I was pretty impressed with Eric Peterson’s last post on Web Analytics is Recession Proof?

Peterson made a good argument that we have to work harder to show value with the tools we have - even if we have to do it on our own time, and even if we’re not directly asked for it (see below):

“…My advice to to step-up and find the real value in your data, even if you have to conduct the analysis on your own in the wee hours. It’s not as if you can just stop generating reports (tempting as that may sound) but if you’re a good analyst, taking the time to figure out where the real opportunities to increase revenue are is the work you want to be doing anyway. Taking the initiative to make data-powered recommendations and presenting them is a good way to demonstrate your skills and commitment to the business (but don’t stop doing the job you’re being paid to do!)”

Interestingly, Eric has made a determination that

” …. Despite the conventional wisdom that dictates that brilliant analysts are safe when times are tough, I am getting more and more calls from brilliant analysts who are being laid off or being offered severance packages to walk away.”

“…. What if the folks you work for who profess a great love for data-driven decision making are really HIPPOs in their heart and when the real bloodletting begins are just as likely to look for savings in areas that can be easily cut (human resources, for example) as opposed to those that would require breaking contracts?”

Well, I’ve been doing this all along - almost any report can be made better.   Eric also quotes Dave Rhee, who is one of the moderators of the Web Analytics Association Web Analytics Message Board in saying…

“…My friend W. David Rhee just published a great response about the relationship between web analytics, sales, and marketing in a down economy.  To paraphrase Dave, if the bosses begin to panic, you don’t want to be in a situation where you appear to be an expendable marketing cost that can be cut.  It is far better to be focusing your analytical efforts on how the organization can be increasing profits, even if you have to fight to spend more time conducting analysis and less time generating reports.”

I want to add to this by seconding Dave’s point, let’s get our employers the amunation to make more money in this challanging envirnment rather than cutting costs.

In fact, I’m not really sure anything ought to be cut back in this “challanging economic enviornment” as much as it needs to be restructured.  In fact, there’s a strong argument to spend more .,.. but on the right things that implemented in the right way.

Anyway, there’s a lot more in Web Analytics is Recession Proof? than I covered, so it’s worth a close read.

Really enjoyed Tuesday night’s event - Gary Vaynerchuk Videos from Motivational Meetup - 11-5-05; it’s the first time I got to meet Gary in person but I’ve been following him for a while online - and he was exactly in person what you see in his videos.

Now, I had heard “rumblings” recently that Howard Stern “attacked” Social Media, but I haven’t followed Howard Stern for a while, and while I used to find him funny 20 years ago, he seems to have
“not gotten it”.   Sometimes, people, however “innovative” and “cutting edge” they once were, will tend to become the “establishment” if they survive long enough and stay in place.   I think that’s what happened to Howard Stern and his brand - I’ll do some analytics to investigate that Howard Stern is “losing it”, by becoming, less and less “relevant” - watch

A reaction to Howard Sterns thought on Social networks, Social media and blogs.

Besides what Gary Vaynerchuk said, above, what would lend substance that Howard Sterns “Brand” is on the decline?   Let’s draw on what Web Analytics we can, here.

Loosely speaking,  searches for “Howard Stern” are down based on Google Insights for Search to less than half, on average, from what they were in 2004 - the earliest year that Google is providing Google Insight data for.

True, we don’t know the real volume of searches, but it’s fair to say, whatever it is, it’s less than half what it was 4 years ago.

As far as the rest of what is said above, I agree with.

Thinking about the motivational videos I put up here, last night and this morning, with Gary Vaynerchuk, see Gary Vaynerchuk Videos from Motivational Meetup - 11-5-05 (a few more are waiting to be uploaded with Dennis Mortensen from Yahoo! Analytics, formally IndexTools).

Gary said if you had 2500 visitors to your site per day and you worked that well,you could live off the income, but it takes a lot of work, time and patience.

Typical advertising is far more expensive and probably less effective to select, niche audiences, than blog advertising, when we work it, ourselves.

Gary V spoke of his own wine site, and it’s success, and how he was dismissed early on, and still is by the likes of Zagat, who “don’t get it”.

Thinking about www.artnewyorkcity.com, for this, but this blog, too.

It takes time, and a lot of work, face to face meetings, actually.

Ha.

But, this says, to me, blog advertising has a bright future in this market, if you (me) can leverage your own Brand.   To further expand on this - I believe as the market continues to get tighter and tighter, over the next two or three years - blog advertising will come into it’s own in a big way - it makes perfect sense to me - and there will be analytics to tie it all together.

By the way, I wrote this entire post while walking to work this morning, start to finish - and I only slowed down, slightly.   To me, the iPhone has accomplished what I dreamed it would - a live blogging device/platform that allows me to post my thoughts from anywhere.

Last week, while I was at Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Alexandra, VA, Avinash Kaushik presented the new features of Google Analytics, see Google Analytics Enhancements - Avanish Kaushik (which I have hardly played with yet) and it’s just one more nail in vender oriented Web Analytics - the answer is no one “owns” the data anymore - or, should I say ….. Google owns it all…. ha, ha, ha.

