Pimp Your Reports Workshop Series Announced

Reports are the primary way we share web insight throughout our organizations. Unfortunately, they can be very time consuming, and in many cases, no one reads them anyway.

However, great reports can be a powerful tool to help you move your organization forward. So, learn how to create great dashboards and executive reports, by participating in a day-long workshop led by Jennifer Veesenmeyer.

Beginning in December, Jennifer will be leading a series of workshops called Pimp Your Reports: Dashboards & Executive Reports. This hands-on workshop will cover best practices in dashboard design, meaningful visualization, concise messaging, and more. Participants who bring a sample dashboard or executive report to the workshop will also receive feedback on how to improve it.

The first workshop will be held in Chicago on December 10. Additional times and locations will be announced soon.

Register before November 27^th for the Chicago workshop to receive a $100 discount on your registration at http://www.stratigent.com/news-and-events/pimp_your_reports/default.html.

Learn how to get one view of your customer at WebTrends Connect 2008

Throughout the month of November, Stratigent will be speaking at the WebTrends Connect Seminar Series. The free, half-day seminars are scheduled for 7 cities throughout the US. For a detailed list of locations, the agenda, or to register, visit the WebTrends Connect website.

The goal of these seminars is to show you how to go beyond basic web analytics to extend the power of analytics throughout your organization using open, platform-agnostic technologies. You will also learn how to:

• Maximize your investment in the marketing technologies you already have in place.

• Assemble best-of-breed analytics solutions based on your organization's requirements and resources.

• Create unique Key Performance Indicators that help turn web analytics into a comprehensive strategic plan for your organization.

• Determine when to use in-house vs. outside services for your implementation and optimization needs.

Stratigent’s Bill Bruno is pleased to be able to provide his insights into these topics based on years of client experience. We hope you will be able to join us at the city nearest you!

eMetrics DC - The Place to Geek Out!

Congratulations to Jim Sterne and the eMetrics crew for another great Marketing Optimization Summit. The keynote speakers were some of the best that I’ve seen – James Robinson from The New York Times, Mike Marvel from Home Depot, Joe Megibow from Hotels.com and Kim Johnston from Symantec.

Most of the sessions I attended were good, but in my opinion the best sessions were before the conference at Industry Insights Day. Here are a few highlights:

Joel Book from ExactTarget talked about the future of email marketing. One of his points was about the changing definition of SPAM. He cited a MarketingSherpa research report that:

(a) 56% of consumers consider messages from known senders to be SPAM if the email isn’t interesting;

(b) 50% consider emails sent from known senders to be SPAM if they’re sent too frequently;

(c) 48% of those surveyed said that they’re using the “report spam” button for reasons other than to report unsolicited email.

This drove home the point that we will need to be increasingly more sophisticated in how we create relevant messaging.

Bob Page from Yahoo! talked about how Yahoo! makes their data actionable. The most interesting point was about how they build user profiles and how they use those profiles to provide targeted messages. He also talked about a couple of advanced KPIs including “User Value” and “Search Lift” (the latter is a way of measuring brand engagement.)

Pat LaPointe from MarketingNPV had an interesting presentation about the similarities between measuring offline and online marketing. He had a great model for how marketing programs evolve that he called the “Ladder of Insight.”

Matt Cutler from Visible Measures had a couple of case studies in which VM tracked the full reach of viral videos. By full reach, I mean that in addition to providing video metrics for the videos on your own site, VM can track when your videos are played across a dozen video sharing sites (even when your videos have been modified or spoofed.) Stratigent has partnered with Visible Measures on some key accounts so I was already familiar with the technology, but many people in the audience hadn’t seen it before, so it was entertaining to see jaws drop.

Outside the sessions, there were a lot of good discussions in the Lobby Bar about the implication of the new Google Analytics API and (anecdotally) where we are seeing companies get traction with their web analytics programs.

As always, eMetrics is a great place to geek out. I ’m looking forward to the next Summit in May. Rumor has it that it will be held in San Jose rather than San Francisco, but there are no details posted yet.


Jennifer Veesenmeyer
Manager, Consulting Services
Stratigent, LLC

Web Analytics Wednesday Recap

We had a great turn out at our WAW event last Wednesday in Saint Paul at Dixie’s on Grand, thanks to everyone who attended and to WebTrends, our sponsor! It was definitely a successful and fun evening, attended by a good mix of people representing many disciplines including search marketing, customer experience, marketing consulting, web development, and of course, web analytics.

Topics of discussion included Eric Peterson’s recent white paper on Visitor Engagement, using Google Site Optimizer, creating custom WebTrends reports, report automation, and a host of other related subjects.

There was also a lot of interest in having additional events in the Minnesota area, possibly quarterly with the next one in late January. I have set up a LinkedIn Group that we will use to notify every one of these future events. If you’re interested, be sure to join the group. Thanks again to everyone who made this a successful event, and we look forward to seeing you at future ones!

Jennifer Veesenmeyer
Manager, Consulting Services
Stratigent, LLC

Subscribers Rule!

Last week, Stratigent attended ExactTarget’s Annual User Conference in Indianapolis. On all levels, it was a fabulous show – great attendance, great sessions, and amazing evening events – the highlight was a tour of the Indianapolis Colts’ new football field, Lucas Oil Stadium, and an appearance by Colts head coach Tony Dungy. All in all, a job well done by the entire ExactTarget team!

