Multichannel Marketing Metrics
with Akin

Exciting times! The consolidation in the marketing technology industry is producing a big league of solutions providers.

Dreaming ahead into the future, what can companies hope to achieve with this new breed of marketing software and services providers?

The end-to-end conversion optimization vision that still seemed far reaching to me back in February, looks much more limited now given the new outlook today.

Disclaimer: The following perspective reflects only my personal dreams and shouldn’t be taken to represent the positions, strategies or opinions of my employer.

Digital Enterprise Marketing++

It isn’t possible to do the coming future justice by calling it next generation analytics, campaign management, or marketing automation. The step up in caliber requires also a step up in language.

Might the following become every day terms in enterprise marketing technology in 2011 and beyond?

Marketing Mix Management (MMM)

Today’s discussion is at the level of point solutions such as search bid management tools (for PPC) and demand side platforms (for display advertising). In coming years, will we see all these combined into a single solution for MMM?

MMM would not only allocate advertising budgets towards marketing mix optimization. It would also automate the execution of these ad strategies, their testing, and the data collection into marketing performance management.

Marketing Performance Management (MPM)

Today’s discussion is at the level of web analytics, benchmarking, landing page and site optimization, social media monitoring, predictive analytics, BI, analytical CRM, social CRM, etc.

In coming years, will we see all these combined into a single MPM environment?

MPM would have to combine the aforementioned point solutions for analytics into one interoperable data environment. Users would want drag & drop flexibility to analyze across silos. Think Minority Report.

The data that flows into MPM would include in-house data marts with sensitive information. That means that we may see the pendulum swinging back to in-house software for things such as web analytics.

Interactive Marketing (IM)

IM is the successor to behavioral targeting and direct marketing. It is based on the accepted notion that marketing is more successful when it is timely and relevant. Therefore, interactions via websites, IVR, email, and any other addressable channel should take into account each user’s past and current behavior to personalize content and marketing offers.

Marketing – Fulfillment Synchronization (MFS)

The dream of automating marketing mix execution requires good synchronization with fulfillment. After all, you wouldn’t want to advertise on product XYZ if it is out of stock. And your ability to set a max PPC bid price for product ABC depends on its true margin, i.e. includes product costs and not just ROAS (ROAS=revenue/ad costs).

Companies such as Amazon have been working on creating ads programmatically for years based on inventory. MFS would take this capability to the enterprise software market.

Marketing Operations Management (MOM)

Already used by the largest marketing operations today, MOM is the successor to spreadsheets, notes on napkins, and the like. It is used e.g. at one famous furniture retailer to orchestrate the development of their catalogues. If any of the other ideas above are to become true, hordes of marketers in the organizations need to work together like a machine. Digital assets need to be created in support of personalized messaging. MOM provides project and workflow management on steroids to facilitate all that.

 …

One level down we may see practical applications that include software and services in support of specific steps in the customer lifecycle. These more confined solutions may help companies start small, prove value, and grow from there.

On-Boarding Concierge

Successful on-boarding is key for turning newly acquired customers into clients with a high lifetime value expectation (e.g. in banking). The automated concierge would connect to marketing performance management and interactive marketing in order to monitor and orchestrate what needs to be done.

Re-Marketing Optimizer

Re-marketing may be the oldest trick in the book. But it is still tricky to predict who needs just a reminder vs. who needs an incentive to come back. The re-marketing optimizer would provide that intelligence based on marketing performance management insights and connect to interactive marketing to get the message out.

Multichannel, Multi-touch Marketing Attribution

Point solutions for marketing attribution online vs. response attribution in direct marketing need to merge into one multichannel platform. Marketers should ask software vendors for more than just attribution reports. They should also ask for advice on which touch points deserve how much of the credit. Ideally, the marketing mix modeling function would also be covered by providing advertisers with a prediction as to what they can expect from placing their next ad dollar in each channel.

…

And the list could go on and on.

…

None of the above can replace good old fashioned, customer service with a smile.

But for companies that are already doing a good job at taking care of their customers and building products that delight, the next step can be to compete on Marketing.

Exciting times should be ahead for that.

For those about to rock & roll with marketing, I salute you.

Tags: Business Metrics, Customer Centricity, Direct Marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Search marketing optimization, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
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Ever since the brilliant Nerd-Geek-Dork Venn diagram below started zipping all over blogs in Sept 2009, I have been waiting for genius to strike me so that I might think of ways to apply this to the analytics topic.

Sadly, genius never struck.

But here are a few Venn diagrams anyway that kind-of, sort-of make sense and contain a few useful reminders.

