Multichannel Marketing Metrics
with Akin

Rarely are the words Marketing and R&D uttered in the same sentence. Except in the sense of Marketing VERSUS research & development - i.e. should companies place their bets on one rather than the other?

Yet, in truth, we marketers have lots to ponder and learn. So we love our associations that help us come together and do just that. Direct marketers have their DMA. Brand advertisers, have the ARF (Advertising Research Foundation) among many other groupings. There is also the AMA for marketing in general.

Well, and we web analysts have the WAA, i.e. Web Analytics Association.

Maybe, it is that I don’t know enough about the other foundations/association. But the volunteers that make up the WAA strike me as extra motivated and enthusiastic. There is a real community feeling and a desire to contribute. The volunteers hammered out a full blown web analytics curriculum that is extremely popular and booked out in advance. They are standardizing metrics definitions (under the leadership of Angie Brown), unafraid of the constantly changing online marketing field. They interviewed analysts in the trenches to research challenges with newer technologies, e.g. RSS.

More power to the WAA volunteers!

The WAA is still only a few years young and could go in so many more directions. Anywhere that the volunteers wish to take it.

• For instance, similar to the DMA, the WAA could maybe survey online marketers and publish statistics about their marketing mix across various online channels. The DMA charges a solid price for these kinds of publications.
• Or, the WAA could maybe follow the example of the ARF and publish studies about the synergies from running PPC and SEO in parallel. Or display ads and Search.
• Or, similar to the AMA, the WAA could run seminars for which sponsors pay in order to reach an audience.

Volunteers’ time and imagination are the only limit.

If you are already a member of the WAA you will know that there is currently a special election for its board of directors. This is to refill the seat that Avinash Kaushik decided to make available (it was his second term).

For this particular seat the WAA is only accepting nominees that work at web analytics (or related) vendors so that the vendor community will also have a representative on the board.

Just today the WAA sent out the roster of nominees. I am honored to be one of six passionate and experienced nominees that are up for election. Each candidate has a ton to offer. I don’t think that members can make a bad choice picking any of us.

• Nicolas Babin, Executive Vice President, International & Marketing, AT Internet – publishing XiTi
• Matthew Langie, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Omniture
• Dennis R. Mortensen, Director of Data Insights, Yahoo!
• John Payne, VP of Product Management & General Manager, Coremetrics
• Mark Wachen, CEO, Optimost
• Akin Arikan, Senior Segment Manager for Internet Marketing, Unica Corporation

I am a fan of Dennis’ work over on his Visual Revenue blog. And if you have met Dennis you will know his contagiously positive and thoughtful character. More marketers would race to contribute to the WAA just because of him.

I know Mark Wachen from listening to his presentations on behalf of Interwoven/Optimost. Their firm is an alliance partner of mine at Unica. Here is one guy that we all can learn a lot from. He is passionate about website optimization and committed to sharing his lessons learned.

I met John Payne twice, even if briefly only, back when SurfAid was still separate from Coremetrics. I had a super first impression. John struck me as a very reasonable, thoughtful, and friendly leader.

While I have not had the pleasure of meeting Nicolas, members could strike two birds with one stone by voting for him. They would get a board director who seems very experienced plus would be a European representative. What better way to spread WAA membership than that!

And finally, I haven’t met Matthew either. But he has put in a strong bid. His profile is superb. His work at Omniture speaks for itself. I am honored to be on the same roster of nominees with Matthew because Omniture is the chief web analytics vendor that I compete with every single day during my work at Unica.

May the lucky winner of this election have a productive experience and help lead the volunteer organization further ahead!
Akin

Tags: Web Analytics // Add Comment »

I love it when metrics worlds overlap! All the time, different marketing disciplines are coming up with comparable metrics but calling them different names, unaware of each other.

Did you catch MediaPost’s article that TNS Media has released a new offering for in-store metrics? Below is an excerpt where MediaPost captures the value prop:

“Dashboard combines information about where shoppers are in a grocery store at any given time, tracking the number of seconds they spend at any display, the amount of time they spend with other products, and then overlaying it with sales information. “A display’s stopping power is a good thing when it generates a lot of purchasing, but if people are spending many seconds there and not buying, something isn’t speaking to customers properly,” he says.”

