day with eager anticipation for some time now because we are finally releasing our paper on Social Marketing Analytics. Several months ago Eric Peterson and I started talking with Jeremiah and Altimeter Group about the issues facing social marketers. Despite the red hot flames trailing anything with the word social in it, the outlook for effectively measuring the effects of social marketing initiatives in a meaningful way was somewhat grim.

A lack of standardization, reckless experimentation, and unanswered calls for accountability were plaguing businesses who were working in earnest to embark on their social marketing activities. After some intense discussions and some creative thinking, we decided to collaborate on a research project that would leverage social media strategy from Altimeter Group and digital measurement rigor from Web Analytics Demystified. The result is a framework for measuring social media that we’re happy to share with you today. If you’re into this stuff, please drop us a note or give a call to get involved in the conversation.

Introducing the Social Media Measurement Framework

There’s no denying that social media is the hottest sensation sweeping the globe today. Yet, marketers must see past the shiny object that is social media and start applying a pragmatic approach to measuring their efforts in the social space. We developed a framework that starts with a strategy that requires solid business objectives. From there, specific measures of success – that we call Key Performance Indicators – provide a standardized method for quantifying performance.

Mapping Business Objectives to KPIs

Our report identifies four social business objectives that include: Foster Dialog, Promote Advocacy, Facilitate Support and Spur Innovation. While, there may be others that apply to your business, we view these as a solid foundation for beginning the measurement process. In the report we align KPIs to these social business objectives and offer real formulas for calculating success.

The Social Business Objectives and Associated KPIs are:
• Foster Dialog: Share of Voice, Audience Engagement, Conversation Reach
• Promote Advocacy: Active Advocates, Advocate influence, Advocate Impact
• Facilitate Support: Resolution Rate, Resolution Time, Satisfaction Score
• Spur Innovation: Topic Trends, Sentiment Ratio, Idea Impact

We encourage you to download the full report here to get the complete context and actual formulas for these KPIs.

Note: This report was a collaborative effort by Web Analytics Demystified and Altimeter Group and as such there are two versions of this report. The content is identical, yet we each published under our own letterhead.

This is Open Research…

We made a conscious decision not to accept sponsors for this research and to produce it entirely at our own expense so that we could offer a genuine launching pad for social media measurement to the industry. However, this research would not have been possible without numerous contributions from social media and measurement visionaries. We thank them in the report, but it’s worth mentioning that these contributors helped illuminate the big picture of the challenges and opportunities associated with measuring social. We’re publishing this work under a Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States and encourage practitioners, vendors and consultants to adopt our framework and use it in measuring social media.

We also want to be realistic about this body of work and acknowledge that it does not answer all questions regarding the measurement of social activities. Our hope is that it offers a solid jumping off point for getting started and that each of you in the community will modify and make contributions to improve this method of measurement. We can assure you that we’ll be listening to to your feedback and will continue to update our knowledge based your feedback on this work.

Want to Contribute or Learn More?

Jeremiah and I will be conducting a webcast on June 3rd to reveal the gritty details behind the strategy and framework. Join us by registering here: Attend the no-cost webinar on Social Media Measurement.

We encourage you to embed the Slideshare link into your own sites and I’ll link to others that extend the conversation here as well.

For more white papers from Web Analytics Demystified, click here. Or to instantly download a PDF of this Social Marketing Analytics report click this GET IT NOW link.

Related Links:

Jeremiah Owyang, my co-author, on the Web-Strategist blog

The Altimeter Group blog posting

Social market analytics: the dark side? Posted by Dennis Howlett

Shel Holtz also recognizes “The haphazard means by which we are monitoring and measuring social media…”

cjlambert’s posterous gives us a “like” but remains skeptical on the concept that media can be measured comprehensively

Geoffroi Garon takes the report to his French speaking audience.

Marshall Sponder includes us in his Social Analytics Web Journal write-up. Marshall is also working to implement our KPIs with one of his clients. Here’s Part 1 of his multi-part series.

