ZAAZ Blogs -- The Latest Thinking on Performance Marketing

Monetize This

Lindsay Hasz — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:05:41 -0700

Building a monetization model is like traveling to a foreign country. It starts out confusing, not knowing where to begin or even how to speak the language, but after some time, you broaden your horizon and learn a few things. You start to wonder, ‘’Why isn’t everyone doing this?’’

Monetization is the method in which you convert a site’s activity into a monetized amount. This can range from a button clicked to an application completed. This is essential to one’s business because it helps you put a dollar value on each visitor’s movement. By combing analytics, one can determine not only which area gets the most activity, but what’s the most valuable (and those are often not the same!) For example, you may know that the billboard on the homepage gets the most clicks, but you may not know that by promoting one call-to-action over another in that space could double your monetized value. Building a monetization model is a key example of how ZAAZ “meets at the intersection of creative and logic.”

There are numerous benefits to building a monetization model.

Optimization analysis and reporting: quick valuation on optimization requests, discover which key buying activities are worth more for testing purposes, etc.

Gather important key findings such as value per visit/ value per application

Time series data: analyze seasonality, utilize predictability of the model

Dynamic prioritization: determine which initiatives have highest ROI potential

Match-back to offline sales regression (full circle sales cycle)

Correlate data to survey analysis with regards to brand opinion, etc.

Monetize loss avoidance within optimization field

When building a monetization model, you must start with a few major questions.

Who are the stakeholders? Is it the product team or marketing team? They’ll probably want the model for completely different reasons…
What are the identified monetized transactions? Is this readily accessible? For example, can we get contribution margin per product? Do we have the data to support separating visitors into different segments?
How will we use the results? How granular will we need the data to be?
What are the assumptions? Does everyone agree? How do we determine what’s a good benchmark for these areas of unknown?

Next, discuss these things with your analytics team. How will each of these things be measured? What needs to be tagged (method in which you track metrics)? Can we pull historical data? Begin to put together a data dictionary (an established set of rules to ensure conformance in the manner which data is gathered) and start to gather whatever metrics you can.

Common hurdles:

Difficulty agreeing on strategy of model (gaining buy-in on a model that does not reflect actual revenue, but still carries tremendous value)

Too much data… How do you decide what actually goes into the model? How do you be sure you’re using deduped data so as not to double-count any activity/ revenue?

Agreeing on the assumptions

Even with the challenges listed above, building a monetization model to represent your site is essential to the growth of one’s business. It is a direct way to measure how successful a marketing campaign was, how to predict next year’s seasonality, which call-to-action is best used on what page and so forth. ZAAZ has built these for multiple business models and believe it is completely worth whatever hurdles you may come across, just as is it to travel somewhere new.

Lindsay is an Online Test Designer in the Optimization department at ZAAZ.

Unique Visitors...A new definition?

Judith Pascual — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:48:51 -0700

I WISH!
Well, if the goal was to spark a discussion and fuel up the fireplace...mission accomplished.
Eric Peterson's post last week on "Unique Visitors Only Come In One Size has has done just that...
(http://blog.webanalyticsdemystified.com/weblog/2009/03/unique-visitors-only-come-in-one-size.html)
It's needless to say that Unique Visitors has been a top subject matter on many posts.

Over the years we have all discussed its drawbacks, using a weighted average, how to improve it, and in some ways have found ways around the metric. Plus personally, how many unique visitors I get adds no value to my ongoing analysis. I'm interested in behavior or better yet, whether they are going to accomplish what I desire and/or what the user wants...I know I am the first to use authenticated users and visits before visitors.

But this is not about me...

As someone who participates in the process, fact still remains that the individuals of the Standards Committee have taken these and a bunch of other scenarios into account.
Though I clearly see the IAB's point, a new term is in order. But to say that we are going to deny the definition that we've all used and 'grown' to know, is not going to happen.
I think that we need to validate any new proposal.
It’s not that I disagree with the IAB, it's just unrealistic at this point and at this time we are attempting to establish a common language for 'right now.'
I think its good to expect more and move the industry forward.
Do I think the two should be named differently, of course. Do I believe the industry deserves better measurement, YEP! Is it a good debate, no doubt. But boy do I have bigger fish to fry.
When we get a better metric we will use it and guess what? We would call it something else!
Why? Because even before this, the reality is that it was already confusing...

