Like most vendors at the eMetrics marketing optimization conference this year, I only had a chance to attend very few of the sessions. But each of the ones I did attend was awesome.
Even more awesome than I remember from past years.
Here are five track sessions that were real gems:
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:
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
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.
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:
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’
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
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 more information
Unica customers can contact their account mangers for more details on the Solutions Pack for Social Media Analytics.
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:
(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.
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.
The great Eric Siegel is going to speak in a webinar on March 31st 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.
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.
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.
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.
Summary
I am excited for 2010.
In part 1 of this series I summarized the crossroads at which digital marketing has arrived in 2010. In this part we will look at the surprising advances that direct marketing has made in the past two years.
The old-new direct marketing: Outbound
What web marketers don’t realize is that the new direct marketing (since the late 90s) has been a highly digital discipline in terms of the sophisticated, predictive analytics that were employed. Just not so digital in terms of the channels through which messages were brought out.
But why do we still have so much spam and junk mail then?
Because, while direct marketers employed PhD level analytics they lacked any timely data on their customers’ current interests. So the predictions were only true on average.
It’s like having a GPS device that tells you the neighborhood in which you are currently driving but can’t tell you which street corner you need to turn at.
The new-new direct marketing: outbound and Inbound and real time
The increasing digitalization and integration of channels made inbound and real-time marketing possible. Now, while a client is still on your website, or on the phone with your call-center, in front of your ATM, or using their mobile phone application to interact with you, the new direct marketer’s sophisticated analytics can be fed with real time context. That puts them in the position to refine their offer decisioning (i.e. behavioral targeting) on the spot.
Direct marketers from many industries have taken notice and expanded their ambitions to embrace the real time in their work. Thanks for that, web analytics are now increasingly on their minds too as a rich source of very current behavioral data.
Examples of the new-new direct marketing:
Overall though, we do seem to be heading towards a tipping point some time in the coming years.
Europe vs. USA, who is ahead?
From working with companies across continents, I gain the impression that more Europeans have been working on integrated marketing vs. Americans.
This is despite the fact that Europeans are much more concerned about privacy.
More European companies seem to have implemented sophisticated cross-channel programs or are issuing related projects. Until this year maybe, where noticably more American marketers are launching similar projects.
But until recently I felt as if the average American marketer was still building “Marketing Cadillacs” whereas Europeans were building “Marketing BMWs”.
Add to that the fact that Europeans (and Asians) are also ahead in their adoption of mobile devices including the willingness to interact with marketing messages.
Then you wonder what happened to the days when America was still 5 – 7 years ahead of Europe with any business innovation.
Wake up call!
—
In the final part of this series we will look at web marketing that has truly become multichannel in 2010.
In the two years since publishing the Multichannel Metrics book, the face of marketing has changed drastically.
We are entering a critical crossroads in 2010.
By 2013, will we look back and find that this was the year when marketers from online and other marketing teams first realized how similar their goals have become and took steps towards integration across camps?
Or will we look back and find that the camps remained ignorant of each other and instead set in stone silo’d technologies making integration more difficult than ever?
What do you mean, web and direct marketers’ goals are aligned now?
Marketers have had no choice.
Greatness has been thrust upon them!
Direct marketers
Online marketers
As a result, both online and direct marketers are now pursuing multi-channel data integration at the level of individual prospects and customers. Both camps do this for the purposes of
The technology gap is closing
While all vendors talked the talk for 360 degree views, the reality was different. Web analytics data was far removed from a direct marketers’ access.
Meanwhile, web marketers could integrate analytics based targeting into email marketing only by bridging the gap between several vendors and paying for integration services.
These technology gaps are now increasingly closing.
The crossroads
This alignment of methods, goals, and technology represents our arrival at a crossroads.
(note added on March 12th): Maybe the word alignment is too much said. But methods, goals, and technology are now more parallel and similar than ever.
But will we leave these crossroads into an integrated future or will we set in stone two silo’d multichannel worlds between online and direct marketing teams?
That is the big question.
—
In part 2 we will look at direct marketers vs. digital. Then in part 3 we will review where multichannel web marketing stands in 2010.
I have to say, I am growing increasingly annoyed with the silo’d nature of the discussion that seems to still be dominating our web analytics industry.
We have been so silo’d that, for example, even something as adjacent to web analytics as audience measurement and its vendors (i.e. the comScore, Hitwise, Compete of the world) seem to appear more like second class citizens in our discussions. Meanwhile, 90% of the chatter among web analytics vendors, consultants, and bloggers seems to focus only on core web analytics topics and vendors.