One of the most insightful sessions of the week was called the “The Triangle Offense of One-to-One Marketing” – a fitting headline in the land of Hoosiers. In the session, ExactTarget explained how the use of CRM data and web analytics data drive successful e-mail marketing programs. The stakes are high in this economic environment when every marketing dollar spent must be justified and proven. When done right, e-mail marketing returns $45 for every dollar spent, much higher than other online marketing programs.

Integrating web analytics data into your e-mail marketing program is an important tactic for keeping your customers engaged with your business. As we mentioned in last week’s blog post Does your e-mail marketing make the grade?, website click stream data provides key insights into visitor behavior on your site. That data, in turn, can be used to create more relevant campaigns that result in better response rates and conversions. And over the long-term, more targeted e-mail campaigns help you stay connected with your customers.

So what do we mean by integration? Most often, companies use analytics data to send triggered emails initiated by a customer action or event. Examples of the most common trigger e-mails include the following:

• Cart-Abandonment E-mails. Re-connect with customers that have left products in their shopping carts.
• Customer Service E-mails. Follow up with customers if they have visited the customer service section of your website or made other inquiries related to their experience with your business.

With $45 returned for every dollar spent, it’s not hard to see why companies are embracing email marketing. But, as ExactTarget demonstrated last week, you don’t get that kind of return if your email campaigns are not tailored to the right audience or the right segment of your audience. Using web analytics data to power your email marketing programs is the key to helping you succeed.

Does your e-mail marketing make the grade?

Next week, Stratigent will be participating in Exact Target’s Connections '08 Conference in Indianapolis. Last year’s conference was a big success, so naturally we are looking forward to it again. If you haven’t checked out the agenda or registered to attend, take a few minutes to do so now.

The conference reminded us that now is a good time to bring out our 5-point checklist to grade the health of your e-mail marketing program. Our checklist focuses on the intersection of e-mail marketing, web analytics, testing and CRM data with the goal of helping you deliver more relevant and tailored e-mails to different segments of your audience.

Consider these questions to find out if your e-mail marketing program is as productive as possible in growing your business.

1. Collecting data about your visitors. While not the most glamorous work, proper page tagging, campaign tracking standards, and report configuration are essential for tracking visitors from click to conversion. This data provides the foundation for all of your customer analysis. If it’s not configured correctly – that is, to provide answers to the questions you’re asking - it won’t help you much down the road.
   
2. Capturing website click stream data. Click stream data provides key insights into how visitors are behaving on your site. That data, in turn, can be used to create more relevant campaigns that result in better response rates and conversions. Obviously, you want to do everything in your power to turn an email campaign into actual revenue, and this can help.
3. Improving e-mail effectiveness with CRM data. Are you integrating offline customer purchase behavior with online behavior? If so, you know this too can help you deliver highly targeted, personalized e-mails to previous customers.
4. Selling what you have. You might be doing everything right in your e-mail marketing program, but what happens if you are promoting a product that isn’t in stock or available to customers? Integrating inventory levels into e-mail marketing programs is necessary for avoiding the dreaded out-of-stock dilemma and customer dissatisfaction.
5. Performing A/B and Multi-variable Tests. Do you change the content and copy of your e-mails? Are you performing A/B and multivariate tests on your landing pages and other heavily trafficked pages on your site? Testing isn’t a hassle – it’s a process and an opportunity to test specific messages to different segments of your audience.

Email programs can successfully bring visitors to your site and ultimately convert them into customers. By using web analytics to optimize the email message, timing, landing page, and other key points along the conversion funnel, you can make it easier for your organization to increase conversion rates and improve the ROI of your email marketing program. For more information about Stratigent’s 5-point checklist for effective email marketing, contact us.

WebTrends Tag Builder is a Must

WebTrends recently released Tag Builder, a dynamic online tool used in creating advanced base tags for your site. Tag Builder produces a much improved set of tags from the one generated by the WebTrends user interface.

For starters, the Tag Builder uses a cleaner code structure that employs a single function to store global variables. Consequently, a lot of the configurable components (i.e. DCS ID, timezone, first-party cookie domain, etc.) are declared at the top in the global function, making it easier to make necessary changes before deployment. Most importantly, Tag Builder has the ability to create more advanced custom code that subsequently produces more meaningful reports tailored to your type of site.

A few of Tag Builder’s features include:

• The option to use a single first-party cookie or multiple-first cookies for your subdomains
• Automated click event tracking for download links, off-site links, and form buttons
• The ability to specify single or multiple on-site domains
• Tracking by navigational area (through DIV or TABLE tags)
• Usage of a separate DCS IDs based on domain(s)
• Capturing custom META tags
• Configuration for use with WebTrends Dynamic Search.

Along with the Tag Builder tags, the tool also outputs an XML configuration file to store Tag Builder configurations. You can upload a configuration file to Tag Builder and it will remember all the configurations performed as specified in the file. This feature also makes it easier to keep track of different tag versions that you apply to your site over time.

Overall, the Tag Builder is a nifty tool that you should consider keeping in your WebTrends toolbox.

Nestor Archival, Jr.
Senior Analyst
Stratigent, LLC