Among many parts within the post, I found the following to be interesting...
And Joe did clarify for me what a “measurement organization” is … he just didn't directly clarify the impact on web analytics vendors.

HMMM...I recall a conversation between the IAB and the Standards Committee where it was stated by the IAB that it would affect analytics vendors....perhaps I completely misunderstood.

Also, last time I checked the word Panel (used in the IAB definition) in 'our' world, it did not mean population. So...there are negatives on both ends...Plus, where's the algorithm? Let's get that going before we start calling things out. Or perhaps it exists? Be sure to let us all know. Perhaps this may be in the works?

Oh and as someone who worked for DoubleClick, Inc during the early days, I can add the important issues we have with privacy behind identity but I won't...
However, somehow it was forgotten!

There's so much work that goes into all of this and unfortunately this all has spilled over to becoming personal. I am glad to see it has tapered off, because this is all far from personal.
All I can say is, let's embrace what we do have, strive for better, enhance relationships, lead and honor those who volunteer their time just for the love of it.

Analytics spawned yawning among analysts?...is that possible?

Judith Pascual — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:50:00 -0800

I never thought I'd see the day that I would yawn during an analytics discussion. But it happened. I always thought it was my job to motivate people, show them the value and they will move forward. I get little butterflies as I pull and integrate numbers and find a story to share. I often feel like the journalist, breaking news. But this time, I felt like I had been transported to 2004 and I though that was a good year for me, I was not pleased.

The lack of analytics mobility is starting to get boring. Apparently, I am not alone. After so many years, let's move on folks! I keep hearing things like, 'analytics is our focus, we need to act'...okay so why do you shy away from tracking based on your goals, not just the 'data' you are able to get at this time? Why when you are given insights you don't act on them. Segmenting is a bad word and you still find geography 'views' valuable. This is just all very lame.

Now, during this economic turmoil, more than ever we need to stop making excuses for why analytics funding is not a priority and why you cannot act on customer requests. Don't get me wrong, we have worked with so many clients that have grown and are now data driven businesses. But far too many are stagnant. Ensure that you are not on that list.

For 2009, you have already asked yourself, what am I spending money on? Now, ask yourself what are you spending time on? What are key stakeholders focusing on? How is that growing or even maintaining your business? Look at your analytics maturity level and if you see yourself having the same discussion you had in 2004. Stop. Start the roadmap on moving forward and monetizing your business so you can optimize.

Of course I know you are still thinking about costs so...put together a cost benefit worksheet (yes, it takes time and you do need to understand what you are doing) and among the obvious ensure to include:

1. Speed - what customer driven projects can we quickly turnaround that is going to influence return?

2. Better Results - improvements in results because actions were taken - savings included -

3. Shorten the meetings and discussions on items you have action plans for or documented a roadmap...and use them already...you'll be surprised how much time and money you'll save.

You can adjust things as you go...but take the step.

Remember that yawning is contagious. Don't put yourself in a position where your analyst' yawn, de-motivate your stakeholders and it all transcends to consumer behavior.

United Airlines, $1.2 Billion, and Low Amounts of Web Traffic: Oh the Shame

Chris Kerns — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:50:45 -0700

How painful is a low amount of web traffic? It can hurt in more ways than one. Take the example of United Airlines this week.

You may have heard that United Airlines stock crashed on Monday (reduced by 75%, around $1.2 billion worth.) Trading had to be halted. What's coming to light is that the stock's temporary downward fall was due to the following set of events:

1. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel is a newspaper site that gets a modest amount of traffic. Traffic levels are so low that around midnight Sunday night, a single pageview of an archived article resulted in the page being registered as the “most popular page" on the site at that moment.

