BtoB Webcast: Avinash Hits the Mark on B2B Analytics

Earlier in the week BtoB Magazine hosted a website with Avinash Kaushik on ‘Measuring Micro & Macro Conversions in Lead Generation’, a topic near and dear to our hearts.  This was an action-packed hour of strategies for leveraging analytics to meet B2B website objectives and it has garnered quite a bit of interest, judging from recent conversations with our clients and others.  That Avinash, always causing a stir! 
There were lots of good concepts presented, but I wanted to highlight a couple that we think are particularly relevant.  These are the kinds of things that can lead to significantly improved results [...]

The Customer Life Cycle Funnel – an Interview with Jim Sterne

 
I recently had a chance to chat with Jim Sterne, Chairman of the Web Analytics Association and founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit.
Jim Sterne’s depiction of the Customer Life Cycle Funnel – four distinct funnels based on successful or unsuccessful customer acquisition, persuasion and conversion – has been widely quoted and referenced since he first presented it in 2000.  In the interview, Jim walks us through the four funnels, while also touching upon B2B vs. B2C, and social media marketing.

Want to be a Top Notch Analyst? Add these Skills to your Repertoire

If you are looking for a career in web analytics and want to establish a solid foundation of skills as a part of your overall analytics training, then I recommend adding the skills below to your tool-set to help you become a very well rounded analyst before you enter the field. Taking a course on web analytics, reading a book on web analytics or subscribing to a web analytics blog are a good start, but frankly, are not good enough by themselves.
 

Search Marketing: I always think of Web Analytics as a tool to help your search marketing strategy. Without an [...]

Why You Should Use Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools has been around for a few years now.   Over the past few years, the Google Webmaster Team has done a remarkable job in updating Google Webmaster Tools and listening to the needs of Webmasters and site owners.  For those of you who do not currently use Webmaster Tools, you should.  Google Webmaster Tools is a very powerful tool that you can use to address any indexing issues that Google may have with your site.  Google Webmaster Tools is a great tool for reporting statistics and diagnostics pertaining to the managment of your site’s pages in Google index.  [...]

Marketers Would Increase Budget for Behavioral Targeting

Four out of five advertisers are willing to increase their online advertising budget in order to add behavioral targeting to their pay-per-click campaigns, according to SEMPO, (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), http://www.sempo.org/, which conducted a 2007 state of the market survey of 867 search engine advertisers and search engine marketing agencies. I had a quick chat with the Chairperson of SEMPO, Dana Todd regarding the latest interest in behavioral targeting and the need to include it in a company’s online marketing strategy. Listen to the podcast of our conversation below:
 
 

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Rest of the press release: The survey also [...]

Web Analytics: Wasting Your Time

Web Analytics is not easy and can take up much of you time so it’s important to concentrate on the things which have the most benefit to your business. Below I have outlined the types of things you shouldn’t measure as well as some areas where you could potentially end up wasting time rather than focusing on tactics and metrics which will actually help your strategy to succeed.

Trying to Achieve 100% Accuracy

In a JavaScript and Cookie model, web analytics will never be 100% accurate. In a web analytics test performed last year by Stone Temple consulting where they [...]

How to Optimize your Web Analytics Process

Having frequently been involved with the web analytics process I have noticed some consistent issues with web analytics both from an agency and in house perspective. I am not talking about data quality or even vendor selection, I am talking about how web analytics strategically fits in within an organization.

Analytics is not a priority: In many cases web analytics is often an afterthought and is not implemented during a site launch or during a sponsored/email campaign. Web Analytics needs to be given more priority and should be thought of before any marketing campaigns are implemented so that you can actually [...]

What are some Useful Metrics for Travel Sites?

In this multi-part series we are going to analyze numerous websites across different categories to help our readers better understand what metrics they should be measuring for their own website. Metrics cannot be reported without a proper web analytics implementation therefore it's important to be as thorough as possible because it's better to over collect data than under collect.
Today we are going to be looking at metrics to track for travel websites and for this post we have selected 2 travel sites which we are going to analyze. The first is a website dedicated to Caribbean vacations, Sandals.com and second is [...]

What is Often Overlooked in a Web Analytics Implementation?

The web analytics implementation process can often be a long and grueling process which includes numerous resources and environments. When you're trying to focus on items such as accurately trying to integrate with a CMS or ecommerce solutions, forgetting the little things can often occur. Here are a few items worth double checking before you declare the implementation 100% complete (Download Checklist – PDF):

Local IP Exclusion: Have you blocked local IP addresses as well as your vendors' so that their activity doesn't get included within your results? If your site receives tens of millions of page views monthly this [...]

The New Role for Outsourced SEM

Within the SEM industry a trend can be noticed towards the internalization of search; the formation of in-house SEO and SEM teams to handle search. With the costs of reputable outsourcing agents continuing to rise, the justification to hire within and develop an in-house team becomes justifiable, or at least appears to on the books. Return on investment with a team working full time on bid management and organic strategies should be able to deliver the same value as does an outsourced company, not working nearly as many hours.The simple ROI calculation cannot factor in the intangible factors associated with [...]