Below is live coverage of the Creating a Web Analytics Culture from the SES San Jose 2009 conference.
This coverage is provided by Keri Morgret of Strike Models & Gaurav Sharma of Think Mantra.
We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. You can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed.
| Creating a Web Analytics Culture | (08/11/2009) |
| 11:45 | Keri Morgret: Creating a Web Analytics Culture
This session will showcase various marketing methodologies which can be used to create, build and foster a measurement-based culture. Convincing the business owner/CEO/VP of Marketing to invest time and resources in measurement and analytics is the easy part. The real challenge is to identify realistic goals with limited resources and to encourage a shift in mind set to focus on metrics and actionable insights. The objective is to improve conversions and ROI for marketing spend. In this session you will learn how to establish and nurture this culture, from incremental improvements, data driven decision making, to insightful high level executive dashboards. A must attend for all companies involved in online marketing that want to stretch marketing dollars in 2009.
* Moderator:
Sara Holoubek, Consultant, Columnist and SEMPO President,
Click to close
Speaker Profile
* Speakers:
Matthew Bailey, SES Advisory Board & President, Site Logic Marketing
Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Enquisite
John Marshall, SES Advisory Board & CTO, Market Motive
Feras Alhlou, President, E-Nor, Inc.
Ron Belanger, SES Advisory Board & Vice President of Worldwide Agency Sales, Omniture |
| 11:46 | Keri Morgret: Sara asks a little more about the audience, wants to see who is an agency, technology company, bloggers, etc. |
| 11:46 | Keri Morgret: John Marshall is up first. |
| 11:47 | Keri Morgret: He's talking about how everything you learned in life can be related to Van Halen. |
| 11:50 | Keri Morgret: They required M&M's in their contracts, but would not allow brown ones. A hotel room was trashed when they got brown M&M's. John is explaining why they didn't want brown candies. |
| 11:52 | Keri Morgret: They wanted to make sure that when there was a problem that they would lose early. It was a leading indicator that someone had not read the contractor. Meant they needed to go through everything very carefully. |
| 11:52 | Keri Morgret: If you are going to lose anyway, lose early. |
| 11:54 | Keri Morgret: John also mentions Edward Tufte as a way to learn how to make data persuasive. www.edwardtufte.com. He does seminars all over the country. [I agree, I've been highly influenced by his work as well. KM] |
| 11:55 | Keri Morgret: Richard Zwicky from Enquisite is up now. |
| 11:55 | Keri Morgret: Extracting good, meaningful information is the challenging part (information you can pass off to management). |
| 11:56 | Keri Morgret: You can get lots of data, but it's over the heads of people in the C-suite execs. Trying to get them to buy in and concentrate on metrics is difficult to impossible, and you don't want to do it. Going to be like hearding cats. Keept it simple, or you're going to fail. |
| 11:57 | gsharma: What does the C-Suite want to know?
Investment
Revenue
ROI |
| 11:58 | Keri Morgret: What does management want to know?
Needs to be able to forecast and compare intelligently across channels and measure value deliver.
Needs at-a-glance progress reports.
Web analytics looks at what happened, but not always good at looking at what will happen. |
| 11:58 | Keri Morgret: To get buyin, you need to predict what is going to happen. |
| 11:59 | Keri Morgret: The C-Suite wants to see really important, core information. They look at the facts, want that info to help make decisions. |
| 12:00 | Keri Morgret: Search marketers needed simple metrics to give to C-Suite, then can dive into areas of concern if needed. |
| 12:00 | Keri Morgret: C-Suite isn't interested in numbers, they want an assessment of what it means. What gets managed gets measured, and vice-versa. You need to measure to be able to manage. |
| 12:01 | Keri Morgret: Search marketer, unlike C-suite, wants all kinds of information. You need to be sure they can have all kinds of information. It helps them identify goals and resources to make right decisions.
All important to search marketer, but not to C-Suite.
The right analytics culture can help bridge this and make sure everyone gets what they need. |
| 12:03 | Keri Morgret: What does the search marketer really want?
To be able to improve the web site's customer acquisition numbers for the terms which drive the most value. |
| 12:04 | Keri Morgret: Creating a web analytics culture.
