Archive for 'White Papers'

A recurring theme in our strategy practice at Web Analytics Demystified is one of data quality and the businesses ability and willingness to trust web analytics data. Adam wrote about this back in 2009, I covered it again in 2010, and all three of us continue to support our client’s efforts to validate and improve on the foundation of their digital measurement efforts.

Not that I am surprised — far from it — given that the rate at which senior leadership and traditional business stakeholders have been calling us to help get their analytical house in order. It turns out management doesn’t want to “get over” gaps in data quality; they want reliable numbers they can trust to the best of the company’s ability to inform the broader, business-wide decision making process.

To this end, and thanks to the generosity of our friends at ObservePoint, I am happy to announce the availability of a free white paper Data Quality and  the Digital World. Following up on our 2010 report on page tagging and tag proliferation, this paper drills into the tactical changes that companies can make to work to ensure the best possible data for use across the Enterprise. In addition to providing ten “tips” to help you create trust in your online data, we provide examples from ObservePoint customers including Turner, TrendMicro, and DaveRamsey.com, each of whom have a great story to tell about data auditing and validation.

One surprise when doing the research for this document was that multiple companies cited examples of something we have coined “data leakage.” Data leakage happens when business users, agencies, and other digital stakeholders start deploying technology without approval and, more importantly, without a clear plan to manage access to that technology. Examples are myriad and almost always seem harmless — that is until something goes wrong and the wrong people have access to your web traffic, keyword, or transactional data.

The idea of data leakage is one of the reasons that we have teamed up with BPA Worldwide to create the Web Analytics Demystified GUARDS audit service, and unsurprisingly GUARDS audits include an ObservePoint analysis to help identify possible risks when it comes to consumer data privacy. You can learn more about the GUARDS consumer data privacy audit on our web site.

If you’re being asked about the accuracy and integrity of your web-collected data, if you know you cannot trust the data but aren’t sure what to do about it, or if you suspect your company may potentially be leaking data through tag-based technologies, I would strongly encourage you to download Data Quality and  the Digital World from the ObservePoint site. What’s more, if you need help reseting expectations about data and it’s usage across your business, don’t hesitate to give one of us a call.

Download Data Quality and the Digital World now!

Given the considerable buzz in the marketplace regarding Tag Management Systems and vendors like Ensighten, TagMan, and BrightTag I wanted to call your collective attention to a free webcast I am participating in next week on “The Myth of the Universal Tag.” On Tuesday, January 25th at 1:00 PM Pacific time I will presenting with Josh Manion, CEO of Ensighten and Brandon Bunker, Senior Manager of Analytics at Sony, detailing some of the advantages I see in the adoption of a tag management platform.

What’s more, the nice folks at Ensighten have taken the registration form off of my white paper on tag management systems and so everyone is free to read all of my thoughts on Tag Management without prompting a sales call.  How cool is that?

Spread the word:

“The Myth of the Universal Tag” free webcast sponsored by Ensighten
Tuesday, January 25th, 1:00 PM Pacific / 4:00 PM Eastern
Register online now at GoTo Meeting!

Don’t forget to download that free copy of my white paper on tag management systems!

This week is somewhat bittersweet for me because it marks the very first time I have missed an Emetrics in the United States since the conference began. And while I’m certainly bummed to miss the event, knowing that my partner John is there representing the business makes all the difference in the world. If you’re at Emetrics this week, please look for John (or Twitter him at @johnlovett) and say hello.

If you’re like me and not going to the conference perhaps I can interest you in one of the four (!!!) webcasts and live events I am presenting this week:

• On Tuesday, October 5th I will be presenting my “Web Analytics 201″ session to the fine folks at Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) who we partner with on The Analysis Exchange. You need to be a NTEN member to sign up but if you are I’d love to talk with you!
• On Wednesday, October 6th I will be doing a free webcast for all our friends in Europe talking about our “no excuses” approach towards measuring engagement in the online world. Sponsored by Nedstat (now part of comScore) all attendees will get a free copy of our recent white paper on the same topic.
• Also on Wednesday, October 6th (although at a slightly more normal time for me) I will be presenting our Mobile (and Multi-channel) Measurement Framework with both our sponsor OpinionLab and a little consumer electronics retailer you may have heard of … Best Buy! The webcast is open to everyone and all attendees will also get a copy of our similarly themed white paper.
• On Thursday, October 7th I will be at the Portland Intensive Social Media workshop presenting with Dean McBeth (of Old Spice fame) and Hallie Janssen from Anvil Media. I will be presenting John and Jeremiah’s Social Marketing Analytics framework and am pretty excited about the event!

All-in-all it promises to be a very busy week presenting content so I hope to hear from some of you on the calls or see you in person on Thursday.

Today I am really excited to announce the publication of our framework for mobile and multi-channel reporting, sponsored by OpinionLab. You can download the report freely from the OpinionLab web site in trade for your name and email address.