2. Google’s newsbot saw the article listed as “popular”, and then assumed it was current news, giving it prominent placement it on it’s news site. Trouble is that the article was actually from 2002. And it was about United Airlines going bankrupt.

3. Investors saw the bankruptcy article as current news on Google, sold sold sold, and shares tanked. All sparked by, you got it, low web traffic.

The moral of the story is: you shouldn't be ashamed of low web traffic, everybody's been there. Every site is going to have areas where it needs to improve - whether it's popularity or functionality. But don't create prominent functionality based on those faults. Features that depend on the wisdom, or basic participation, of crowds tend to be better suited for sites that actually have crowds.

Also - when you're looking at trends with your traffic, make sure you step back and look at the absolute numbers to do a reality check on the trends your seeing. Percentages can be deceiving and misleading (just ask United Airlines - their stock is back on track now, but 75% is a bad day in anyone's book.)

Risky (online) Business

Chris Kerns — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:33:31 -0700

A few months ago, something very weird happened. Tom Cruise decided that he needed to rebrand himself via a website. In one swoop, he moved from Tom Cruise to TomCruise™ by putting out a self-congratulatory web presence and PR tour. All in order to change our perception of him. Yes, because we’re that stupid.

And, since everyone knows you never launch a new product in August, he went big in May to much fanfair with an appearance on Oprah and the aforementioned website. It was obvious that in the wake of this media blitz, the world’s opinion of TomCruise™ had instantly changed back to “I think he’s just kind of weird in a Hollywood way, I guess.”

As it turns out, TomCruise™ has had a rough time of it the past few decades. Here’s a graph to demonstrate his popularity:

The layman might guess check out this graph that he’s only going up, up, up. Unfortunately, this is a graph demonstrating a ranking of the Top 100 Box Office Stars in each decade based on total receipts, so he’s actually climbing his way out of the money. See the bottom right corner? TomCruise™ wants to be down there, but it’s already occupied by that good looking Orlando Bloom fellow. So Tom’s watching the trend, and trying to put a stop to it.

So was the site launch a success? Well, that depends on what his goals were. What should his goals have been? If we, the experts at ZAAZ, had met with him in the site planning process, I’m guessing the dialog would have been a little…something…like...this….

ZAAZ: so, TomCruise™, what are the business goals of what you’re trying to achieve online?

TomCruise™ (for some reason I’m picturing him in sunglasses): I’m thinking that people want to hear the truth about me, my loyal fans. And some of the new web 2.0 stuff. Maybe a social network. Did you happen to see the blockbuster “Minority Report”? Steven and I worked tirelessly on that to really capture the visceral essence…

ZAAZ: How about something a little smarter, like getting people to sign up for site updates, news, and other notifications? That way you can continue to tell them how crazy you’re not, and control the conversation. Also, let's talk about targets for demographics. Hispanics have continued to rise as a major force in the moviegoing public (attending 11 movies per year vs. the average 8.5 across all demographics), so how about working to attract a new audience to your films? Or attracting more young moviegoers (12-24 age range), who are making up an increasing piece of the audience wallet (38% of movie admissions in 2007 according to the MPAA)? Or maybe just getting a site out there with great SEO so that “tomcruiseisnuts.com” (currently #3) doesn’t appear before your official site (currently #5) in the Google organic rankings for “Tom Cruise”?

TomCruise™ : did you know I played an uncredited role as “Cowboy” in Young Guns? A lot of people don’t know that.

So, I checked out some data to see how the site is doing with the mock goals I lay out above. The site traffic grew throughout May, seeing the main peak the week of May 24th, and is now on a downhill trajectory. So the word got out – but 95% of the visits are being classified as “passers-by” vs. regulars or addicts. Maybe that’s because there’s not really anything to do on the site. Who can expect people to return when all that’s available is information about 10-year-old films that TomCruise™ has appeared in? Would it kill the guy to write a blog? Give us something to come back for. When it comes to the mock target demographics, we’re not doing so well, either. According to our friends over at QuantCast, almost 50% of the site traffic is from “old people” – over 35. Only 7% of the audience is Hispanic.