Kenneth Yeung delivers a fantastic synopsis of our 25 page report with once concise post on his blog, The Digital Letter, with a follow-up post here.

Research Live offered a brief write-up of the research.

@Scobleizer tweeted us! Woot!

Chelsea Nakano references our research in her ambitious post titled Everything You Need to Know About Social Media Marketing.

Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media gives us a shout out. Lisa was also an influencer that we interviewed for the research.

Christopher Berry delivers great questions and thoughts on the research in his Eyes on Analytics blog.

Posted Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 | 12 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

Baseball fans across the nation were smiling this weekend with opening day games around the league. Those of you who know me, recognize that I’m a raging Red Sox fan, but last night’s 8pm start time against the Yankees was just too late for me to catch the entire game. So, upon checking the scores this morning I got to see this cool new interactive game summary on Redsox.com.

The spark lines show Tweet volume with mouseovers that offer details on each individual tweet. And the highlights are actual video clips that fire off a new window right from the summary page. Way to go MLB.com for delivering a simple, yet innovative mix of professional and consumer generated content.

Oh, yeah…the Sox beat the Yankees 9 – 7 in the opener if you’re wondering.
GO SOX!!

Posted Monday, April 5th, 2010 | One responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

Being a change agent for web analytics requires taking calculated risks, standing up for what you believe, and working diligently to make our industry stronger. I left my job at Forrester Research in part to become a change agent for web analytics and my bid for a seat on the WAA board of directors is the next big step in my journey. But, this quest I cannot fulfill alone – I need your vote. I’ve never run for elected office before so to illustrate my conviction, I borrow words from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential nomination speech and added a few of my own…

“With a deep sense of duty and high resolve, I accept your nomination.” I’ve stated several times before that there is no industry better than web analytics. Our colleagues within web analytics – the practitioners, the vendors, the leaders and gurus – are by and large friendly, approachable, and always willing to lend a hand. It makes working within analytics gratifying and fun. My hope is to elevate these positive attributes of our industry by aligning under the professional organization that we can call our own.

“The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high…”
Despite my positivism, we are facing turbulent times as an industry. We need to strengthen our association at a global scale to ensure that we speak with a common voice in all countries and in all languages to distinguish the Web Analytics Association as the undisputed resource for education, standards, research, and advocacy.

“…if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future.” It has recently come to my attention, despite proof from some members that not everyone receives value from the WAA. If elected to the Web Analytics Association board I will dedicate my term to proving the value of our association to members at every level, from student to vendor to advanced consultant. If we cannot recognize our own value, how then can we expect outsiders to accept our mission with the credibility and respect it deserves?

“I believe the times demand new invention, innovation, imagination, decision.” Those of you who know me recognize that I am not one to dwell on the mistakes of our past. Instead, I look to the future to determine how we can improve our situation and our position within the industry. These are exciting times for web analytics but times that will regale us to obscurity if we fail to demonstrate our vision through genuine contributions. We must think differently about how measurement technologies can be applied to today’s challenges and illustrate how the WAA is defining these efforts by taking a decisive leadership stand.

“This is a platform on which I can run with enthusiasm and conviction.”
It is this industry, its people and our collective challenges that I want to champion as a representative of the Web Analytics Association. I’ve stated my intentions here on the WAA web site, but will reiterate the most important. It’s time to stop making excuses and start delivering value to the members of the WAA. A vote for me will get you a dedicated evangelist who is willing to shoulder the burden of hard work and diligence that’s required to orchestrate change in this industry.

I welcome your thoughts and comments about how to improve our industry and will guarantee an open mind throughout my tenure on the Web Analytics Association board of directors if elected. Thanks for reading, Now Get Out And Vote!!

Posted Monday, March 29th, 2010 | 2 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

Earlier this week we described the Facebook Analytics Ecosystem and some of the ways in which businesses can go about measuring components of the social networking empire. Today, we reveal two key pieces of additional information that will help organizations: a. Understand the benefits of measuring Facebook (a necessary element in forming social marketing business objectives) and b. Identify vendors that offer measurement solutions for Facebook.