Read about it in The Google Analytics update: Thoughts and Implications by Eric T. Peterson in Web Analytics Demystified blog.

Here’s a portion of Eric’s post where he talks about the motion chart, above, and what it means to the high end vendors who will find it harder and harder to get new contracts or keep the one’s they have.

Google Analytics, adding missing functionality like segmentation, customization, and data export functionality given the associated costs and the fact that Google Analytics already dominates the web analytics landscape with an over 65% marketshare across all sites with tag-based analytics deployed.”

Except it appears that nobody told Google this. Or, if they did, Google didn’t listen.

Now don’t get me wrong, the new features are not totally perfect.  The segmentation feature which is receiving the most hype within the web analytics community is not true visitor-level segmentation but rather session-based segmentation which severely limits an experienced practitioner’s ability to drill-down into the data. But I suppose this is a perfect example of “you get what you pay for” and since we’re not paying having multidimensional session-level segmentation that can be immediately applied to all historical data is pretty sweet.

On the upside, I was actually pretty surprised about Motion Charts which to me seemed like a tchotchky but after playing with it for just a little bit I’m inclined to agree with Yahoo’s Dennis Mortensen that Motion Charts have potential. I especially like the “Link to Chart” option that seems to allow us to share the visualizations we create with other Google Analytics users.

Here’s a Motion Chart that I’m rather enjoying the use of: Keywords by goal conversion rate by bounce rate sized by Percent New Visits colored uniquely with trails turned on.

But here’s my point - regardless of weather Google is being “Good” or “Evil”,  or of what it’s ultimately going to do with all this data - the issue is this …. if Omniture, Coremetrics and WebTrends don’t add enough value to the data, they’ll become obsolete, I’d say - within 3 years.

Yes, Google now has signaled they have the High End Vendors of Web Analytics in their sight.

But aren’t we just talking about no one “owning the data” anymore?   After all, isn’t everything going into the “Cloud” pretty soon?   Who really owns anything, anymore?

The value of what we offer is the life we bring to it - not the acquisition of the data, not even the presentation of it - but the “intelligence” we produce from it.

So here’s how I see it.

Water.  Bottled Water.  And yes, some people like Anil Dash think Bottled Water is a scam -  but really, it water (data) is really …. free … then it’s how it’s presented that we’re paying for …. attributes of Branding that we value.

Except, Branding is related to “demonstrative value” - so ….. it’s not the data, itself, that we should be paying for (hell, Google is giving it all away to us for free … why should we go and pay a ton of money to big vendors … even companies like ComScore … which I personally feel should not be charging separately for each view of the data, when it’s the same data we’re looking at, that we already bought - same thing for the Web Analytics Vendors.

Pretty much, the age of vendors like WebTrends, Omniture, Coremetrics, is slowly setting - or should I say … quickly setting, much like the age of Elves in the Lord of the Rings - (towards the age of Man?).

Getting back to what Eric T. Peterson is saying (saw him last week at Emetrics, by the way, along with Avinash):

Especially in this uncertain economy, if I have to choose between spending between $20K to $50K on an entry-level SiteCatalyst/Coremetrics/WebTrends/Unica/Nedstat deployment or spending nothing to explore the use of segmentation, report customization, and Motion Charts while waiting for someone like DataLinks to port their application to the Google Analytics APIs so you can spend $995 to build totally customized key performance indicator reports in Excel … well, as a small business owner the choice is pretty clear.

WebTrends recent announcement about moving increasingly into BI, essentially as middleware between web data and traditional business analysis applications, is typical of the response I expect we’re going to see from the for-fee vendors. Some type of move up-market to continue to justify the expense of data collection, which will further limit opportunities for growth since I expect the end-user market to continue to mature at a much slower pace than the available technology set.

I mean, why pay for data collection and storage if Google and Yahoo are going to give it away? Especially in the context of those APIs and the low-cost applications we’ll inevitably see, I suspect the management teams at Omniture, Coremetrics, WebTrends, Unica, and Nedstat are looking suspiciously at their Q4 and Q1 2009 projections for SMB sales and global expansion trying to figure out exactly how much free web analytics will ultimately impact the business.

Eric ends his post by re-saying all he said, but in bullet points - and here’s the parts that most struck me:

“…I still don’t think Google Analytics is appropriate for advanced practitioners, at least not as a system of record, but the number of truly advanced practitioners working out there today is still relatively small;

• I think the Data Export APIs are the most exciting aspect of this announcement and I’m looking forward to all the cool, new applications that will inevitably spring up based on these APIs;
• I think that Google has sucked the wind out of Yahoo’s sails, whether they intended to or not, but I still don’t think that Google Analytics and Yahoo Web Analytics are directly competitive;
• I think the vendor folks most impacted by this announcement are the teams responsible for SMB sales, the expansion into Europe and Asia, and anyone selling web analytics solutions at a sub-$50K price point;
• I expect the for-fee vendors to respond to Google Analytics not by picking on the features (remember: voters don’t like negative campaigning!) but rather by working to more aggressively take their existing suites and platforms up-market;
• I don’t expect this announcement to be a death blow to anyone. Rather it serves as yet another reinforcement of the inevitable commoditization of the web analytics data collection market and a wake-up call to any company with a ten-year plan to continue to make money counting page views.