So it’s easy to launch a site, get some press, and claim a victory. It's not as easy when you set goals and build a site/campaign around those goals, but it's much more productive. Anyone in Hollywood should appreaciate that when you design a site around goals, your analytics can tell you a story. You set up the situation, you deal with the conflicts that exist, and end up at a resolution. Analytics without goals is like Top Gun without Iceman, Days of Thunder without Rowdy Burns, The Firm without...The Firm. Be honest about what your goals are, follow through with actionable analysis, and you'll be able to tell your own story someday.

* side note: please appreciate the constraint I used in this blog entry, not mentioning any of the following low hanging fruit:

any reference to "Site traffic: Mission Impossible”
nothing on “monetization: show me the money!”
no jokes about conversion.

Quantcast: Defining Audience Analytics (initially published on ClickZ)

Shane Atchison — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:58:00 -0700

The best things in life are free. Quantcast is a free media measurement service that enables advertisers to view audience reports for millions of sites and services. Recently I chatted with CMO Adam Gerber about the methodology behind his company's success.

Shane Atchison: Quantcast is doing a fantastic job building its product and brand. What do you attribute your success to?

Adam Gerber: Our success is a function of delivering a solution the marketplace lacks and which it craves. We're trying to help publishers who sell audiences and advertisers/agencies who buy them have improved and more sophisticated ways of understanding, segmenting, and establishing value based on the characteristics of those audiences. Search advertising, which is effectively a hyper-addressable marketplace, works because it has transparency and liquidity. But search is about consumers finding advertisers; they're already in an active mode. Brand advertising, the upper funnel, is about marketers finding their consumers. Better targeting and eventually addressability in the upper funnel require definition around segmentation and real-time decisions, the equivalent of the keyword. But for brands, it's about the "who" -- demographically, contextually, behaviorally, etcetera. Our focus is on enabling that evolution so that buyers and sellers can drive better business results.

SA: Your open syndicated ratings service appears to be one of a kind. How does it work?

AG: It is one of a kind. We're actually doing a number of things that are revolutionary. We believe in an addressable media economy and to get there, the market needs a new way of thinking about audience data and measurement. As an industry, sellers and buyers of media need transparency and depth tied to the data they work with. But more importantly, we need measurement approaches that are built for a digital world, that provide both census-level capabilities to drive real-time advertising integration and the audience-based measures that will be used to drive targeting and allocation decisions.

Unlike any other measurement service, we enable a couple of key things. Most importantly, participation and control. Any publisher can have directly measured audience data generated via our Quantcast Publisher service -- and it's free. Publishers participate in that service, they have control over how they organize their audiences, and they decide what data is offered for public view. And I'd point out, we've had terrific adoption of our Publisher service. Over 10 million Web properties are now directly measured: sites, blogs, video channels, etcetera. Many of the largest publishers on the Web are now participating in the service.

The result is a unique solution that marries the benefits of direct measurement (cookies) with those of panel-based reference points (people/audience). Our model is based on inference. We don't just intersect our pixel data with our panel, do a simple extrapolation, and call it a day (e.g., for a property, if we see 100 directly measured cookies and see 10 of them across our panel, we don't just ascribe the characteristics of the people we saw in the panel to the full, directly measured audience). We are literally collecting billions of new directly measured data points every day and building a model that continually improves.

SA: Can you share some examples of how ROI (define) is measured?

AG: We're helping publishers today create actionable inventory packages that have directly measured audience data tied to them. That's a pretty powerful thing for a seller, and a really unique offering for buyers. They simply haven't had real audience data tied to the actual allocation of media they are buying in the online space. And I want to re-enforce [that] I'm not talking about impression counts. Obviously, we've been able to predict and account for impressions for over a decade. I'm talking about demographics and affinities for actual traffic. That's something unique. Marketers are also taking advantage of our solution to better understand who is buying. This helps them optimize their media buys.

SA: The Web analytics space has been incredibly hot the past year. How do you differentiate from the other players in your space?