This paper builds on our “Truth About Mobile Analytics” paper we published with our friends at Nedstat last year and focuses on both measurement in mobile applications and, more importantly, a cross-channel measurement framework built around interactions, engagement, and consumer-generated feedback.

• Interactions occur in every channel, digital or not. Online and on mobile sites we call these “visits” (although that is a made up word for interactions); in mobile apps the interaction starts when you click the icon and ends when you click “close”; in SMS it starts when you receive the message; on the phone it starts when you dial, and in stores interactions start when you walk up to an employee.
• Engagement is simply “more valuable” interactions. Regardless of your particular belief about the definition of engagement, we all know it when we see it. Online it happens after some number of minutes, or clicks, or sessions, or whatever; in mobile apps it happens when you’ve clicked enough buttons; on SMS it happens when you respond to the message; on the phone it starts when you begin a conversation, and the same is true in a physical store.  We say engagement is “more valuable” because without engagement, value is unlikely to manifest.
• Positive Feedback happens when you do a really, really good job. Measuring feedback is a critical “miss” for far too many organizations. Apples “app store” and the value of the star-rating system has essentially proven that there are massive financial differences associated with positive and negative experiences … but most companies still make the mistake of ignoring qualitative feedback altogether.

These three incredibly simple metrics can be applied to every one of your channels, your sub-channels, and  your sub-sub-channels (if you like.)  When applied you can create an apples to apples comparison between your web, mobile web, mobile apps, video, social, etc. efforts.

Then you can apply cost data, and you’re really in business.

I don’t want to say much more than that but I would really, really encourage you all to download and read this free white paper. When we put something like this out — something we believe has the power to really transform the way everyone thinks about the metrics they use to run their business, and something that has the potential to force dashboards everywhere to be scrapped and started over — we’d really like your collective feedback.

DOWNLOAD  THE WHITE PAPER NOW

Thanks to Mark, Rick, Rand, and the entire team at OpinionLab for sponsoring this work. If you’re the one person reading my blog that hasn’t seen their application in action, head on over to their site and have a look.

Years ago Google’s Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik told everyone “data quality sucks, get over it” which at the time was quite the funny and controversial thing to say.  Among other things Mr. Kaushik encouraged his readers to “resist the urge to dig deep” to understand data-related problems, to “assume a level of comfort with the data” and to focus more on trends and less on absolutes.

At the time this advice seemed good. Any number of companies were in the midst of switching vendors back in 2006 (a trend that has noticeably declined) and so guidance to not stress out on the differences observed between old system “A” and new system “B” was good, as was his encouragement to spend more time focusing on data quality in key areas (checkout, carts, etc.)

Unfortunately times have changed.

Since 2006 we have seen a slow but steady increase in the prominence that digitally collected data has within businesses of all sizes. Now in 2010, more senior managers, Vice Presidents, and CEOs than ever are incorporating both qualitative and quantitative data collected from web, mobile, and social sites than ever before. Among our clients we have seen a profound shift from “nice to have” to “critical” when it comes to data flowing through Omniture, Coremetrics, Unica, Google Analytics and other systems, and slowly web analytics is becoming an embedded component of business decision making.

While this shift has far reaching implications lately at Web Analytics Demystified we have been looking more closely at how we can help our clients not “get over” the “suckiness” of data quality and actually do something about it.  We are doing this for one simple reason: senior leadership doesn’t want a glib response to data quality issues, they want as high a level of accuracy possible and concrete answers for why that accuracy isn’t forthcoming.

Don’t believe me? The next time your boss asks about the quality of the numbers you produce look them squarely in the eye and repeat Mr. Kaushik’s words, “Well Bob the data quality sucks and so you should just get over it, okay?”

When you’re done you can call my friend Corry Prohens to help you find a new job.

The alternative is, of course, to actually pay attention to your data’s quality and work diligently to incrementally improve data collection processes. Rather  than be lazy about the very foundation of all of your valuable work (and the high-quality analysis you’re working to drive into the business) you can do a few simple things designed to make your data “less sucky” and thusly more valuable.

And what are those things? Thanks to our friends at ObservePoint we have authored a short white paper on this exact subject! Titled “When More is Not Better: Page Tags” and subtitled “The Dramatic Proliferation of Script-based Tagging and the Resulting Need for a Chief Data Officer” (okay, not my best title, I admit it) the paper outlines the business processes and technologies required to develop a little more trust and faith in your digitally collected data.

The paper is a free download from ObservePoint but you will need to trade some information with them. I can assure you Rob Seolas and his team are fine folks and given that they have a tendency to send out sweet USB devices to prospects there are worse things than having someone from ObservePoint call.

Get your copy of “When More is Not Better: Page Tags” at the ObservePoint web site today!

If you’ve read the paper I welcome your comments. While we recognize that few companies are going to appoint a Chief Data Officer to manage their digital data quality we hope that our readers understand that the point is not the job title but rather the work the associated work. Our thesis is that as the push towards digital continues those companies who have (and can communicate) a high-level of trust in their data will gain a competitive advantage, and in a world where the competition is always only a click away, who doesn’t want every advantage they can create?