The Analyst vs. Change Agent Venn Diagram

A good reminder how critical both business acumen and political skills are so that analysts can be the change agents that we so much desire to be.

The Bean Counter Venn Diagram

A web / marketing analyst also needs to balance an eye towards saving money with an entrepreneurial spirit towards identifying new sources of cash. Veer off too much into one or the other direction, you might be either a bean counter or something worse.

The Segmentation to Recommendation Venn Diagram

A good reminder how critical segmentation is to analysis because static reports probably never tell a story that leads to action. Good reminder also that the true goal of analysis is to get to recommendations as Eric Peterson was pointing out in his keynote at the eMetrics Marketing Innovation Summit conference in San Jose in May.

The Business Optimization Venn Diagram

The purpose of the last one is to remind how web analytics by itself just doesn’t lead to web business optimization. It needs to be combined with customer analytics and put into context with the wider marketing history. The latter refers to preceding marketing touch points and each individuals’ responses (e.g. did or didn’t click-through on an email that they received).

Another possibility that arises at the center of this Venn diagram is interactive marketing. My colleagues and I at Unica take interactive marketing verbally, i.e. the kind of targeted marketing communications that take into account each customer’s past and current actions. That makes the combination of web analytics, customer analytics, and marketing history indispensable.

Tags: Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
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Today is another exciting day in the history of web analytics.

Or was today another step forward on the inevitable path of web analytics (as we knew it) to becoming history?

For Unica’s read of today’s news, check my post on IBM’s acquisition of Coremetrics on Unica’s blog.

Tags: Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
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The title of this joint webcast with Radian6 might as well have been: “Bringing order to the wild west of social media through analytics”.  Or “The sherriffs are riding into social media marketing high noon”.

All kidding aside, neither web analytics nor social media monitoring alone can do today’s social web justice. So, we are very lucky to have Lauren from Radian6 as our featured presenter in this Thursday’s WAA, educational webcast series (sponsored by Unica).

Thursday, June 10, 2010 at noon Eastern.
Combine social media monitoring with web analytics to
improve your chance at social media success.

Lauren Vargas Community Relations Manager, Radian6

Measuring social media success is a coin with two faces:

1. What participants say about you outside of your website/sphere of influence.
2. How your social media presence – through your website, Facebook, Twitter, ad campaigns, etc. – influences behavior.

This unique event brings together leaders from social media monitoring and web analytics. Tune in to learn:

1. A practical framework for social media measurement that helps you avoid analysis paralysis.
2. The why and how of combining social media monitoring with web analytics.
3. How to go beyond social media analytics to increasing viral reach and social relationship success.

The webcast has been recorded and Web Analytics Association members can watch it from the WAA’s website.

Tags: Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Social media metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
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Earlier this week, Unica announced the addition of innovative social media marketing capabilities for users of our online marketing solutions. Among these capabilities are Social Media Analytics for Unica’s web analytics solution, NetInsight. And one component of these capabilities is the integration of Twitter analytics into website stats.

More specifically, Unica’s Solutions Pack released today enables customers of Unica NetInsight, NetInsight OnDemand, and Interactive Marketing OnDemand to:

1. Automatically download Tweets on selected subjects from the Twitter API
2. Collect and store the data indefinitely for historical analysis (whereas Twitter discards older tweets eventually)
3. Submit the data to NetInsight for extending web analytics reports with reporting elements for Twitter topics, Twitterer IDs, and complete texts of tweets

Tweets are included within a regular website profile in Unica NetInsight which makes it possible to view website visitation statistics within the same charts as the trend of Tweets obtained from the Twitter API.

Unica NetInsight report on trend of Tweets vs. site visits and conversions

Tweet trends for the keywords that you specified can also be broken out separately as seen in the above screenshot. For example, Unica is monitoring tweets on hash tags such as #measure, #SEM, #CRM, #emailmarketing, #interactive, etc.

As seen in the next screenshots, tweets can of course also be monitored intra-day. Alerts can be set up that send an email to responsible social media managers when the volume of tweets on a certain topics exceeds thresholds.

Unica NetInsight report on Tweets by hour by Tweet topic

As mentioned earlier, Tweets can also be tied to individual Twitterers and reported that way to identify top influencers for your brand or targeted topical keywords.

Unica NetInsight report on top Twitterers by Twitter hash tag

You can also drill to individual Tweets and read their content to understand context. Unica NetInsight’s limitless flexibiliy is showcased nicely by the fact that a simple click on any individual Twitter’s comment will hyperlink the analyst directly to that individual’s Twitter page to see all their updates or to respond to them directly.