So … that means in a couple of years, the big three (WebTrends, Coremetrics and Omniture ……) … bye … they ‘re going to have a really hard time.

But again, if they’re charging for features that … have become like “water” then why should we drink their water when we can get the same features, almost, for free?

I think I need to spend a few days really playing with Google Analytics now … I have no excuse …. I asked Avinish and the Google Analytics team for these improvements and they have delivered.

Now, it’s time for me to do the same.

It’s cold and chilly in NYC tonight; much of the day it rained and drizzled and I felt I was on the top of a 39 floor mountain looking down into the rainy fog, below, from my midtown office space.

Today was interesting for a number of reasons including a few good posts on Google Analytics new visualization features and a nice review of motion charts by Dennis in VisualRevenue, where he said that charting more than 3 dimensions requires more complex charting, and that such charting is much more than eye candy.

I also saw that NuConomy, whose CEO I interviewed here, last May, just entered into a public beta today, and NuConomy has some pretty unique visualizations.

And then I did some work, on my own, using Comscore Local Market reporting for a select group of DMA’s and websites, and overlayed unique visitors by DMA with internal data on job postings (by employers) and Resumes posted (by Job Seekers).

I saw some very interesting patterns once I overlayed the data, visualizing data in a way making sense to me.

It is all about traffic, but my visualization showed some DMA’s with less than expected visitors and resumes posted.

It got me thinking on how I may never have noticed the relationships between data points had I not had a hunch about it. I even figured out an “effectiveness metric” base on what percentage of traffic applied for a job during a session.

And it all comes back to visualization, which is why I’m an artist.

For me, it’s all about seeing relationships between data, and I was exhilirated as I had time to think this through.

Actually, there’s one more thing I’m adding (12 hours later) and I thought about it last week - in an organization, even a small one, but certainly in most large ones, there’s a lot of information lying around that only the people who use it regularly know about.   That’s a big challenge for a Web Analysts - because we create meaning in our work, largly by overlaying information.

But a lot of times ….. too often ….. we don’t have the right information (and even if we have it - it’s not in the right form or from the right source).    Therefore, I think it’s a top priority to create a map of every tool and every bit of information that exists in a company and who owns it (and uses it).   It starts with an audit - but it should be a database that you can search on, and it will will tell you the owner and users.

I’ve seen versions of tools at IBM that have some of this - but they were not created for the purposes I am talking about - it was more done for accountability, and only covered certain kinds of ownership - what I’m talking about is a map of all the knowledge in the organization - and who has it and uses it.

And I don’t see that anywhere.

I was really exhausted by the 5 days I spent in Alexandria VA, just outside DC, at the Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, but it was overall a great conference and most of the familar faces were there - and easy to network with.

By the way, I’ve begun to think in terms of including my imagery with my Web Analytics posts - most people know that I’m an artist and it’s part of my own unique branding - and it’s something I do in my own way - where I think it fits - I’ve included my iphone paintings, in this case, to capture the feelings I had, a combination of excitement and exhaustion - in this newer medium, which, lately, I’m finding very satisfying to work in.

Thoughts and Feelings - IPhone Painting - Using Colors Application

Marshall Sponder 2008

For one thing, there was an entire Social Media Track at Emetrics this time, that’s never happened before and I attended about half of the sessions in that tract - which was about the best I could do given the competition with other sessions and speaking with people, that I’ll often opt to do, even ahead of attending a session.   Most of the sessions I covered are at Emetrics Summit.

I also live blogged most of the sessions I covered using my IPhone, but ran into a glitch with pre-created posts (to capture Marketing Notes and hyperlinks); I required network connectivity in order to edit posts I created beforehand, and most of the time, the session rooms did not have connectivity.  I find creative ways around that limitation, and overall, decided the day of carrying a laptop to conference sessions is effectively over - it’s no longer needed as the iPhone has all the neccessary functionality to live blog with.   Applications such as WordPress, will continue to improve and make laptops unnecessary for most conference work within the next year.

Getting back to the Social Media Track at Emetrics, it could have been a conference by itself - there was certainly enough content to qualify and in many cases, first class speakers who were doing leading edge social media analysis with an analytics bent.  There was a keynote on New York Times Web Analytics by James G. Robinson which suggested that, for a Newspaper like the NY Times, weekly reporting has become neccessary as information is coming in so quickly that monthly reporting no longer is sufficient -  there was a number of interesting metrics James came up with, I was familiar with some of it,  other things were actually quite illuminating, and I was very happy I attended his keynote.