DISCLOSURE: Web Analytics Demystified works with many web analytics vendors including some of those discussed in this post. We rarely disclose our clients publicly but for the sake of transparency wanted the reader to know that we do have a financially beneficial relationship with three of these vendors and a mutually beneficial relationship with all four.

Three Business Benefits of Measuring Facebook

To demystify the ways in which businesses can measure, understand and capitalize on the growing Facebook phenomenon, we identified three pillars of Facebook measurement. These three pillars identify the “what”, the “who” and the “cha-ching” of marketing within Facebook.

1. Observe Interactions: What are people on Facebook doing? This essential component of Facebook measurement includes the ability to track anonymous user information such as visits, friends, comments, likes and exposure across pages, custom tabs and applications. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

2. Understand Demographics: Who are all these people on Facebook? In addition to knowing what they do, it’s important to know who Facebook users are to segment the massive population on attributes such as user ID, gender, age, education level, work experience, marital status or geographic information. Facebook is very protective of user privacy and many limitations apply here as well.

3. Impact Conversions: How can businesses cash in on Facebook marketing? This includes the ability to associate impressions and exposure within Facebook back to conversion events on external sites. And the ability to target advertising within Facebook based on observations and demographic data, while maintaining the ability to track viewthroughs and conversions offsite. This too requires extensive development and fancy footwork to make it happen so we’ll explain shortly.

Vendor Capabilities For Measuring Facebook

As mentioned in Part I of our series on Facebook Analytics, several of the major web analytics vendors are vying for position to deliver Facebook measurement capabilities. While we have not yet reached Facebook directly for comment, we concluded that no single vendor is likely to gain a long-term competitive advantage over the rest of the market for measuring Facebook. The partnership established between Omniture and Facebook does provide some short-term gains because Omniture is able to leverage a direct relationship with Facebook developers to fully utilize data provided by existing APIs; still, all of the vendors interviewed for this research informed us that they were actively engaged in talks with Facebook. Further, Web Analytics Demystified strongly believes that it is not in Facebooks’ best interest to lock into exclusive vendor agreements or partnerships because of the risk of alienating significant portions of their business population using disparate tools.

Here’s what we know:

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights offers aggregate views of behavioral and demographic data across a number of areas within the ecosystem. The Wall Insights show behavioral and demographic info on unique Fan interactions and all Fan visits. While the offering is great for the price, one thing we heard repeatedly is that the data is sampled and slow in coming, sometimes delayed up to three days.

To Facebook’s credit they appear to be constantly working to improve the quality of insights they provide. Mashable broke unofficial news again this morning by reporting that Facebook is offering more analytics detail to page admins through weekly email alerts. These reports reveal new fan counts, page views comments and likes over the week.

Most useful for: Companies unwilling to invest in “pro tools” for Facebook measurement. Facebook Insights does offer value so if you’ve got no other measurement prospects then what they’re offering is better than no data at all.

Coremetrics

Coremetrics’ Facebook announcement described their ability to determine Facebook’s influence on site visits and conversions, which melds nicely with their impression attribution tool. This slick capability allows Coremetrics to reveal vendor, category, placement and item data collected from within Facebook back to the Coremetrics Analytics interface. They do this using image tags and claim that caching happens infrequently, yet they circumvent these occurrences with cache busters.

Server-side rendering of image tags allows Facebook to segment and report on attributed data. This allows Coremetrics’ users to see how interaction with specific tabs led to web site engagement and conversions. While technically possible for them, Coremetrics hasn’t dedicated focus on reporting user interactions within Facebook in their interface. Instead, they’ve honed in on the ability to understand how the social networking site acts as a feeder channel to their customers’ primary web properties.

Most useful for: Companies heavily focused on Facebook as an advertising channel. Coremetrics is a good choice for clients that are not heavily invested in Facebook, but more interested in understanding how it compliments their other online acquisition marketing efforts.