Unica NetInsight drill down to individual Tweets

With the full text available, it is possible to set up metrics in NetInsight such as “Re-tweets”. Now, you can measure for example how viral your own tweets are, i.e. how often you get re-tweeted.

How does it work? You simply set up a metric that starts with “RT” and contains the text pattern from your original update.

The latter also works for Twitter’s newly announced Promoted Tweets. This way you can identify engagement with your promoted Tweets even if they did not click-through to your site.

Going from Twitter Analytics to Action

As always with Unica, the story doesn’t stop with reporting but extends into action. For Twitterers where CRM records contains both the Twitter ID and customer registration, or website cookie information, Unica Interactive Marketing can turn analysis into action.

For example, provided that permission to market exists

• Social media influencers and opinion leaders can be identified and targeted with campaigns designed to motivate and encourage them to promote the company’s brand.
• A company’s most loyal clients whose engagement with the brand is waning can be prioritized for retention campaigns.
• Users that click through on a tweet relating to a particular topic can be profiled accordingly so that future communications are made relevant to their topics of interest.

The latter bullet point also applies to click-throughs from Promoted Tweets. In your promoted tweets, just as with any other tweets, simply make sure that hyperlinks back to your site include tracking codes. That way your web analytics can attribute the source of the click-through for the session.

For more information

For more information about the Solutions Pack for Social Media Analytcis, Unica customers can contact their account managers.

As a final note, Unica absolutely also recommends that customers use social media monitoring solutions such as Radian6, Scoutlabs, and Viral Heat for more complete monitoring. Some of these solutions also provide APIs. It is the plan to provide similar integrations for these APIs.

Tags: Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Social media metrics, Web Analytics by akin
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Unica announced the addition of innovative social media marketing capabilities this week. Among these capabilities are Social Media Analytics for Unica’s web analytics solution, NetInsight. Specifically, one of the components of the Solutions Pack released today encompasses analytics for Facebook applications. This enables marketers to gain insights on application usage and users including details from the Facebook API.

More specifically as a customer of Unica NetInsight, NetInsight OnDemand, and Interactive Marketing OnDemand you can:

• Instrument all aspects of your Facebook application for granular behavior analysis and optimization
• Rely on the highest degree of accuracy in their analytics by basing your sessionization and unique user insights on the Facebook ID and employing cache busting mechanisms to avoid the loss of click data due to caching (e.g. in the browser cache).

Report in Unica NetInsight on Facebook application usage trends by visit duration

You can also include any desired detail from the Facebook API along with the click-stream analysis as long as you comply with Facebook’s platform policies. The API data will help you understand usage trends, success, and user preferences based on available insights about users’

• Social graph, e.g. how do key influencers use the application vs. the average user?
• Demographics, e.g. how do people at various age ranges use the application?
• Geographic location, e.g. how to users from different parts of the country or world prefer to use the application?
• Relationships or affiliations, e.g. how to married folks vs. bachelors differ in their preferences for using the application?

Unica NetInsight on current locations of today's Facebook application users (based on API data on users)

Privacy and Facebook’s Platform Policies (Note: I updated this section on April 27th)

Key to including any insights from the Facebook API in analytics is not only marketers’ good stewardship of this data. This is also expressed in the Facebook platform’s developer principles and policies.

The policies previously used to limit the kind of API data that can be stored, including by web analytics solutions, for longer than 24 hours. However, with the launch of the Facebook open social graph on April 21st 2010 the policies were revised to remove that limit. Instead there is

1. A greater emphasis on the principles of using data towards a good experience for users which expressly excludes spam.
2. A greater emphasis on gaining user consent for access to API data beyond the basic elements which are user ID, name, email, gender, birthday, current city, profile picture URL, and the user IDs of the user’s friends who have also connected with your application
3. A greater emphasis on gaining user consent for using that data beyond the Facebook application.

I think that is a great move by Facebook but clearly means that marketers must act responsibly. It may only take a few violations to create a backlash by Facebook users. All marketers would suffer a set back as a result.

Unica NetInsight report on today's Facebook application users by gender and age range

Going Beyond Analytics to Interactive Marketing

As always with Unica NetInsight, the built in data warehouse stores the granular and complete interaction history of each individual Facebook application user keyed in their Facebook ID.

Unica NetInsight, granular data drill down to individual Facebook app users

Not only can the Facebook application remember its user’s preferences. But by going from analysis to action, Unica customers can also use the profiles of Facebook application users to personalize future emails or website sessions. This assumes, of course, that the Facebook user is identified with their email address or website cookie and that permission to market has been earned.

What data is available from the Facebook API?