However, Bill Glassman from The Gartner Group noted that we’re all looking for the next big thing and it felt as if the conference was looking for it too - perhaps the closest thing to that was Mobile Analytics - it seemed to be the new darling of both Emetrics and perhaps, Web Analytics in general.   It’s almost as if Mobile Analytics has “replaced” the focus on “Social Media” which is now becoming “absorbed” into the general consciousness of Web Analytics practitioners.

Omniture had an excellent presentation, as did Sebastian Wenzel from Lifetopia Corp, who also writes www.webanalyticsbook.com (the mobile metrics guide is somewhere on his site, but I can’t find it right at this moment - otherwise I’d provide the link for download).

There was also a great session on Measuring Virtual Worlds, with Dr. James Bower of Numedeon Incorporated, Jared Freedman of Code4Software and Matt Bostwick of A4R4 Media.  Between Matt, Jared and James, Brand Metrics were explained and detailed in a way I had not seen before, and I think we all “got it” - what branding really has become - which is “product branding” - it’s all about the product, not so much the brand.

I also had a great talk with Jennifer Veesenmeyer, a senior consultant for Stratigent, who I’ve seen and spoken to several times at other Emetrics Summits and some WAA Events.

Finally, I stayed one more day to attend a Board Meeting of the Web Analytics Association, whose Board I am part of. There’s only one place in my life where I can discuss and create strategy that drives business forward, and that’s on the Board of Directors of the Web Analytics Association.

For most of my life, I’ve been affected by the decisions made by others - and being on the Board of Directors has given me an experience of what it’s like to make decisions relevant to the organization and for me, that’s was a very rich and rewarding feeling - especially this last meeting - which was the best one, for me, since I joined the Board.

I would not want to miss the New York Times Presentation (Keynote) by James G. Robinson, who directs Web Analytics at the NYT; in fact, there was an excellent presentation from the NYT at the last Emetrics Summit in San Francisco, one of the best, if not the best session I attended then - I definitely will not miss this one. Here’s the marketing notes on James Robinson’s keynote:

“…Web Analytics as a Value Driver Across Media

James G. Robinson, Director of Web Analytics, The New York Times - Wednesday, 9:00 - 9:50

A massively well-received presentation in both London and San Francisco, you’ll learn how The New York Times uses web analytics to grow both their print and online audiences, improve web engagement, and increase revenue and profit. The presentation will trace the development of the Times’ web analytics strategy which is mapped directly to value drivers for customer and the business. Learn how The New York Times:

• Integrates online and print data to better track and profile users
• Uses web data to make the print newspaper more profitable
• Shapes insights to flow through “the last mile” to senior management

Again, I find myself drawn to attend the Social Media Analytics Session(s) at Emetrics on Wedensday.

I am sitting here listening to Jim Sterne introduce James Robinson. James starts with asking us if we read the paper this morning. He’s been at the Times for a year, and what a year it’s been!

Customer Insights Group - micro of intergration happening at the Times. Print and Digital are very different culturally.

Prolifiration of tools, but what drives the business, what is important?

We look at week over week analysis over month over month, things

Web analytics bulliten published weekly that ties in with current trends. Weekly reports are awsome and stakeholders love them but they aren’t enough.

We came up with 16 user behaviors that result in revenue and qualified it and came up with signing up for a subscription as by far the most profitable.

And we found 2 links on the site generating the most revenue and we ended up seeing the Print and Digital needed to talk to each other, so we got both talking.

James went into a new approach of predicting how many newspapers extra to print after a scandel (covered at the last emetrics in SF).

We came up with a metric based on total pageviews / revenue to drive the print business. Circulation Analysis.

Eggs and Investment - we had to decide weather to invest inall of this - Pageviews per Keywords. We have millions of possible. A page has a value, a keyword has a value. We haven’t figured it all out yet but our approach is determined.

Here’s our approach - if you do a user behavior analysis, it’s a single, tie to revenue, a double, investment a triple, ROI, a home run.

What does each if our tools used for? We have a clear idea now, much more than a year ago.

Newstracker - an interesting story.

Questions:

1. How do combine audience measurement with web analytics? They do, but James didn’t go into detail.

2. How did James get to this Job? He said it was a long, winding path.

Summery; James came up with a few really interesting insights from his first year running New York Times Web Analytics and the key takeaway for me is the weekly reports that are published internally and tie in current events, being a newspaper, they can do draw on it and these reports create company wide awareness of the web analytics group.

The question about intergrating Nielsen NetRatings with Omniture/WebTrends mirrors issues I’m dealing with currently, but I don’t think James really answered the question exceptvto say that it has been accomplished by his team.

Also, James said audience measurement sits on a different part of the New York Times Tools map than Web Analytics, and pointed out that you dont’t use a hammer when a screwdriver is required, and it’s important to have a map of tools your organization uses and the purposethey are used for.