AG: It's pretty simple. We don't put ourselves in the Web analytics space. Web analytics has been about understanding your own site traffic characteristics. Notice I used the term "traffic," which to me is about the "what," not audience, which is much more about the "who." Web analytics solutions are terrific because they give you a directly measured view of traffic flow, metrics tied to abandonment, content trends, merchandizing performance, etcetera. Analytics services up until now have been internal solutions. They are generally silo implementations that don't allow for Internet-wide models to be built (in aggregate form). We are about audience measurement and activation.

Quantcast is focused on enabling publishers and marketers to understand the characteristics of audiences as they flow through digital media. The limitation of analytics solutions as they exist today is they tell you what is happening, but they don't give you any insight into why from an audience-dimension perspective. More importantly, they don't enable easy marketplace consideration and implementation of the data. They aren't consistent, scalable third-party data providers. That last point may seem confusing, so let me put it a different way.

If you're a publisher/salesperson, you know that if you walk into an agency-buyer meeting and present your internal Web analytics data, it will probably be rejected. Buyers today defer to audience services like comScore and Nielsen for analysis. Agency buyers, especially those focused on brand spending as opposed to direct marketing/performance, don't have the time or resources to evaluate every publisher's independent data. It's based on different methodology than they care about (cookies instead of people), and more importantly it's not easily digestible. Buyers need scalable, independent services that facilitate easy consumption of trustworthy and transparent audience intelligence. We believe that we're bringing a fresh perspective to the marketplace: the data that buyers need and the participation, control, and accuracy that publishers expect.

SA: Who are your direct and indirect competitors?

AG: This is always a tough question to answer, because honestly we don't really see any direct competitors right now. Obviously, there are folks out there trying to do pieces of what we are doing.

When we first launched, we were bucketed in with folks like Alexa and Compete, mainly because we were free and we provided data for millions of domains. As we've grown, expanded our services, and focused attention on demographics and audience insights, folks have started to talk about us in relation to comScore and Nielsen. While we offer some similar services, we are focused on completely differently visions. The key difference is one of direct measurement and scale. Panels are great for providing broad visibility and competitive analysis, but they don't deal well with the fragmentation and distribution of today's digital media economy. Perhaps most importantly, though, panels will never enable addressable advertising. Direct measurement allows us to capture media consumption data at arbitrary levels of precision, and while other audience measurement vendors are toying with direct measurement, no one else is close to operating at the scale we currently are.

Google is also looking to make inroads into this market. Everyone saw Google's Ad Planner announcement in June. Ad Planner theoretically competes with one of our offerings: Quantcast Media Planner. There are stark differences between the services, though. We, like many folks in the industry who reacted to the launch, view Ad Planner as a tool aimed more at helping small marketers buy ads on the Google ad network. Google, of course, has the scale and technical expertise to handle lots of data. The market will decide if it has the independence to work directly with all of the top online publishers.

SA: How do you make money?

AG: It's a great question, and one that we get asked all the time. All of our services to date are free...We plan to maintain these services as open and free offerings. We believe strongly that the marketplace -- everyone in the market -- needs transparent access to data and ways to actively participate in audience measurement.

Ultimately, we believe the future of advertising rests on better use of audience data to drive addressability. We'll be introducing services that will allow more effective segmentation and better returns for publishers and advertisers alike. Quantcast will charge for these services. But I want to reinforce [that] our base services will remain free.

SA: In an economic slowdown, why should an organization move forward with your solution as opposed to other marketing solutions?

AG: Our solution is free, and it provides both publishers and marketers with intelligence that can help them drive their bottom line. Publishers can generate much better audience data to empower their sales teams. And that increased audience understanding drives higher value to advertisers. At the end of the day, we are focused on helping buyer and seller transact in more sophisticated ways, a reality that should drive results for both sides of the marketplace. We believe that's a pretty compelling offering at a time when buyers and sellers are looking for enhanced ROI.

SA: What are the big opportunities for your business, your customers, and the market as a whole in 2008?