It's NOT about the data. It's all about the right information and facilitating smart business decision. Providing relevant information to every level in the org -- this can be different information for different people. |
| 12:05 | gsharma: Ron Belanger up next |
| 12:06 | Keri Morgret: Seven keys to creating a data0driving company.
|
| 12:06 | gsharma: Talking about Omniture's SiteCatalyst's 5000 instalations. |
| 12:07 | Keri Morgret: 1. Secure an executive sponsor.
Why?
Web analytics must reflect executive priorities and company strategy.
Who should yo ugo to?
Any senior executive whose team would benefit significantly from web analytics.
How?
Priorities
Protection
Problem Resolution |
| 12:08 | Keri Morgret: 2. Align implementation with business objectives. |
| 12:08 | gsharma: Survey shows 18% have measurement strategy. |
| 12:08 | Keri Morgret: If yo udon't know what you're going to measure, why bother spending the money? |
| 12:08 | Keri Morgret: Several sources of misalignment during implementation. |
| 12:08 | gsharma: Measurement startegy should be a living document. |
| 12:09 | Keri Morgret: 3. Invest in staffing and training. Invest in people, not just tools. |
| 12:10 | gsharma: Web Analytics Playing Field. |
| 12:10 | gsharma: 4. Establish and maintain corporate standards. |
| 12:11 | gsharma: It will take longer to implment the standards, but you should do it. |
| 12:11 | gsharma: 5. Deliver Quick wins |
| 12:11 | Keri Morgret: Data and reports are NOT success. Don't just send your executive reports on Friday and go home. |
| 12:12 | gsharma: 6. Test and Validate Measurement Efforts |
| 12:12 | Keri Morgret: Verify key business requirements were met.
|
| 12:12 | gsharma: Data validation is a two fold responsibility. |
| 12:12 | Keri Morgret: Ensure data is sound and accurate. |
| 12:13 | Keri Morgret: What's my acceptable criteria for variance? Do that homework up front. |
| 12:13 | Keri Morgret: Fostering a data-driven environment.
|
| 12:13 | gsharma: 7. Holding People accountable |
| 12:14 | Keri Morgret: Accountability drives adoption and change. |
| 12:15 | gsharma: Matt Bailey Is next up. |
| 12:15 | gsharma: Creating a web analytics (counter) culture |
| 12:15 | Keri Morgret: Matt started out getting tasked with analytics because he was young and knew computers. |
| 12:16 | Keri Morgret: In some ways and in some companies you're trying to create a counter culture. Current culture doesn't lend itself to thinking about analytics the way it needs to be thought about. |
| 12:16 | Keri Morgret: He asks how many of us feel, when we try to communicate about analytics, you're going against mainstream of company? |
| 12:16 | gsharma: Analytics is Subversive |
| 12:17 | Keri Morgret: As the analyst, your job is to constantly ask why. Asking why is subversive. Constantly challenge assumptions.
What's the goal of the campaign?
How are we doing that?
How is this going to accomplish the goal?
You're constantly attacking the accepted norms and practices. |
| 12:17 | Keri Morgret: Asking those questions does not make you popular, but does make you analyst. |
| 12:17 | gsharma: Question-asking is the single greatest tool humans have by Neil Postman. |
| 12:18 | gsharma: Questioning Authority - Only way to bring light to patterns and processes. |
| 12:18 | Keri Morgret: Questioning authority is never popular. Meetings go longer, it's uncomfortable, etc. But needed. |
| 12:19 | Keri Morgret: Find the things that are accepted, but just not true. Challenge fundamental beliefs. He loved to challenge the graphic designers. |
| 12:20 | gsharma: Know your rights in the corporate |
| 12:20 | Keri Morgret: He's had lots of fights with graphic designers until he found golden path of analytics. Make a bet on things, helps when challenging things, make it interesting. |
| 12:20 | Keri Morgret: Betting on things makes it a lot more fun. Less ego involved when you can test things. |
| 12:21 | Keri Morgret: Put the emphasis on the analysts, not tools. |
| 12:21 | gsharma: Add context to data |
| 12:22 | Keri Morgret: He also quotes Tufte and recommends attending his seminars [if a seminar isn't near you, I recommend getting his books.] |
| 12:22 | gsharma: Context can be addied by adding data points.