But having said that, James said audience data is used to figure out “who” is reading the paper and web analytics shows “how” they are reading the paper.

Interesting point.

At the end of the session Omniture had a presentation mobile phones.

What does the market look like for mobile? Quite a lot of growth in numbers and capabilites.

Interesting presentation about celiberities and mobile phones. Analytics show mobile “referrers” by make.

Many challenges for web analytics and Matt from Overture went over the main ones.

Image tags used for identification. Omniture has intergrated Site Catalyst with mobile analytics. Partly we need to identify the handset so site owners can determine if the site experience works for the site. Capturing data and geolocation.

I’m liveblogging Emetrics Summit DC and this is a test of getting part of my post written from my laptop onto my 3G iPhone so I can take live notes.

Here’s the marketing notes for the session:

S01 Tuesday, 11:10 - 12:00
Social Network Analysis

Fred Türling, SHS Viveon AG

Internet based communities have been widely discussed since the arrival of the concept Web 2.0. So far, opportunities and risks of business models based on such user groups are not fully clear. Therefore a more fundamental understanding of community-based social structures is needed. How can web analytics and social network analytics help to analyze communities? Is it possible to create segments within the user base? How can we address attractive groups like multipliers and furthermore is it possible to describe special profiles like expert, salesperson, spreader, etc.? During the session Fred Türling will discuss these topics and show first results for two top forums and one collaboration network. Fred was invited over from Germany after his presentation was so well received at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Munich.

I spoke a lot with Fred after his session and he suggested many ideas. Mostly, without giving away too much information Fred’s company can produce a data cube model from search and customer data that can predict, with a high degree of confidence, if a free member will turn into a paid member, and how long that will take, andwhen it’s likely to happen.

But the same methodology can be applied to sales calls, to predictive analysis of search results, to name a few.

Anyway, like usual, I missed a few sessions but had meaningful conversations, instead.

In fact, interestingly, Fred’s company does analysis of how to identify meaningful conversations using predictive analysis,and he did share some general info, but the actual results, which sound like they are even more impressive, are confidental.

And here’s the notes for the session

I’ll be attending Emetrics Summit DC next week, a must for anyone that wants to maintain or increase their connections in the Web Analytics industry - I’ve attended every US based Emetrics since October 2006, about 6 months after starting this blog.

I just want to say this on the onset of what is turning out to be a very long post - Jim Sterne has done an EXCEPTIONAL JOB of rasing the bar, and adding new and better content at this Emetrics Summit.   One of the biggest problems larger conferences face is they tend to get old and stale after a few years - Jim has really outdone himself with this program - I can testify to that - and this conference, especially now, in a lousy economy, is probably the best investment anyone can make in their career - I’d suggest attending - it’s still not too late to register (up till Monday, October 20th, that is).

By the way, here’s a painting I did on my iPhone that contains many of the feelings and ideas I’m posting about - enjoy!

Thought I’d publish my itinerary - and any thoughts that come to my mind about it - tonight (I can still change what I attend - and often, I end up in a conversation with someone at the conference and don’t make it to all the sessions I planned - figuring the connecting with someone is the most important thing about being at a conference like this, but I will try to attend most of the sessions I list here).

Monday, October 20th, 2008

Having a seat on the current Board of Directors of the WAA, I make a special effort to attend community meetings at Emetrics and I enjoy meeting old and new friends at the WAA Reception afterwards - being at Emetrics has been an exceptionally rewarding experience for me.

And honestly, I don’t know what time I’ll end up going to bed Monday night - there’s usually people up pretty late …. talking about Analytics and the Economy, I’m sure.

I want to say that all of Tuesday, I’ll be focusing exclusively on the Social Media track - it seems to me that Jim Sterne has really honed in on Social Media, given the attendees more of what they’re interested in - updated content and, I think, has done an excellent job of putting this track together - along with the rest of the conference.

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

Definitely, making the Jim Sterne keynote is a must, Jim is a wonderful speaker that brings the subject of Web Analytics alive - what could be a dull, arcane subject becomes very alive and interesting when he speaks about it.

11:10 - 12:00 Social Media Metrics - Beech

I’m attending Social Network Analysis - Fred Türling - that’s a must, even though Eric Peterson is also speaking at this time, and normally I’d go to that, I have directed the Social Media Committee at the WAA for some time, have started the ball rolling in defining Social Media Metrics, and therefore - Social Network Analysis is a must attend for me - if nothing else, to see what Fred has to say.    Here’s the Marketing notes from that session:

“…..S01 Tuesday, 11:10 - 12:00

Social Network Analysis

Fred Türling, SHS Viveon AG

Internet based communities have been widely discussed since the arrival of the concept Web 2.0. So far, opportunities and risks of business models based on such user groups are not fully clear. Therefore a more fundamental understanding of community-based social structures is needed. How can web analytics and social network analytics help to analyze communities? Is it possible to create segments within the user base? How can we address attractive groups like multipliers and furthermore is it possible to describe special profiles like expert, salesperson, spreader, etc.? During the session Fred Türling will discuss these topics and show first results for two top forums and one collaboration network. Fred was invited over from Germany after his presentation was so well received at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Munich.