Omniture

Omniture’s view on measuring Facebook is simple: Understand your audience > Target them with advertising > Optimize the message. They enable this by focusing on the custom tabs, apps and ads within Facebook. Their most recent announcements touted their partnership with Facebook to enable ad creation and demographic targeting directly within their Search Center Plus solution. This works through an Omniture Genesis integration that also enables even more granular behavioral and demographic data collection. We previewed each of these solutions in working demos, and both are scheduled for general release later this year (with the Genesis offering likely tied to the rumored announcements at Facebook f8.) Clients today are targeting with limited profile information specific to gender with product ads.

Omniture has also developed a “Facebook JavaScript” (FBJS) measurement library that allows them to track behavior data natively within Facebook, and despite competitor’s claims Omniture pointed out that they’ve been doing this since May of 2009. They also deploy output and image tags, which occurs less frequently, and for permissioned applications Omniture is collecting a bevy of demographic data that will appear within Discover for slice and dice ability. They’ve also created default segments within Discover showing pathing reports for: visitors acquired from Facebook (conversion); visitors from Facebook (impressions); and known Facebook users (user association).

Most useful for: Companies that have not yet fully determined what their approach towards Facebook will be. Given the breadth of their capabilities Omniture is a good choice for companies looking to better understand how user’s interact with the platform and the demographic make-up of their audience in Facebook, and with the SearchCenter Plus release, Omniture has the potential to dramatically improve customer’s ability to purchase laser-targeted advertising on the platform.

Unica

Unica has been noticeably quiet during the Facebook Analytics Wars but we’re not shy so we called ‘em out and asked them to weigh in on their capabilities. It turns out that they too have been measuring Facebook for some time using both dynamic and static image tags. They’re collecting strictly according to Facebook’s published rules but include unique user IDs and other attributes such as friend counts from visitors to their custom tabs. They also get app data for average viewing time, views, visits and visitors – all passed to Unica’s NetInsight interface.

Unica is taking a very conservative approach to the demographic data and like some others, waiting for a ruling from Facebook before developing capabilities in that area. While that capability is waiting in the wings, Unica’s longer term vision may include integration with their new search technology and conversion pathing visualizations.

Most useful for: Companies using other of Unica’s Affinium products and companies needing in-house analytical capabilities. Unica customers looking to develop or advertise within Facebook should explore the vast customization possibilities with Unica directly.

Webtrends

Webtrends is aggressively working to deliver social analytics solutions to their customers and also walking the Facebook talk. Their own corporate Facebook fan pages are the most developed of all vendors interviewed and they use these pages to test concepts and showcase capabilities. Webtrends also takes a conservative approach to data collection and privacy by adhering strictly to the letter of Facebook law, thus collecting and displaying fewer demographic attributes.

In their own words Webtrends has been “throwing the book” at the Facebook API to obtain as much data as their published documentation allows, which includes: views, visits, bounce rates and time on site for Facebook shares, ads, apps and custom tabs. Webtrends refutes the long-term feasibility and accuracy of image tags and cache busting techniques within Facebook. And they’ve responded by developing a proprietary solution that uses a data call to pass parameters from the data collection API. This method captures all the typical data as well as flash, pop-ups and other custom fields with the potential to do a whole lot more if the data collection restrictions ease. But before you go snooping for details, Webtrends informed us they have filed a patent for this new method of data collection.

Most useful for: Companies that want to gain deep visibility into interactions within the Facebook ecosystem. Webtrends has the potential to be very useful for social media marketers who are actively developing and tracking social media behavior in Facebook.

Questions to ask your vendor…

While some aspects of these Facebook measurement solutions have been around for a while, they are still very much nascent. Nearly all of the capabilities described above – as best we can tell – are deployed via customized consulting engagements with each vendor and likely will be for the foreseeable future. Keep this in mind as you think about pricing, development resources and timing.

Also, because Facebook is changing its rules and these solutions are largely custom consulting jobs, please don’t even think about buying anything before you see it in action. Have the vendor demonstrate the functionality you’re looking for using live customer data. While mock data and in-house examples are fine for some purposes, ask to see real-world data or decide whether you want to be the test subject.