As Facebook application developers can glean from the documentation of the Facebook API, rich access to details about app users is available through API functions such as Users.GetInfo.

It is however key to point out that not all data fields from API functions such as the one above are available for all users. Rather, only the fields for which the user’s privacy settings permit access are available to applications. Additionally, some particularly sensitive fields require explicit user permissions.

• For example the email address (even the proxy’d version) requires extended user permissions.
• For example, the gender info is only available if the user clicked the checkbox on their profile to include gender as part of their profile page

For more information

Unica customers can contact their account mangers for more details on the Solutions Pack for Social Media Analytics.

Tags: Customer Centricity, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Social media metrics, Web Analytics by akin
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One of the most exciting developments in web marketing over the past twelve months has been that the website is now considered only one of multiple components of a company’s web presence. Among the many other web presences that companies have these days is often a Facebook Fan page such as the one from Unica seen in the image below.

Fan pages can include custom HTML content on custom tabs such as the tabs “MIS2010” for Unica’s upcoming customer conference and “Save Ned” for an innovative social media campaign of ours.

These things take effort to create. So, naturally you want to measure usage and behavior to help you improve usability and ROI.

To that effect, Unica announced the addition of innovative social media marketing capabilities for users of our online marketing solutions this week.

And among these additions is the Solutions pack for Social Media Analytics for Unica’s web analytics solution, NetInsight. Part of the solutions pack addresses tagging of Facebook fan pages and custom tabs for tracking with Unica NetInsight.

More specifically, Unica NetInsight, NetInsight OnDemand, and Interactive Marketing OnDemand customers can:

• Report on usage trends for their Facebook Fan Page’s Wall tab
• Analyze usage of any custom HTML / FBML tab that they create
• Understand interaction within custom tabs, e.g. the clicking of FBJS driven interactive buttons or links

(click to enlarge)

Users can also create engagement funnel reports such as the following example. This shows visitors interacting with the Fan Page Wall vs. those who proceed to interact with various tabs vs. those who interact with dynamic content within tabs. An example of a custom tab with dynamic content is for instance the Save Ned tab on Unica’s Facebook Fan Page.

Below is an example of such a funnel. (not actual Unica data from Save Ned)

(click to enlarge)

For more information about the Solutions Pack for Social Media Analytcis, Unica customers can contact their account managers.

Tags: Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Social media metrics, Web Analytics by akin
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Last Wednesday (March 31st) Eric Siegel presented on 5 Ways of leveraging predictive analysis using web analytics data.

Registrations and attendance were very strong which isn’t surprising because the WAA”s yearly survey had recently shown that predictive analysis is a top question on which web analysts seek to get more education.

You can access the recording of the webcast here.

Meanwhile, Eric was nice and speedy enough to answer all the questions that came in during the webcast. You can access the Q&A on the new Unica blog.

Check this Q&A blog post out even if you don’t have enough time to watch the webcast.

By the way, did you know Unica had a blog? It was recently restarted and is on fire with lots of contributors blogging across the company now.

Thanks much to Eric Siegel for a super insightful webcast and Q&A. If you had any doubts on whether predictive analysis makes sense on web analytics data, then be sure to watch this webcast to open your eyes.

Tags: Business Metrics, Customer Centricity, Direct Marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing, targeting by akin
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The great Eric Siegel is going to speak in a webinar on March 31^st on the topic of predictive analytics for online applications using web analytics and other data as input.

In web analytics we always think that predictive analysis is the natural next step and will do great things for us. But most of us, when asked, have a very hard time explaining what exactly predictive can do. Avinash Kaushik in his (otherwise groundbreaking and highly recommendable) book Web Analytics 2.0 (and earlier on his blog) almost downright discourages predictive analysis on web data.

But, this is one area where I think Avinash’s opinion is not as balanced as it should be.

Predictive analysis folks such as Neil Mason and Eric Siegel and myself have made various recommendations in articles and posts in the past to showcase opportunities from predictive analysis. Of course, Eric Peterson too has aimed to describe the possibililties in his paper “The coming revolution…” 

But come and see the webinar with Eric Siegel so you can make up your own mind.

… 

P.S.: I highly enjoyed Avinash’s web analytics 2.0 book though and will hope to post a critique  in coming weeks.

Tags: Direct Marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
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In part 1 of this series I summarized the crossroads at which digital marketing has arrived in 2010. Then part 2 explored the surprising advances that turned database marketing into a digital marketing discipline.

Now it is time to look at online marketers.