12:00 - 1:05 Birds of a Feather Lunch - Upper Foyer, Lobby Level

1:05 - 1:55     Reputation Management in a Social Media World - Katie Delahaye Paine

Katie Paine is someone I’ve met a few times this year, first at the Social Media Roundtable in Toronto last May, then again, a few months ago in NYC for a tweetup dinner and speaking spot at Converseon’s Social Media Roundtable in NYC.    I also appeared with Katie on a panel at First Tuesday in Toronto when I was attending the first Social Media Roundtable.

Lately, I’ve needed a little lift - and I’m looking forward to getting some of that lift listening to Katie talk about Social Media PR and pick up some of the subtler points of what she’s been saying for a while about Semantic Analysis, Engagement, etc.  Here’s the Marketing Notes:

“…S02 Tuesday, 1:05 - 1:55

Reputation Management in a Social Media World

Katie Delahaye Paine, KDPaine Partners

Social media has turned communications on its head. HITS stand for How Idiots Track Success and even unique visitors no longer have credibility. What’s a communicator to do? Measure the true impact of social media on the business, on your reputation. A classically trained PR authority, Katie is back by popular demand to give you seven simple steps to measure your social media program in a credible, actionable way.

I’ll also attend Hitwise University - Plaza Ballroom at 3:20 - 4:20 as well as Social Media Metrics - Jason Burby between 4:20 - 5:05 - here’s the notes on Jason’s talk:

“…S03 Tuesday, 4:20 - 5:05Social Media Metrics

Jason Burby, ZAAZ
Ryan Turner, ZAAZ

Both brand perception and shopping have always had a social context. Three years ago we accessed the opinions of 5 friends in the consideration process, today we can access the opinions of 5 million fellow customers. Measurement on the social web presents analysts with new challenges: How do you measure word of mouth? Can you model the relationships between online research and offline purchase? What is the value of a comment on a blog post? A connection in a social network? A question in a support forum? A tag on YouTube? How does engagement affect lifetime customer value? Jason Burby and Ryan Turner of ZAAZ will present some insights from their experiences grappling with these issues, and they’ll put forward some ideas about where businesses need to focus as the social web grows in importance over the coming years.

I’ll also stay in the same room for the last session of the day on expanding your Online Community.

“..S04 Tuesday, 5:10 - 6:00

Followers, Friends, and Fans: Expanding Your Online Community

Jonathon D. Colman, The Nature Conservancy
Laura Lee Dooley, World Resources Institute
Beth Kanter, How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

If you aren’t on facebook, twitter, friendfeed, technorati, and delicious, should you be? And once you jump into social media, how do you track and measure success? Tips, tools and stories from the trenches from three people who focus on online engagement and have more links, friends and followers than some small countries have citizens.

Laura Lee on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

I’ll also be at the reception Tuesday night - 6:00 - 7:30 eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit Reception

Wednesday, October 22nd.

I would not want to miss the New York Times Presentation (Keynote) by James G. Robinson, who directs Web Analytics at the NYT; in fact, there was an excellent presentation from the NYT at the last Emetrics Summit in San Francisco, one of the best, if not the best session I attended then - I definately will not miss this one.  Here’s the marketing notes on James Robinson’s keynote:

“…Web Analytics as a Value Driver Across Media

James G. Robinson, Director of Web Analytics, The New York Times - Wednesday, 9:00 - 9:50

A massively well-received presentation in both London and San Francisco, you’ll learn how The New York Times uses web analytics to grow both their print and online audiences, improve web engagement, and increase revenue and profit. The presentation will trace the development of the Times’ web analytics strategy which is mapped directly to value drivers for customer and the business. Learn how The New York Times:

• Integrates online and print data to better track and profile users
• Uses web data to make the print newspaper more profitable
• Shapes insights to flow through “the last mile” to senior management

Again, I find myself drawn to attend the Social Media Analytics Session(s) at Emetrics on Wedensday, including Making Marketing Analytics Work in a Web 2.0 World - Douglas Brooks; here’s the marketing notes on that one:

“..S05 Wednesday, 11:10 - 12:00

Making Marketing Analytics Work in a Web 2.0 World

Douglas Brooks, MMA

While research in the area of social networks is considered leading edge today, it will become required research for savvy brands in the very near future. As marketers continue to discover new sources of information that get them closer to their customers in near-real time, the need becomes even more critical for creative solutions combining new data sources with advanced analytics. Being ahead of the curve in this area will lead to valuable insights and a competitive advantage for those who establish the capability early. In his presentation, Doug Brooks will discuss how some industry leaders are using advanced analytics to translate actionable customer data into business results.