Additionally here are a few questions that we recommend you pose to vendors when seeking out a Facebook Analytics solution:

1. How long have you had an active measurement solution in place for Facebook?
2. How many active customers do you have using your Facebook measurement capabilities?
3. Can we speak with two or three of your customers actively using your Facebook measurement capabilities?
4. Do you adhere to Facebook’s published data collection, storage and privacy regulations?
5. Are you using your solution to measure your own Facebook efforts? Can we see your data?
6. Do you have documented PHP and FBJS libraries that we are able to deploy on our own?
7. How long, on average, do your Facebook measurement deployments take start to finish?
8. Do I need to be a customer to purchase your Facebook measurement solution?
9. Which Facebook profile data can you import into your application? Can we see it in your application?
10. Which of your solutions are required to leverage your Facebook measurement solution?

As always I welcome your comments, thoughts, and opinions about this exciting aspect of digital measurement. And if you think we got something wrong, please do let us know!

Posted Thursday, March 18th, 2010 | 8 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

2010 is shaping up to be the year of social media measurement and March is the month for measuring Facebook. While most of the major analytics vendors have been working on their Facebook measurement capabilities for some time; Webtrends, Coremetrics and Omniture all released significant advancements in their respective abilities to measure and analyze activity within the social networking juggernaut recently. These announcements created a frenzy of curiosity and confusion around what’s possible and what each vendor can deliver, so we were compelled to investigate. However, our inquiries exposed a world of complexity in terms of what’s measurable according to the emerging Facebook rules and exactly how organizations would benefit from measuring behavior within the walled social networking ecosystem.

In this first part of our two part series on Facebook Analytics, we will dissect the Facebook ecosystem of pages, tabs, applications, advertisements, and Facebook Connect functionality to reveal the do’s and don’ts of tracking visitor activity. While it may seem straightforward, some areas of the ecosystem are off limits to traditional tracking, while other areas can be measured with a high degree of detail. But in all cases, 3rd party measurement solutions must play by the Facebook rules, which we’ll begin to describe here. In Part II of this series, we’ll lay out a framework for how businesses can derive value from measuring their efforts within Facebook and we’ll take a deep dive into the specific capabilities of vendors that offer solutions for measuring Facebook today.

The Facebook Ecosystem

The Facebook ecosystem is comprised of many parts, some of which can be customized while others may not. This section will offer a brief description of each component within the ecosystem.

Facebook Page & Tabs

Facebook “Pages” form the skeleton of each company’s presence on Facebook. Within the pages are a series of “tabs” with default (i.e., mandatory) tabs as well as customization opportunities. Default tabs include: the Wall and Info tabs, but additional standard tabs may include Photos, Discussion, Videos, Events, Boxes, etc. In addition to the standard tabs, Custom tabs within Facebook are plentiful. Yet, none of the tabs within Facebook can be measured using traditional JavaScript web analytics tags. This presents huge measurement challenges despite the fact that tabs offer massive opportunity for businesses to create compelling user experiences within Facebook. Mashable did a nice write-up last summer of Killer Facebook Fan Pages, which will give you a good idea of some of the customization possibilities.

Facebook Applications

Applications on Facebook can be developed using a variety of coding languages including PHP, JavaScript, Ruby or Python and Facebook even provides Client Libraries for their API. Applications must be hosted outside of Facebook and they can be stand-alone apps or embedded within custom tabs. Because apps can be developed using standard code, tracking with traditional web analytics methods is possible. It’s important to note that all applications require permission to track data about users (more on this in the next section). More than 500,000 applications are available on Facebook today so clearly they’re popular. Developers can learn more about The Anatomy of an App here.

Facebook Advertisements

Facebook ads appear in the right hand column of your Facebook pages and can link to external web pages – or – within Facebook on tabs, applications, events or groups. Ads can be tracked using Facebook Insights or with traditional web analytics tags when the ad links out to external sites by using campaign ID codes. Ads follow a template format and offer some restrictions around size, text and images. Ads can be targeted according to nine filters including age, gender and keywords just to name a few. Ads can be purchased according to impressions or clicks providing options for businesses.

