Web analytics, web metrics, and how to use them to track and improve conversions

I'm having some feedback from the last Emetrics Summit in San Francisco that I just returned from.  I was really resting today as I flew all night and needed to rest and process the information.  Here's one of the first nuggets of information and feedback - but I'm sure that I'll have many more over the next week or two.

OK, I attended Wednesday's  Ask The Guru Breakfast and asked a question about tracking multichannel marketing and the feedback I got was to stick with what we could measure; some of the things I want to track are not yet track able.  

True, but that's changing even as I write this - so maybe we'll be able to track across marketing channels - including offline channels, like billboards, more and more.  According to AzCentral.com:

 ".....Roel Vertegaal's Xuuk eyebox2 is a $999 portable device with a camera that monitors eye movements and automatically detects when you are looking at it from up to about 35 feet away. Until now, Vertegaal says, such eye-trackers have been ineffective beyond 2 feet, required people to remain stationary and cost more than $25,000.

"It can track interest for your advertisers so you can actually have a business model where you sell the ad by the eyeball," said Vertegaal, a professor at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario.

The eyebox2 comes as ads increasingly appear on plasma display panels in shopping malls, restaurants and other public places. Although Internet ads can be measured by the number of hits on a Web site, it is much harder to assess the ads on plasma screens.

Vertegaal, who has been working on the technology since 1994, says advertisers can now accurately measure how much attention something receives, whether on a plasma panel, a billboard, or as the result of its placement on a supermarket shelf.

Whether a viewer actually makes a purchase is another matter.

Vertegaal said the eyebox2 is being used by advertisers in Britain, but not in the United States yet."

Well, here's the question I asked at the Guru Breakfast:

   Last Year, I posed a challenge to the Web Analytics Community  how can I measure the effect of marketing on the conversion rate of people attending movies.  Here's a brief description of one movie I saw and how I got convinced to go buy a ticket and watch the movie.

"... I see the trailer (of the movie) twice - but otherwise unaffected.  Then I see a billboard sign several days later and become aware of the movie.  I also see the banner ad on my laptop several times - and now I may actually see the movie simply as an example of the effect of Multi Channel Marketing. " 

How much weight should be given to each event that leads to the conversion - and would the conversion have happened if I had not been exposed to all the events I mentioned in my blog post?  Would the order of the events have made any difference?

Using Xuuk eyebox2 it may now be possible to count eyeballs on a sign.   While I don't think it would work with me seeing a billboard while in a speeding car or bus several feet away - Xuuk eyebox2 could work in a lot of other situations.

What I think is missing is creating a "session" that caries over several incidents of seeing marketing across different channels and attributing it to the same individual (seeing the ads); right now there's no easy way to do that.    Still, more and more is possible and it's not too much to say that in 5 or 10 years (maybe less), we'll be able to measure a campaign well across several channels, even one's like billboards, that we have not been able to do much with (maybe, just estimate number of eyeballs); the Xuuk eyebox2 can count eyeballs.

It will be interesting to ask my question again, in a year or two, and see what kind of reply I get back.  On Wednesday, none of the Gurus even wanted to go there, answer my question - maybe that won't be as true the next time I ask it.