Neil Mason

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 14/01/10 and is republished here with permission.

In my last column I reflected on 10 years in digital analytics and how far the industry had developed in decade in some ways and how there was still room to grow in others. I commented that I thought that one of the issues was that the online marketing world had been “data rich and analytically poor” and this week I want to explore some of the areas where I think there is work to be done to enhance the quality of insight that digital marketers get from their investments in data capture and reporting technologies. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 22/12/09 and is republished here with permission.

It’s hard at this time of year not to get a bit reflective at the year that’s gone by and to think ahead to the year that’s about to be. But it only struck me though as I sat down to write this column that I am just about to complete my first decade working in digital marketing analytics. I got started when I moved to work at an online auctions business in 2000 having spent a (large) number of years working in “offline” marketing analytics and consumer insight. I remember that when I got to this online business that the head of marketing told me to forget everything that I had learned in the offline world as this was “new media” and that “things were different” now. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 04/12/09 and is republished here with permission.

 There’s the old saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words” meaning that it’s easier to convey ideas and concepts visually than through text. The majority of the sense receptors in our body are in the eyes. Some people are more “visual” than others but the visual representation of information is still one of the most powerful mediums for getting your message across. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 20/11/09 and is republished here with permission.

Last time I looked at some of the challenges around understanding the dynamics of marketing activity when using the standard “attribution” models provided in most web analytic systems. Most of the time web analytics systems use a “last click” attribution model which credits the last marketing touchpoint with the sale or conversion and can give a highly misleading view on the role that different channels play in the awareness building and consideration phases of the purchase decision making process. One approach to overcoming this challenge is to view the various different attribution models that are found in some web analytics systems to understand the role that different channels play or an alternative approach is to use data feeds to extract the data from your web analytics systems into a database and to analyse the data there. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 06/11/09 and is republished here with permission.

At the Emetrics conference in DC I picked up a copy of a white paper by Eric Peterson on marketing attribution. In the white paper Peterson outlines the challenges with marketers relying on the traditional “last click” attribution models that are built into most web analytics systems, at least as a default setting. I’ve highlighted some of these issues before in this column and it’s good to see the subject getting more attention from other commentators in this space. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 23/10/09 and is republished here with permission.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks on the conference circuit. WebTrends held their Engage conference in London and last week I was in Washington DC for the Emetrics Marking Optimization Summit . It was good to see WebTrends out and about in the market, showing off some of their latest stuff. They’ve been working hard on their messaging by the looks of it and getting a distinctive market positioning going. The core brand themes they talked about were “Power”, “Elegance” and “Openness”. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 09/10/09 and is republished here with permission.

 In the UK, Econsultancy has released their latest overview of the Web Analytics market and there are some interesting findings and trends that I’m sure are being replicated in other parts of the world. It also highlights though that in some areas that there is still a lot of progress to be made. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 24/09/09 and is republished here with permission.

In the course of our work we see many implementations of many different web analytics systems. However, despite the fact that most companies now have an analytics system or indeed are on their third or fourth different technology I remain surprised sometimes by the poor quality of the data that are being reported from these systems. If you are only using the system to report very top line numbers then it’s easier not to worry too much about the quality of the data as it’s hidden from view. Read more…