Facebook Share

Facebook share options are surfacing across the web at an astounding rate. Much in the same way that you can share content trough social bookmarking sites or microblog formats, Facebook Share will populate a link within a users Wall page. Adding the Share link requires only one line of code and can drive traffic back to your site. Facebook even makes it simple by offering multiple Share icons to choose from.

Facebook Connect

Facebook Connect enables businesses and individuals to extend capabilities of Facebook including their identity and connections to the web at large (e,g., outside the Facebook ecosystem). In other words, Facebook Connect makes sharing content, conversations, images and social comments possible, both inside and outside the walls of Facebook. Some aspects of Facebook Connect are measurable when delivered outside the Facebook ecosystem, yet internal connections likely require custom solutions. Facebook Connect works through a set of APIs that quite frankly have the potential to make Facebook the epicenter of the digital universe. Below is an example of Facebook Connect in action and more examples are available here. I recommend checking out JCPenney’s “Beware the Doghouse” campaign that leverages Facebook Connect for a good laugh and a taste of how Connect can pull content, images and video from Facebook to create a rich multimedia experience.

Why is measuring the Facebook ecosystem so difficult?

Regardless of whether you agree with Facebook’s ideology or not, the company has made a conscious decision to build it’s empire using standard web development practices within its own ecosystem. Unlike standard web pages that are rendered using HTML, Facebook requires that organizations use their markup language called FBML (Facebook Markup Language) to build custom tabs and enable personalized experiences. Further, Facebook does not allow JavaScript to run on any page or tab on load, but instead uses their own solution FBJS (Facebook JavaScript). There’s a developer wiki maintained by Facebook that provides great detail on the Facebook platform located here and the bloggers at PHP, Web and IT Stuff in the UK did a great write-up on the topic of custom tabs as well.

This ain’t your ordinary JavaScript

Because Facebook utilizes its own Markup Language to “empower developers with functionality” and “protect users privacy”, you need to use FBJS if you want to include JavaScript in your custom tabs or applications. This makes tracking using traditional web analytics JavaScript tags impossible. However, some web analytics vendors have developed methods to track visitor information within standard tabs, which we will reveal in Part II of this series. Facebook does offer its own analytics tool called Insights for tracking the default Wall page. It provides reports on exposure, fans, actions and behavior and offers demographic information about visitors to Wall pages and ads. Note that while Insights provides both click-through rates (CTRs) and engagement rate (ETRs), this is sampled data that offers estimates on actual behavior. Data can be exported from Insights to Excel (.xls) or CSV files. Facebook’s development roadmap indicates that more data will be made available through Insights in early 2010. The developer notes also indicate that an API will be available to gain access to data collected within the Insights tool (see here for more details).

The clock is ticking and tracking permission is opt in

To complicate matters, at this time Facebook does not permit the storage of user data acquired from Facebook for more than 24 hours. Although rumors are brewing that this may change. Exceptions to the 24 hour storage rule are documented in the Facebook developer site, but they are far from being crystal clear. Data stored in perpetuity may include User ID, Photo Album ID, email address, primary network ID and several other attributes noted here. This means that despite all the ways that you can get data out of Facebook Insights or through third party methods, their platform policies may prohibit long-term storage of that data. [If you choose to follow those rules]. However, Facebook has opened the floodgates to external measurement solutions for applications and advertisements…if… And this is a big IF… users grant permission to track and store data about them. This authorization is requested using a standard message shown in the screenshot below.

For users who are comfortable with tracking and aware that this happens on nearly every web site out there, it’s really no big deal. But I’m willing to guess that the abandon rate on most permission requests is astronomical. If you’ve got data on Facebook app abandon rates, I’d love to know.

