PubCon Live: Analytics API's and Enterprise Level Analytics Management

Hi I'm @beussery welcome to the Analytics API session at PubCon Las Vegas. Richard can't be here today... Dax Herrera is filling in....

Up first, Nate Griffin
@Nate_Griffin

Two Goals

1. Attribute actual revenue to sources
2. Visualize data for transparency

Unless ecommerce tracking is enabled in GA, you can't get actual dollar amounts from Google Analytics.

If using GA you can't add data

Website belongs to marketing

CRM belongs to sales


Product belongs to support

Marketing doesn't have an interest in closes

Sales doesn't have an interest in long term relations

With lead ID in CRM you can calculate revenue, lifetime value & satisfaction.

Apply the same logic as Omniture transaction ID and Coremetircs CDF. As a result all have vested interest.


Pitfalls, you've got to really want to to this because it isn't easy. You don't want to do this for real time data. For every date range, this has to be run again.


Omniture API
- doesn't have access to everything
- expensive
- slow

Cost
- how much would you pay for Omniture implementation

Biggest problem, internal sabotage because this project isn't easy and takes time.

Get C-Suite buy in

Dax is up now...

In any consulting firm, bandwidth is a challenge. Anything Dax can do to help in this area is important.

You can speed things up by using enterprise APIs.

To some folks enterprise APIs might seem geeky but Dax loves creating valuable services for company and client.

There are two functions in SEO:

- Figure out why you suck
- Fix it

At the enterprise level there is one more:
- prove it

Dax is working on a new tool that analyses site and figures out why target terms aren't working. Dax talks more about the tool and offering "Prove it" technology via APIs.

Dax talks about Microsoft wanting to rank for "Try Windows 7" but "try" isn't on the site. They were able to help show this in enterprise speak by using APIs. Dax will go over API specifics in a minute.

Every SEO is as good as his ability to analyses data. That is what APIs can help to do.

In terms of tools, there are:
- Google Analytics
- Facebook
- Twitter
- YouTube
- Majestic
- SeoMoz

Point is, there are a lot of tools with APIs.

I always give this speach but nobody listens. Don't reinvent the wheel use what is already out there. You get one engineer who wants to change something and it is all over...

Every API is about people, the people who use the tools provide all the value.

If you want to get started applying tools go to o-desk and get someone to help you start mashing up APIs.

Q&A:

What is the most interesting thing you've seen in the past year for SEO related analytics?

Answer: Infographs data visualization, content is more difficult to create now. Content needs to be fresh and targeted.

What is the best way to combine AdWords and Mongoose to connect offline sales?

ANS: Developers are good at implementing API. The biggest part is explaining to developers what you need and why...

What is your opinion on using marketing automation instead of Google Analytics?

ANS: Use marketing automation systems as a bridge.

When building large scale analytics what do you ask clients in terms of their needs?

ANS: First question is about revenue, second is about time and cost savings...

Nate avoids getting in to great detail for high level buy in...

Thanks for checking out the live blog, I'll be blogging more sessions later today!