Web Analytics

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 11/10/10 and is republished here with permission.

Fragmentation, optimisation and integration. Those were the themes that stood out for me at last week’s Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Washington DC. First of all I was reminded that “web analytics” is not was it used to be, it’s an increasingly complex space. Secondly, I was shown some great evidence about what’s really required to be an optimisation orientated organisation and finally we’re beginning to see some case studies from organisations that have made the investment in multi-channel data and the benefits they’re accruing from that. Read more…

Last November the European Union approved new legislation amending an existing privacy directive relating to the way websites collect data about visitors. In essence this would prevent sites from using cookies without prior consent from web users. Cookies are small snippets of code that sit on your computer and identify you as a visitor to a particular website. They may be used by a retail site to remember what you have put into your basket or used by an advertising network to understand what ads you have seen online and target you with specific messaging. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 28/09/10 and is republished here with permission.

A while back when I started consulting with clients in the area of digital analytics, a common engagement would be to help an organisation figure out which Web analytics technology would be best for its needs. The typical process would involve working with the organisation to define its business needs by understanding what its goals and objectives were. The next stage would be to translate that into a set of requirements in terms of what the technology needed to be able to deliver and then using those requirements as a basis for assessing proposals and pitch presentations and choosing a particular vendor. Read more…

There’ve been two news worthy football events in the last week. The first was my return after 2 years ‘resting’ to my local 5-aside league, the second was the return to our TV screens of Uefa’s Champions League. While I stood around in the pouring rain wishing I was a decade younger on Tuesday, on Wednesday I rested my aching legs on the sofa and watched Arsenal demolish Braga. Grudgingly I’ll have to admit they were quite good.

Given my interest in football, advertising and data I often think about the numbers behind the game. Sometime that is match statistics, sometimes it is financial data. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 27/08/10 and is republished here with permission.

Despite all the known issues and problems with the way we measure the effectiveness of acquisition marketing activity such as the use last-click attribution models, I often wonder whether we’re measuring the right thing at all. By that I mean the point at which we define “acquisition” and therefore the point at which we determine the return on investment (ROI) of our marketing budget. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 13/08/10 and is republished here with permission.

I don’t know whether the number is right or not but a while back I heard that sophisticated marketing companies such as the world’s leading brands spent about 10% of their marketing budget on research and measurement. Irrespective whether the number is accurate or not, it’s a good benchmark I think – 10% feels about right. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 16/07/10 and is republished here with permission.

As web reporting and analytics gets more mature as a technique and as an industry, I sometimes now hear comments from organisations along the lines of “We’ve finished our web analytics implementation now and we’re on to the next project”. It’s as if the implementation of web analytics in a business is seen as an event rather than as a process. Whilst the introduction or the upgrading of a web analytics system can be seen as a project, the adoption and the ongoing use of web analytics data in an organisation is something that requires ongoing management and maintenance. Read more…

Even the very largest gaming businesses online today may be playing a weakened hand when it comes to delivering a truly efficient web analytics strategy.

Over the last year I’ve spoken to numerous companies who, although generally data rich about how their customers bet and how they acquire those customers, often have little visibility of what those people are actually doing on the site. Without ignoring the value of customer data, they have still forgotten to focus and invest in key areas of their customers’ behaviour and lifecycle – missing out on valuable analytics. Read more…