Next steps…

Now that we’ve painted the big picture of the Facebook ecosystem and hinted at what’s possible in terms of measurement, it’s time to explore vendors that can actually measure all these moving parts. We’ll save the juicy details for Part II of this post, but leave you with some food for thought…

Measuring Facebook is no easy task. Despite the fact that over 400 million users access the site regularly, the visibility into the actions, behavior, and demographics is carefully guarded. Each of the vendors we interviewed interrogated was highly sensitive to Facebook rules and the privacy of its citizens.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the ecosystem and if you think I missed anything, which is entirely possible given the complexity of Facebook. I welcome your comments and I hope you’ll visit again soon to learn how a small handful of major web analytics vendors are cracking the Facebook measurement ecosystem.

Posted Sunday, March 14th, 2010 | 12 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

Hot off the presses! Ray Wang and Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group just released their newest report: Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management. The opening tenor of the report adeptly characterizes the shift in control from brands to consumers and the frenetic scramble to understand this new paradigm. Yet, the experts at the Altimeter Group see a new shade of CRM technologies aiding in the quest to maintain customer relationships. They write in the report that Social CRM is not a displacement of traditional CRM solutions, but rather a value add function to deepen customer relationships through interaction.

As always the Altimeter Group takes a pragmatic approach by encouraging organizations to start slowly and choose Social CRM entry points based on business value. They list seven categories that tie to real business use cases such as: Social Customer Insights, Social Sales, Social Innovation and Customer Experience to illustrate their points. Yet the real meat of this report exists in the 18 case studies that exemplify tested use cases for Social CRM.

Each use case includes two key measures that enable readers to determine the importance of the activity to their business and the feasibility of putting the use case into action. The first measure is the Market Demand Index, which provides context for the urgency associated with each activity. High Market Demand means that adoption is likely within a short (i.e., 6 month) timeframe. The second measure is Tech Maturity Index that signifies either currently available technologies that are widely used or conceptual products that are still evolving.

This report is chock full of information that you can use to begin understanding your customers and their use of social media in an entirely new way. As one of the influencers listed on this report, I can attest to the fact that it is recommended reading for anyone who’s working in social media today.

Finally, this isn’t the last word on Social CRM. The Altimeter Group encourages readers to add to the conversation and engage in the dialog. To take part: Join your peers in the Google Group for Social CRM Pioneers at:
http://groups.google.com/group/social-crm-pioneers – or – Add the hashtag #scrmusecase to your tweets to join the conversation on Twitter.

Posted Friday, March 5th, 2010 | 6 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

Social Marketing Analytics is the process of measuring, analyzing and interpreting the results of interactions between brands and consumers and/or businesses across digital channels in the context of specific goals and objectives.

…At least that’s our working definition. Web Analytics Demystified and the Altimeter Group are collaborating on a white paper on the topic of Social Media Measurement and we need your help. Our goals for this endeavor are to offer a framework for quantifying the efforts of your social marketing activities and to provide some best practices in measuring social media. Our approach is to bring together social media strategy from the Altimeter Group and analytics discipline from Web Analytics Demystified to illustrate how organizations can truly justify social media marketing. This paper will be available in March 2010 to all at no cost as we believe that practitioners and organizations shouldn’t have to pay for quality research.

So, now that you know the backstory… While conducting research for this paper, we quickly realized that social media means so many different things to different people that a clear definition was necessary. Under the concept of open research, we’re looking to you to help us crowd source a definition for what we call Social Marketing Analytics. We offer a starting point for the definition here and challenge all you vendors, social media mavens, gurus, users, abusers and everyday practitioners to help us refine the definition.

As you help us shape this definition, please keep in mind the following:

• Social Marketing Analytics is a method for businesses to understand the results of their social marketing efforts – it’s not meant for consumers.

• The definition must include all social channels – those in existence today and ones that will exist in the future.

• We’re taking a big-picture approach by starting with a strategy for social marketing that isn’t dependent on specific channels or technologies.

So here’s our working definition. Please post your comments below or reach out to us via email or Twitter to help define a common starting point for measuring this incredibly important piece of our connected universe.

“Social Marketing Analytics is the process of measuring, analyzing and interpreting the results of interactions between brands and consumers and/or businesses across digital channels in the context of specific goals and objectives.”

Now make it yours… Please comment!

Posted Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 | 14 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email