AG: Our biggest opportunity is to keep engaging the marketplace and delivering innovative services: educating people about addressability and helping them understand how our collective business is going to change over the next decade. Some of those changes will happen in the short term, some long term. We're moving from a unit-based media economy to an impression-based world. It's going to have dramatic impact on how we think about audience activation, segmentation, and ROI.

We have seen a terrific adoption curve by media companies over the past 18 months. Everyone from CBS, NBC, and Fox to major publishing houses like Time Inc. and IDG. And we've seen Web-only publishers adopt at very high rates, everyone from PerezHilton.com to Huffington Post, WordPress, Slide, and Digg.

And since we started talking to agencies and marketers earlier this year, [we've had] just a fantastic response. While I can't talk specifics about which agencies and clients, suffice it to say [that] many of the largest digital shops and marketers are using our marketer-focused services.

Our success is a direct function of focusing on a need and delivering a solution for the publishers' and marketers' ecosystem. We just have to keep doing that, continuing to drive value for our publisher and marketer user base and maintaining our leadership position.

Insights into the Emergence of Search Analytics (Initially Posted on ClickZ)

Shane Atchison — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:54:15 -0700

In grade school, I really wanted a pair of Velcro tennis shoes. My parents obliged. Shortly after, I decided that I needed a pair of new basketball shoes (before I realized I was too short to succeed at basketball). My parents couldn't understand why I didn't just wear my new velcro tennis shoes. I tried to explain that each served distinctly specific functions. No dice.

While site-side Web analytics platforms are an appropriate, central hub for understanding overall digital performance, many marketing professionals still find it necessary to use complementary analytics solutions for more specific needs. Media and ad trafficking platforms are necessary for measuring display ad and paid search performance. Panel-based analytics are necessary to understand industry and competitive trends and insight. While these tools are all of an analytics nature, they each serve distinctly specific functions.

My Velcro shoes belonged on the street; basketball shoes were necessary to play basketball (or at least look good on the court). I don't want to replace my Web analytics platform, but I need a supplement for specific marketing functions to make effective business decisions.

SEO (define) continues to grow as a legitimate area of focus for enterprise marketing professionals. It's unequivocally the most efficient method for traffic acquisition, compared to paid search or display advertising, where costs scale with increased traffic. This makes SEO especially attractive in a recessed economic environment.

But we need to understand SEO performance at more granular level. Typical, high-level metrics provided by site-side analytics tools, like referring traffic or keywords, don't provide enough depth or breadth to make deep, effective decisions for SEO.

I recently spent some time with Richard Zwicky, founder and president of Enquisite, a search analytics solutions provider. I'm impressed by Enquisite's unique analytics capabilities specific to SEO, and I asked Zwicky to explain how search analytics can be an appropriate complement to a traditional Web analytics tool.

Shane Atchison: Let's start with the obvious question: why are marketers demanding more insight from search analytics?

Richard Zwicky:The budgets, activities, and expectations that drive search engine marketing -- SEO as well as SEM [define] and paid inclusion -- are all on the rise and are increasingly competing with other digital and traditional marketing and advertising spends. Search-specific analytics help marketers be more responsible with their budgets by offering a closer look at specific search performance and ROI [define].

SA: Why run search analytics alongside your Web analytics solution?

RZ:Enquisite focuses on natural search referrals. We're able to provide a level of depth beyond what traditional Web analytics tools offer. But search analytics isn't intended to replace Web analytics; rather, it complements Web analytics by shedding detailed insight on how search efforts specifically contribute traffic to a site and which specific keywords perform on a site. Our data is made actionable only when viewed in the context of traditional Web analytics reports and insights.

SA: Can you share examples of how search analytics are able to provide more "detailed insight?"

RZ:A good example is geotargeting. This is commonly used to inform paid search strategy but isn't commonly achievable for SEO efforts. Enquisite's reporting allows for a highly refined and customizable look at geographic performance from natural search. We show performance by city (and, in some cases, by Zip Code) for each individual search referral. This is especially useful because your site can rank differently in search engine results pages, depending on a searcher's location.