Online marketers will dig this. What TNS is offering here is to calculate a view-through metric for in-store displays.

Now, TNS will answer the question: Based on how much viewing/attention/engagement the in-store display is achieving, what is the releative sales success for the products that it is advertising? If people are buying without paying much attention to a particular store isle, the display shouldn’t get as much credit, probably. If people however pick the product out of a special display area after studying it longer on average, the display probably should get more credit. Such displays should be used in other stores of the same chain.

I could not spot whether TNS will measure the interaction with the displays by putting people into the grocery store isle, evaluating cameras, or using a panel of volunteers and something like the portable people meter. Let me know if you have more info about this.

Go multi marketing discipline aware analysts!

Akin

Tags: Brand Marketing, Business Metrics, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing // 5 Comments »

The eMarketing + Commerce magazine interviewed me recently on the subject of multichannel marketing metrics. There is just a growing interest in this stuff!

Time to look over the fence and get a more complete picture of marketing results. Web analysts have no excuse for ignoring offline conversions resulting after online activity. Direct marketers have no excuse not to tap into all the rich behavioral data in their web analytics data marts. And brand marketers’ worlds are changing into a combination of online + direct marketing as ad dollars are beginning to migrate online by the billions.

Multichannel metrics and methods are becoming a key skill, not to be neglected any further.

Tags: Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, multichannel marketing, targeting // 4 Comments »

The voice of the web Analytics world, Manoj Jasra, was kind enough to pose a number of great questions to me this week. He published the interview on his blog (web Analytics world) this morning.

Among the questions my favored was: “Please elaborate on the paradigm changes for Multichannel Analytics between Brand Marketers vs. Direct Marketers vs. Web Analysts.” . The answer to that surprised me myself!

And Manoj’s last question made me kick myself. I thought of something I should have asked the book publisher to do for encouraging cross pollination between online, direct, and brand marketers.

Thank you Manoj!

Tags: Business Metrics, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing // Add Comment »

A Media Post newsletter alerts us to following controversial article in the Wall Street Journal about Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail”: Study Refutes Niche Theory Spawned by Web .

There is something in there that is even more alert worthy than the study that disagrees with the “Long Tail” idea. Namely, the community of Internet Marketers is criticized for talking up amongst ourselves a biased view towards business.

Ross Fadner brings this concerning warning to the point in his Media Post summary:

 ”He says the Long Tail theory flattered readers, who were mostly techies, into thinking that the Internet was changing everything. That group tends to have a “contemptuous” view of mass media anyway, he says, and was thusly predisposed to appreciating anything undermining its power.”

That is a bucket of ice cold water over our heads in the Internet space. 

Yet another wake up call that we should take off the blinders and look at the world from multiple perspectives, not just the online perspective.

Tags: Brand Marketing, Marketing Disciplines, multichannel marketing // Add Comment »

A recent post highlighted the central idea behind the book Competing on Analytics: Namely, many companies employ analytics (business intelligence) merely in a tactical role, i.e. for improving ROI, while a few others use analytics so cleverly that they become the basis of their differentiation.

Then, another post had a similar observation about the way that companies use multichannel marketing. Namely, for most companies the existence of multiple marketing/business channels is just the way things are done in their industry. Yet a few other companies are able to use channels so cleverly that they become the basis of their differentiation.

Well, given those two dimensions, analytics vs. multichannel marketing, let’s see what happens when we juxtapose both in a quadrant chart. Is there anything to be learned from companies employing both of these in either a tactical fashion or as a strategy that forms the basis of their competition?

Here we go.

In the chart below, the use of analytics, as a tactic vs. a strategy, forms the Y axis. The X axis stands for the use of multiple business channels as a mere tactic vs. as a strategic differentiator.

Let’s place some companies that we all know on this chart.

The old Blockbuster was arguably in Quadrant I, i.e. there was no differentiating use of business intelligence nor multiple channels that an outsider could spot.

In came Netflix as a competitor in Quadrant II. Netflix used the online channel as a differentiator, namely a video store that offered infinitely more choice than any Blockbuster branch ever could. Plus better terms on top.

