We recently had a discussion with a vendor who, in the process of extolling his web analytics product, said his company’s technology went beyond clicks and conversions. That ended up being troublesome for two reasons:

First, we’d be happy with reliable information on clicks and conversions, thank you. We’re not convinced we’re getting it from some of our existing resources. So we weren’t about to let a sales guy get away with changing the subject because he didn’t want to address our concerns.

And second, he offered a solution that was even worse. His company’s megabucks solution, engagement mapping, would track the activity of individual site visitors and try to give appropriate “credit” to other media, like online ads that a visitor may have seen, instead of just the last click.

That’s trying way too hard. It’s building a technology solution to a marketing question.
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I’m back in the creative seat again. I volunteered to step in and head our creative staff after we agreed Jim Everhart, my predecessor, should spearhead our hyperintegration efforts.

I’m looking at things from a slightly different perspective now – a perspective of someone with a lead “creative” title and responsibilities. As I remove my account manager hat, something strikes me. We creative folks have more tools at our disposal – blogs, podcasts, email marketing, and the list goes on. Our primary function has always been to think of new and unique ways to tell our client’s story, demonstrate a benefit and craft compelling ways to reach out to a marketer’s various constituents – engineers, channel partners, integrators, other influencers and ultimately, end-users.

Sure, we still need to apply our traditional creative skills, but we now have these new, exciting tools at our disposal.
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Everyone has their individual reasons as to why they measure their marketing efforts. The way I see it, we all fall into four categories: Justification of Budgets, Evaluation of Tools and Tactics, Insight into Customer Behavior, and Predicting and Projecting Results. Similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we need to satisfy the most basic reason before we can move up to the more complex reason, and no matter how high you have progressed, the levels below are still extremely important. I like to call it the Hierarchy of Analytical Needs.

Here is a quick look at each of the levels.

Justification of Budgets
The lowest level of Hierarchy of Analytical Needs can best be explained with the following scenario: The CFO of your company walks into your office to discuss the need for budget cuts.
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While Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a good investment, it won’t make a significant difference in your site’s performance if you don’t follow some basic principles.

Rule number one is about knowing the right words. A good SEO partner will have the tools to evaluate the right keywords that your audience is using to search for you. Just because you think your audience will search for you using a particular keyword or phrase, doesn’t mean that they will. Proper research will go a long way towards reaching your full audience.

Rule number two is all about content. Just putting in keywords will only get you so far. If you don’t implement a process for continuously updating your site’s content, then your audience won’t return to your site, and neither will the search spiders that visit your site to determine your search rankings.

Rule number three is giving your audience what they are looking for.
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With all the talk of an impending recession, marketers will have to be better than ever at proving the return on investment they can provide. As sales start to decline, marketing budgets are always among the first to be cut.

With the increase of digital marketing, tracking ROI is becoming increasingly easier. Yet a study completed recently by the Sales Lead Management Association (SLMA) and reported by a recent article on BtoB Online found a vast majority of small businesses do not track ROI on lead generation programs. That brings me to the question—How do these marketers know if their programs are working? Without solid metrics to help justify the worth of your programs, your programs and future ones like them may be hard to validate. As budgets contract, these metrics may be your saving grace.

As marketers continue planning for 2008, marketing analytics should be a solid part of their program.
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Marketers and consumers are pretty familiar with the term “Buyer’s Remorse.”  You know how it goes…You’re in the store and see the perfect kitchen utensil. It promises to cut prep time in half! You must have it. After making the purchase, you rush home to give it a try. It ends up not doing exactly what you thought it would and a feeling of disappointment overwhelms you. This experience happens to all of us more times than we would like to admit and in some situations it causes a negative feeling towards the company or person who convinced you to make the purchase.

Very similar situations happen online all the time. I like to call it Clicker’s Remorse. Just imagine spending hours on Google, publication sites, and online directories looking for a solution to a problem. Finally, you find it! An attention grabbing banner ad promises to give the answer you are looking for.
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Even though our business is helping B-to-B companies grow through effective and smart communications, it does make sense for us to pay attention to what’s going on with some things in the consumer world.

In the November issue of Consumer Insight, an E-Newsletter put out by the audience research firm, Nielsen, there’s an interesting article titled How to Measure an Online Audience: Change is the Only Constant. It goes on to talk about where we are evolving in online audience measurement. One item really stood out in this lengthy piece. It relates to what they believe is the best engagement metric for Web 2.0 sites. Scott Ross, Director of Product Marketing for Nielsen Online’s NetView summed it up, “’Total Minutes’ is the best engagement metric in this initial stage of Web 2.0 development, not only because it ensures fair measurement of Web sites using RIA
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In the 2008 planning season, conversations abound about media plans, print advertisements, online advertisements, and a website and/or destination site(s) to support your ads. Developing a comprehensive plan that engages the target audience at the appropriate time and place and is measurable is the ultimate goal. Although this sounds simple, it is no easy task. A plan that successfully accomplishes all of these goals – and incorporates new Web 2.0 technologies and tactics – must be integrated and well planned. 

The planning begins with a media schedule that is developed through what we call a media agnostic approach. Our media agnostic approach focuses on where your audience is and not where you want them to be. After you examine all the media data and determine your media schedule for the year, you might think all the hard work is over. But really, this is only the beginning.

Now you have to develop relevant, engaging ads that will capture your
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Web 2.0 has presented us with a dazzling array of new communications tactics we can use to reach B-to-B audiences. It has also added an equally impressive assortment of measurement capabilities.

Where we once may have had a handful of print ads, direct mail pieces, brochures, and press releases in an integrated program, we might now have dozens of online ads, scores of Google Adwords, and an e-mail program to thousands of recipients, all segmented by interest.

And where we had 800 number phone calls and bounce-back cards returned, we now can count impressions, clicks, open rates, delivery rates, conversions, and search ratings.

It’s not an overstatement to say that we’re in danger of being overwhelmed by all the data. John Wanamaker’s desire to know “which half works” could seem even further away than ever.

But out of this concern comes a huge opportunity for marketing.
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Excuse me; I need you to put down the analytics report. 
Yes, please put it down. 
Why?
Because it is time to stop reading the reports and take action.

I see a common trend in analytics. Everyone is jumping on the analytics bandwagon (which is a great!), but some are slow to take action based on the data being collected and reported. 

The purpose of analytics isn’t to create more reports for everyone to read.  We do it so we can learn and continuously improve. Jason Burby’s comment in his Clickz column really resonated with me. He said, “If you aren't taking action on the data, you're wasting money on the analytics tools and resources -- your ROI is zero!” He is right.

So, why aren’t more people taking action? I believe people hesitate because they don’t have complete faith in the numbers.
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