Back in 2006, my colleagues and I at Unica were still joking about our web analytics competitors’ understanding of multichannel marketing. Back then it seemed much like a scene in the movie Blues Brothers where they would go into a bar to be told by the bar owner that he was interested in all kinds of music:

 ”Country and Western”

Similarly web marketing back then was multichannel only in a sense similar to:

“Google and Yahoo”.

The old web marketing

In the growth years of Internet usage, web marketers’ focus was centered on their own website and biased towards acquiring visits to the website through advertising.

Rocket science algorithms would optimize advertising spend automatically, e.g. with automated search bid management. Rocket science testing solutions would generate and evaluate thousands of multivariate versions of the same web page to test which one is best at persuading visitors.

But any thought of focusing on the customer was deprioritized.

For example, I recently called my iPhone carrier to say that I was thinking about cancelling the service since reception at my home was unusable. Yet, when I logged into my online account afterwards the website made no attempt to retain me or win me back.

Instead, it was still busy cross-selling me stuff.

Web marketing in 2010: Focus on individual level data for targeting and accurate ROI calculations

It wasn’t due to learning from more tenured marketing colleagues that web marketers changed. After all, in 2010 the web vs. other marketing teams still remain frustratingly silo’d.

But the addition of new online channels has thrust greatness on the online marketer:

Mobile

Mobile is an inherently personal device. So, web marketers aren’t just treating it as a second website but looking into opportunities for more personalized dialog.

For example, San Francisco based GoodGuide’s iPhone application allows users to scan barcodes in the store to get information on a product’s environmental and social acceptability, as well as healthiness. But users can also set lists of favored and “avoid these” products in their GoodGuide account on the fixed Internet website. When you login to your account from the iPhone your favoreds and avoids become available to you.

It is hard to think of a more crunchy-granola (i.e. socially responsible) business than GoodGuide’s. And yet they have integrated individual level data across channels!

Not as an evil scheme, but as a service to their customers! And with opt-in, of course.

That is very promising!

Behavioral Advertising and Email

While ads and email were mass marketing channels, they are now increasingly becoming an extension of a company’s website.

• The ads that you see when visiting e.g. a newspaper’s site can be targeted to you based on your prior behavior on the advertiser’s website. Many ad networks exist that, for example, help re-market to individuals based on products they abandoned or segments for which they were profiled.
• The emails that you receive can show personalized content and promotional offers (e.g. coupons) that were dynamically selected for you based on your click behavior on the website. For example, one Unica client in Europe is sending more than 1 million unique email variations per month.

Advertisers

It is most unexpected, but another push to go from the aggregate to the individual level comes from advertisers.

Why?

As more marketing funds are shifting online, accountability is king. Media buyers want to take credit for influencing individuals that were exposed to ads even if they didn’t click on them. That requires integrating web and ad serving analytics at the level of individual ad viewers and website visitors.

Several analytics vendors, including Unica, make that possible now.

Social Media

Finally, social media pushed web marketers over the edge in their appreciation for multichannel integration with an eye towards individual level interactions.

• Marketers are keen to learn which customers have interacted with their Facebook application even if there wasn’t a direct click-through to the website.
• The Facebook API provides information on an individual’s social graph, i.e. their connection to other Facebook users.
• Websites equipped with Facebook Connect can draw on Facebook authentication outside the Facebook.com domain. That means they can also draw on other Facebook API information in the visiting individual and include that in their analytics and behavioral targeting.
• Advertising networks have become available that target ads to individuals based on their social graph, i.e. assuming that you are more likely to care about XYZ if your direct friend connections purchased XYZ.
• Social CRM has become a buzzword and refers to various online interactions with individual customers. For example web marketers are keen to see that disgruntled Twitterers receive a direct response to turn them around. Meanwhile fans should get encouraged to keep spreading the word.

There is still a missing link for integrating CRM with Social CRM in terms of mapping individuals’ identities. However, vendors are already working on closing that gap.

• Social media monitoring tools such as Radian6 list together each individual’s blog vs. Twitter vs. Facebook identities if they can detect them.
• Vendors such as RapLeaf have begun offering social data append services for CRM databases.

Summary

1. Bottom-line, the web marketing world is in the midst of an onsite-offsite integration era.
2. That has required web marketers to move beyond aggregate level data and think about data at the level of individuals.
3. With that, they now share with direct marketers an appetite for individual level click data for the purposes of analyzing and behavioral targeting.
4. This happened at a time when technology has become increasingly integrated between analytics, email marketing, and behavioral targeting.
5. Online-offline integration is not main-stream yet. But never before have web and direct marketers been so parallel in their multichannel goals and thinking.

I am excited for 2010.

Tags: Customer Centricity, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Social media metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing, targeting by akin
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