Traditional Web analytics would simply show you that you're getting search traffic but wouldn't explain your site's positioning in the SERPs [define] -- or the fact that it differs in geos. It also isn't going to distinguish the fact that some traffic comes from New York and some from Seattle.

SA:We see companies consistently wanting to view SEO success beyond just rank. Can this be more achievable with search analytics tools like Enquisite?

RZ: This has always been a common challenge, and one of the reasons that SEO and SEM performance have always been an apples-to-oranges comparison. The central problem is conversion. SEM managers are able to view conversion data at a keyword level, but SEO reporting has never really been able to tie specific keywords to specific site-side conversions.

We are soon to release conversion functionality, and we believe that Enquisite will be the first solution to offer detailed conversion tracking and analytics for natural-search-referring keywords. We can also identify which search terms, not currently optimized, have the highest potential for driving future traffic and conversion value.

SA:SEO conversion tracking is a promising level of value and insight that marketers haven't been able to realize from traditional tracking or Web analytics solutions. But it also seems like an opportunity for alignment with traditional solutions. How can that be achieved?

RZ:You're right; the value of providing SEO conversion insight is a core reason that dedicated search analytics tools will emerge as a necessary complement for marketing professionals. But you're also correct in identifying the need for alignment. The sophisticated insights that Web analytics provide in terms of looking at path data, funnel analysis, identifying and defining success events, goals, or conversions are crucial. We simply want to focus on specific insight and performance from search. This should both inform Web analytics and be informed by Web analytics. Search analytics insights can also align with other efforts like behavioral targeting.

SA:What are the big opportunities for search analytics in the next 12 to 18 months?

RZ:There is still a wealth of opportunity for search analytics providers to deliver deeper reporting functionality. Firms will need to focus on reporting functions that really address the decision-making needs of search marketing professionals. Accordingly, we really try to base our primary product focus on user feedback. We try to pay attention both to what our customers tell us and what the tight-knit search marketing community discusses. As important as search marketing is, providers need to realize that it is only one aspect of a larger analytics and marketing effort. Marketers only have limited time and attention to dedicate to search analytics. Firms need to try and avoid reporting clutter that over-delivers on analytics that we think are cool or are just nice to know.

Blogs as Unimaginative Failures

Jason Carmel — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:28:59 -0700

I'll admit, when my fellow ZAAZ-blog auteur Chris Kerns sent me a WSJ article entitled "Most Corporate Blogs Are Unimaginative Failures," and suggested I write about it, I couldn't figure out whether he was trying to be thought-provoking or secretly implying that my blogging sucks and tempting me to stand in front of the blogosphere in the emperor's new clothes (as it were). If I thought about it too hard, it almost seemed like the blogger-equivalent of telling someone that "gullible" isn't in the dictionary, or muttering very softly under your breath "adillholesayswhat". I'll assume he is taking the high road on this (a n00b mistake at ZAAZ, perhaps).

The article references a Forrester report that accuses most B2B blogs of being little more than refried corporate marketing hyped up as "Web 2.0," with all of the personality and ingenuity of prison food. Barely a quarter of all entries results in any significant conversation, and as a result, far fewer Fortune 500 companies are getting into the game.

I appreciate the good people at Forrester quantifying this, but I can't say it comes as any surprise. I imagine that the decision to get into the blogging game initially for many companies went a little something like this:

Marketing Guy #1 - My niece told me that she reads about American Idol on a blog. Says all her friends do too. Thing gets more visits than Santa's lap in December.

Marketing Guy #2 - Sweet Mary Lou Retton, I love American Idol! And we've been getting slaughtered in the "young tech-savvy people I can't relate to" demographic. We need a blog ASAP.