A symptom that should give us pause is that most of our guru authors and bloggers – who are such rock stars to us web analytics people – are utterly unknown outside our little niche. Forget offline marketers, not even other online marketers know them!
Surely that isn’t because “the others” are all stupid and don’t understand performance optimization.
Honestly, I don’t know exactly why we seem to be such a silo’d breed. It is probably just a function of specialization in the workplace. Web analysts handle web analytics tools, multivariate testing, voice of customer, and maybe participate in behavioral targeting. But
If there is any way out of this strange situation it is probably to be found in embracing the different aspects of web marketing in a more balanced fashion instead of losing ourselves in increasingly nuanced web analytics details that seem esoteric and boring to people outside our niche.
Might we find bigger gains in 2010 by looking more for a breadth-first approach vs. continuing our deep dive?
Take search marketing as an example
The diagram below shows the search marketing funnel starting from potential visitors, i.e. users of the search engines (or their content networks). The search marketer aims to acquire them on site and then lure them deeper into the funnel to engage, persuade, and convert.
The diagram then lists the different categories of marketing tactics and technologies that are involved in moving prospects through the funnel. Let’s take a deeper look at each category.
1. Audience measurement and influence
This category includes more items than one might think at first glance, namely the following.
| Tool | Example of how it helps with search marketing |
| Keyword research tools | Which keywords are being used in general? |
| Audience measurement or competitive intelligence tools | Which keywords work for your competitors and what is your share of those keywords |
| Social media monitoring tools | Which keywords are being used by your audience? If your search clicks are up/down is that because there is a spike of positive/negative buzz about you? |
| Advertising, online and offline | With improved awareness and perception of your brand, your audience is more likely to click on your search listings |
2. Search marketing
This category includes the most obvious items associated with search marketing optimization:
| Tool | Example of how it helps with search marketing |
| Search bid management tools or agencies | Reduce manual efforts and increase returns from your paid search budget |
| SEO tools or agencies | Help monitor your success vs. competition for ranking better on critical keywords |
3. Landing page management, and 4. site management
These categories include similar items that I shall list together here. But it makes sense to keep them as two categories because the vendors/tools for landing page management are sometimes not the same ones as those used for managing content on the rest of the site.
| Tool | Example of how it helps with search marketing |
| (Landing) page design and deployment | To make split testing of landing pages for reducing bounce rates feasible it needs to be easy to create and deploy alternative test candidates |
| Multivariate testing | Multivariate testing can evaluate even more permutations of test elements on a single page. |
| Voice of customer | The numbers don’t tell the whole story of why visitors searching for XYZ do or don’t buy. So you need to ask them. |
| Personalization or behavioral targeting | Going beyond testing, dynamic content that is targeted to individuals based on their past and ral time behavior has the promise of increasing conversion rates further |
| Lead management | For businesses where the sales cycle continues offline it helps for improving offline conversion rates to tap into the prospects web behavior. For example the salesforce automation system can be updated with past and ongoing web searches that the prospect does. |
Not to even mention product recommendations, product reviews, etc.
Is that all?
No, there is much more that is critical. Search visitors will often not convert on their first visit. So re-marketing is essential.
More importantly, maybe, the customer life cycle doesn’t end with the first purchase. That is in fact when the work of the customer marketer only begins and the life cycle continues with on-boarding, growing lifetime value, attrition risk detection, and win back. Some additional tactics and technologies that are involved on the online channels include the following:
5. Interactive Marketing
| Tool | Example of how it helps with search marketing |
| Email marketing | The lead is nurtured with content that keeps their interest alive and brings them back to the site until they convert (again). |
| Re-marketing ad networks | The lead is reached on other (publishers’) sites with ad banners that are relevant to their past searches |
| Interactive Marketing (or next-generation campaign management or event-triggered marketing) | By building all interactions on each individuals’ past and current behavior on the web channel (and beyond), the marketer aims to keep their messages (both timing and content) aligned with the individuals’ interests. |
Do we really need all of that … stuff … to optimize search marketing?
If your goal is merely to improve search marketing, e.g. PPC, you need nothing more than a Google AdWords account while paying attention to the built-in couple of metrics. But if you are after optimization, then the above are truly all part of the funnel or chain. Each of these pieces are truly needed and will pay for themselves.
And we are supposed to integrate that with web analytics?
As a supporting function and nerve center, web analytics has the potential to glue most of these elements together. When done right this could make your web analytics people some of the best known employees across all of these teams.
But you would be forgiven if you are thinking that integrating all of these functions with web analytics could be too big of an effort and cost. That is precisely why vendors such as Omniture and Unica are building out online marketing suites.
Today, not all of the above are available (and integrated) within one vendor’s suite. But that day will come because there is a real need by marketers.