|
| 12:23 | gsharma: Analyst is the one to take the tools, make the decisions and how to apply the knowledge. |
| 12:23 | Keri Morgret: Your job -- "question the man". |
| 12:23 | gsharma: Attach the numbers to dollar signs to buy the buy off. |
| 12:24 | Keri Morgret: Feras Alhlou, President, E-Nor, Inc. up now.
|
| 12:25 | Keri Morgret: Feras gives his company background information. He's going to look at some case studies and practical tips. |
| 12:25 | Keri Morgret: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and, not everything that counts can be counted." Albert Einstein. |
| 12:25 | gsharma: Showing an example of Yahoo Answers! |
| 12:25 | Keri Morgret: "Voters in Florida know that their votes can be counted, but they don't count." |
| 12:26 | Keri Morgret: One size fits none. Understand/Identify what is important in your organization. Not two organizations are the same. Limited time/money/resources -- use it all wisely. |
| 12:27 | gsharma: Know your audience - Don't start creating your analtics culture with a radar map or 5-d motion chart. |
| 12:27 | Keri Morgret: Motion charts are great, but not useful to everyone. Don't scare everyone off by using it. |
| 12:28 | Keri Morgret: Case Study:
Lead Generation Website.
Do a lot of paid search, affiliate sites, offline stuff.
$2M a year. |
| 12:28 | gsharma: Case Study - 7 Phases |
| 12:28 | gsharma: 1. Auto-pilot
2. Web Metrics
|
| 12:28 | Keri Morgret: Problem is that things are on auto-pilot. You're not measuring your marketing campaigns. |
| 12:29 | gsharma: 3. Conversion
4. Cost Data Integration |
| 12:29 | Keri Morgret: Conversion. Education people on conversion, it's not just traffic. Then try to ingegrate things with cost. |
| 12:29 | Keri Morgret: His example is about lead generation in this case study. |
| 12:29 | gsharma: 5. Offline Data Integration
6. :ead Quality (CRM)
7. Business |
| 12:29 | Keri Morgret: Auto-pilot. No measurement, maybe periodic reports, some marketing working, some now -- but you don't know which. |
| 12:30 | Keri Morgret: Web metrics. Measurement baby steps. Do automatic reporting. Start with a dash board and report distribution. |
| 12:30 | gsharma: Educate your customers about the most basic information. |
| 12:31 | Keri Morgret: Next thing is conversion tracking. Task Completion Define. Micro and Macro Level Conversion, Stakeholders and resources. |
| 12:31 | gsharma: Provide real life examples of conversions to your clients. |
| 12:31 | Keri Morgret: How can we get people involved in our site? How can we get this user engaged? How to get them warmed up with a white paper before they become a customer? Measure all of this. |
| 12:32 | gsharma: Tools do not matter much than the actual knowledge and inference. |
| 12:32 | Keri Morgret: Cost data integration. Campaign performance and ROi. Look for 80/20 rule. More stakeholders and Resources. How much did we pay for stuff? |
| 12:33 | Keri Morgret: Offline data integration. Not everyone converts over the web. Look at the bigger picture. |
| 12:33 | Keri Morgret: Next step is lead quality/classification (CRM). |
| 12:33 | Keri Morgret: Understand not just number of leads, but quality of leads. Work with sales, operations, customer service. Report this back to management. |
| 12:34 | gsharma: Business cost/revenue per customer. |
| 12:35 | gsharma: Weed out the bad leads, cost and cost per revenue. Talk about business cost/revenue terms. |
| 12:35 | Keri Morgret: Showing an excel spreadsheet that I can't summarize because I'm starving and it's still ten minutes before we can leave for lunch. |
| 12:36 | gsharma: Technology is less of a challenge, culture is more. "People don't know what they don't know." |
| 12:42 | Keri Morgret: Laughing about a question dealing with sales people. |
| 12:42 | Keri Morgret: Take benchmark data before you make changes. |
| 12:44 | gsharma: Offline data integration and ROI - A good CRM system and process will help. |
| 12:45 | 
|