Attendees of this presentation will learn how marketers are using this new data and analytic tools to:

• Understand the impact of WOM/buzz on their brands
• Track for leading indicators and trends
• Inform innovation and product development
• Understand the strengths and weaknesses of a brand, as well as those of competitor brands

After the Birds of a Feather Lunch - Upper Foyer, Lobby Level between 1:05- 1:55 PM, I’ll have my first real conflict in what I want to attend - my good friend, Gary Angel, will be on a panel on DIY SEM: Your Agency May Not Be the Best Resource - Gary Angel, Mark Ruzomberka, David Harrod = and that might be useful for me to attend as well - BUT … I also see myself at the Voice of the Customer Panel - John Fernandez, Lance Jones, Mark Brooks at the same exact time.   Honestly, I don’t really know for sure what I’ll end up attending - maybe I’ll try to split myself in two and go to both - or spend a few minutes going back and forth … not sure.

However, considering that I’m working on matching up Paid and Organic Search from the Analytics perspecting at Monster Worldwide, among the things I do  there, attending Gary’s session might make the most sense, so here’s the marketing notes from that session:

“…. A06 Wednesday, 1:05 - 1:55

DIY SEM: Your Agency May Not Be the Best Resource

Gary Angel, Semphonic
Mark Ruzomberka, Traffic.com
David Harrod, Traffic.com

Tracking the ROI on thousands of keywords seems overwhelming and managing them against business goals feels overwhelming. But outsourcing the task to an agency might not be your best move. Traffic.Com manages a significant ($1M annualized) search engine marketing program that is one of the primary drivers of traffic to their site. Facing competition from Google in their core business, Based on the optimization opportunities revealed by a Semphonic audit, Traffic opted to bring their program in-house and run it themselves. Mark Ruzomberka of Traffic.Com and Gary Angel of Semphonic will describe the process of an agency process review, outline the key decision-factors in bringing a PPC program in-house, and discuss Traffic.Com’s experience managing the program.  You’ll get a better understanding of how to audit your existing SEM program, how to identify the optimization strategies that make sense for your business, and some of the benefits and barriers to managing your own SEM program.

And Jim Sterne really makes it hard for me - he puts two equally interesting panels at the same time, again - I really need to clone myself (or get someone to go to the other session and take notes).    At 3:25 - 4:15  there’s Word of Mouth Marketing Metrics Panel - Gary Stein, Ann Green, Todd Parsons  AND Mobile Marketing Metrics - Michael Bayle   BOTH sound really interesting.

However, I know Todd Parsons fairly well, consider him a friend, use Buzzlogic on this blog - and honestly, I can’t not attend his session, so it’s Word of Mouth Marketing Metrics Panel here I come -

“….S07 Wednesday, 3:25 - 4:15

Word of Mouth Marketing Metrics Panel

Ann Green, Millward Brown
Todd Parsons, Buzzlogic

The voice of the customer is very valuable for learning what your customers think. But they are not just telling you what they think, they are talking to each other. The voice of the customer can also be a powerful outbound communication tool if you tap into it as a marketing instrument. How do you measure the impact you can have on the discussion about your products and services that happens in the wild? This panel describes their efforts to compute how receptive customers are to referral-based advertising in order to determine how much of their promotional budgets should be allocated and how to determine their return on that investment.

Actually Todd Parsons and Breanna Wigle of Military.com, a Monster Worldwide subsidary, were on my Social Media Metrics panel at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose - and the presentation that was put together - which I had a hand in (more to bring the parites together and then step out of it and let them do their work) was exceptional.   People where really happy about the panel I put together and I’m hoping to do it again at Search Engine Strategies Chicago in early December (haven’t heard back yet if that’s going to happen or not yet).  BTW, I still haven’t decided if I’m attending LeWeb03 08 in Paris, which is at the same time as the SES in Chicago.

Finally, on Wednesday late afternoon, I’ll attend Web 2.0 Metrics in Today’s B2B World - Joshua Sile.  Here’s the marketing notes on that session:

“…S08 Wednesday, 4:20 - 5:10

Web 2.0 Metrics in Today’s B2B World

Joshua Siler, Babcock & Jenkins

Based on real-world experience integrating traditional direct marketing with social media (with companies like Intel and Sterling Commerce), Joshua will deliver an overview of the data and analytic challenges involved in making social media accountable for driving revenue. He’ll explore Social Cultivation, the process of building long-term relationships with prospects, and how to manage the databases, analysis and business decisions involved in making social media work. Joshua will also provide overview of the successful business strategies and execution considerations, and follow with anecdotal examples of data workflow, analytic results and integration pitfalls.

I think the idea of “social cultivation” is something I want to explore, it has many applications in marketing of the future - and it just makes sense that you want to culitvate (be proactive) with your customers and friends.  It sounds like Joshua Siler will tell us, technically, how to set up and track the actual process of social cultivation - and this is entirely new to me, so I’m happy that he’s presenting at Emetics DC.