Blockbuster countered by matching Netflix’s terms and capability for rent online / deliver by mail. But in addition Blockbuster also added the weight of their 5000+ stores into the battle. Now customers could rent online as with Netflix but also return and rent in stores on the spot. That moved Blockbuster also into Quadrant II, competing on channels.

NetFlix has an Ace up their sleeve though. Namely, as discussed in the book Competing on Analytics, Netflix is honing their analytics behind movie recommendations. The analytics for providing more relevant movie recommendations are expected to become the basis on which NetFlix will now compete with BlockBuster going forward. At the same time its online channel advantage is being matched and therefore eliminated. That moves NetFlix from Quadrant II to III.

Can either company move into Quadrant IV where they differentiate on both the basis of analytics AND the basis of channels? How?

Note that if Netflix merged with, say, Safeway, to match Blockbuster’s store channel strategy, it would not move Netflix into Quadrant IV. Rather, the store channel would become a non-differentiator for either company. Blockbuster would move back into Quadrant I while Netflix would stay in III, at least until Blockbuster can match its movie recommendations. The take away from this observation is that the Quadrant is not just determined by a company’s own actions but also those of its competitors.

So, can you think of a way that one of these companies could cross into Quadrant IV before the other one does?

For Netflix it would require a way to make use of channel advantage in a way that Blockbuster can’t immediately match. For instance, this could be to pass on to its customers the cost savings from having no brick & mortar stores to maintain.

For Blockbuster it would require a way to use analytics in a way that Netflix can’t immediately match. Maybe some kind of analytics on what is going on in their stores? For example, market basket analysis to recommend the best candy that goes with each movie? (Just kidding).

Tags: Brand Marketing, Business Metrics, Direct Marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing, targeting // 7 Comments »

The previous post (part I) was dedicated to the lesson learned that analytics can be used tactically (e.g. for marketing process ROI improvements) or strategically (e.g. for competing on analytics a la Netflix vs. Blockbuster).

In this post, let us remind ourselves that multichannel marketing can also remain a tactic or become a strategy.

McKinsey published a great article/paper on Multichannel Marketing. And I wrote a book on Multichannel Marketing. Yet, the contents of the two works could hardly be any more different from each other.

How come?

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Tags: multichannel marketing // 9 Comments »

To my embarrassment, the first time I heard the old management adage “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”, I heard it from a competitor of mine at Unica in the web analytics space. Namely, I heard it from Webtrends’ former CEO Greg Drew.

Brilliant, I thought back then. A very good fit not just for management in general, but especially for online marketers who have to manage the process of:

• attracting visitors to their web sites,
• engaging them with the right content,
• and enticing them to convert to leads, customers, loyal customers, and high value customers, over time.

How could you make that process more successful over time if you didn’t measure where you stand now? How could you know whether a change you make to your site or marketing campaigns improved things or worsened them?

But then I came across another eye opener. 

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Tags: Business Metrics, multichannel marketing // 8 Comments »

As online marketers evolve to become multichannel marketers, might their path of evolution turn out like the well known image below?

Click to enlarge


Isn’t it funny! We started as apes, hunched over, then started walking upright, but now we are back hunched over our laptops.

Point is: A beginning online marketer may ignore that the customers coming to her web site are often the same ones that also view her company’s TV commercials, shop in her stores, and interact with the call center. An upright walking online marketer on the other hand may look at the web site as just one out of many, many channels.

But as marketing sophistication grows, we may come to look at the online as a very special channel. Seems like whichever channel a marketing dialog begins on (say with the viewing of a TV commercial), the online channel is where hand raisers flock to for learning more, comparison shopping, maybe ordering, and maybe later registering for self-service.

The “online-only” marketer may come full circle, to become an “online-centric” marketer.

We shall see…

Tags: Brand Marketing, Customer Centricity, Direct Marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing // 3 Comments »

Good news for friends of integrated marketing across online and offline channels. For the first time ever, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in San Francisco this week included a whole track on Integrated Marketing!

On this agenda, the conference delivered a roster of wonderful speakers that brought their expertise from broader marketing disciplines to the web analytics community.

My favorites included:

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Tags: Uncategorized // 1 Comment »