I’ll also attend the Wednesday late afternoon  Keynote: Joe Megibow, VP of Customer Experience and Online Marketing, Hotels.com - Plaza Ballroom and Web Analytics Wednesay following which is sponsored by Coremetrics (I used to work with the Coremetrics platform while at IBM, and Coremetrics bought IBM Surfaid, which I used quite a bit while at IBM).

Thursday, October 23rd

Of course, the Keynote with Kim Johnston, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing Operations, Symantec Corporation - Plaza Ballroom at 9:00 AM, I’ll attend. Here’s the marketing notes to that keynote:

“…The Big Picture – Global Marketing Metrics

Kim Johnston, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing Operations, Symantec Corporation - Thursday, 9:00 - 9:50

Marketing optimization did not come into being because of the Internet. People were managing large marketing budgets before the advent of clickthroughs, pageviews and the Submit button. Kim Johnston has been balancing the needs of the brand, the product lines and the sales organization at Symantec for more than a decade. Most recently she has delivered interactive customer engagements that have yield 4x the industry average in response rates. She will share how this software powerhouse manages marketing across four segments focused on selling to enterprises, governments, small and medium-sized businesses, and consumers worldwide.

And Jim Sterne has done it to me again, putting Search from Now On - Mike Grehan and Measuring Social Media and Video - Terry Cohen in the same timeslot, from 11:15 - 12:05, I’ll attend Terry Cohen’s session even though I’d ideally, like to attend both.  No doubt, Terry will probably mention Comscore’s new Video Metrix product, and infact, just tonight, I attended a New York meetup of the Web Analytics Meetup Group that discussed Video Metrix.  I’m sure she’ll also cover how Digitas measures video and downloadable media.   Sorry Mike Grehan, next time I promise to attend your session.

“…S09 Thursday, 11:15 - 12:05

Measuring Social Media & Video

Terry Cohen, Digitas

Social media, word of mouth marketing, consumer generated content, video and more have become increasingly proven tactics for building brand and driving purchase. Terry recounts front-line experiences tracking and optimizing the impact of these techniques. She’ll cover methodologies including brand impact research, social media monitoring , panel usage, web analytics, and video measurement and tracking.

And then we have a session on Measuring Virtual Worlds - I can’t miss that one either - for obvious reasons - for anyone who knows me and reads my blogs - I’m very much a part of what Code4Software is doing with Virtual World Metrics - and helped to bring that aspect into the Web Analytics realm, where I believe it belongs.  Therefore, you’ll find me at Measuring Virtual Worlds - Jim Bower, Jared Freedman, Matt Bostwick at 1:15 - 2:05 PM.  Here’s the marketing notes to that session:

“…S10 Thursday, 1:15 - 2:05

Measuring Virtual Worlds

Dr. James Bower, Numedeon Incorporated
Jared Freedman, Code4Software
Matt Bostwick, A4R4 Media

Did that avatar look at your in-world billboard? Are those two feathered creatures listening to your animate presentation? Did that amour-plated dinosaur just recommend your products to the business-suited butterfly? What is your return on investment when promoting your services in a virtual environment? What is the impact on the consumer when they can tour your yet-to-be-built hotel, take a test drive in the online version of your vehicle, or redeem real reward points for virtual commodities? What level of granularity can you capture? What tools might help? How do you integrate real world and the virtual behavior with online and call center interactions? These are just a few of the questions to be tackled by people who have been steeped in virtual worlds since they began.

Finally, I can also not miss the very last session with Sebastian Wensel, my business parnter and friend - we started www.blogspeedway.com as a new blog network focusing around verticals and which we want to be a home for Web Analytics practioners - and so you’ll find me at Mobile Analytics is Calling You - Sebastian Wenzel at 2:10 - 3:00 PM.  By the way, I’ve seen the deck t hat Sebastian has put together and it’s fantastic. Here’s the marketing notes to that session:

“..S11 Thursday, 2:10 - 3:00

Mobile Analytics is Calling You

Sebastian Wenzel, Lifetopia Corp.

Sales for smartphones with web capabilities are up each year. Mobile phone subscriptions will reach 5.6 billion by 2013. The mobile revolution is here and moving faster than many anticipated. The web analytics industry will be highly effected and it’s a matter of time until the “third screen will be the first screen”. Are you prepared to measure and analyze that “new” kind of traffic? Do you know which tool fits your mobile analytics needs? Are you able to give usability recommendations for a better mobile experience? Are your Mobile Marketing efforts or your QR Code / Mobile SEO campaign correctly reflected in your KPI reports? In this session you will learn about the challenges and the differences that come with the mobile web. You’ll gain insights and find out how you and your organization can be competitive in the fast-paced mobile web landscape.

It’s been eagerly awaited for several months now, and I admit, I knew something was about to be announced on Monday night when I spoke with Dennis Mortensen while at SMX East, here in New York. I wasn’t quite sure what was going to be announced, but I had my suspecions, and this was it.  According to Dennis, in his VisualRevenue Blog -