And so our intrepid Marketing Heroes set out to start a blog, without discussing important things like purpose, measurement of success, voice/tone, sustainability (i.e., do we have enough content for regular, meaningful posts), and ownership/moderation. Three months into the blog, they realize that coming up with posts takes real thought and work, which they can't support, so they phone it in by posting press releases word for word. They get a few negative comments and decide it's easier just to turn off the ability to comment altogether rather than address any criticisms directly. And (perhaps most importantly) since they can't linearly connect the readership of the blog to any purchases or leads, the project quickly loses what little financial and political resources it ever had. As I type this, to be honest, I'm surprised there are any B2B blogs left at all for Forrester to study.

For me, the biggest take-away from this is how a well-timed conversation about goals would lead to a startlingly different result. Understanding why the conversation inherent in a blog is important, how much effort it will require, and how it will be measured is especially important for social web applications to avoid "unimaginative failures."

You're Invited: Social Media Event at ZAAZ Seattle July 8th

Ryan Turner — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:58:45 -0700

Cross-posted from Web Social Architecture.

People keep asking me when we're going to host another event at the ZAAZ office's notorious Z-Bar in Seattle. Well...

I'm super excited about the lineup for this event, which includes industry leaders from corporate, agency, and independent circles who share passion and expertise in the human dimensions of social computing. Knowing most of these folks pretty well, I think I can guarantee an evening of thought-provoking conversation.

The format for this event will be similar to the previous one I organized, which seemed to go pretty well. We'll have short talks from each speaker followed by a panel discussion. Plus, snacks and beer.

Here's the rundown on the speakers:

Brian Fling of Flingmedia is a full-fledged mobile design geek and human Swiss Army knife. His talk, "Mobile 2.0: Design and Develop for the iPhone and Beyond" will explore some of the social dimensions of the emerging mobile world.

My colleague Justin Marshall is behind some of the most exciting work we've done in social media. His take on social media for marketers, titled "Money, Media, and Your Mom's Peach Cobbler: Social Media Marketing Done Right," offers guidance for marketers looking to engage with customers online.

Samantha Starmer is a highly-respected thought leader in the local information architecture community. In addition to her work at REI, she co-teaches the UW Information School's Summer IA Institute. Her talk, "Single Athletic Female seeking Single Slender Male: The Marriage of Social Media and Metadata," promises to reveal the secrets of better online living through metadata.

Nancy White of Full Circle Associates has been doing online community since WAY before it was cool. Her broadly-ranging expertise includes online learning and facilitation, communities of practice, technology in the developing world, and social technology in general. Her talk is titled "Slow Community."

Wendy Chisholm is a former co-editor of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and a passionate advocate for universally-accessible design online and off. She's currently working on what promises to become "THE book" on accessibility for the emerging Web.

We're really lucky in the Seattle area to have access to such quality thinkers and experts. I hope you'll join us, and if you do plan to attend, drop me a note at ryant (at) zaaz dot com so I can get a rough headcount.

The Facebook event is here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=66791410200.

I hope to see you there!

A Movie Test

Jason Carmel — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:33:42 -0700

I was sick over the Memorial Day Weekend, not that you cared enough to call or anything.

When I'm sick, I like to watch movies in the theater (preferably), provided I'm not rampantly contagious or bleeding out of both ears. Fortunately, the three day kick-off to the summer blockbuster season affords a lot of movie-watching opportunity, and so I saw the new Indiana Jones flick and Prince Caspian. Before you ask, no, I don't have kids. I saw them because they were at the top of my list. Don't judge me. You're judging me. Stop judging me.

I will provide my review of the films in five words or fewer, and will then get to the point of this post:

Indiana Jones: Still good; please stop now.
Prince Caspian: Not Lord of the Rings.

One thing I noticed (maybe because I was sick and in a foul mood) is how soul-crushingly terrible the movie-going experience is. I feel like I'm getting screwed at every turn. Tickets are north of $10 each, which gives me the privilege of sitting in an uncomfortable, dirty, ice-chest of theater while I get skeezy, full-frontal advertisement until the movie starts. The food is about 4X what you would pay for it at a 7-11, and I saw a helpful woman behind the concession stand counter literally ask a gentleman six different times if he would prefer a combo. (Note: I can't blame the woman for being so effusive about the combo opportunities. There's a sign in front of each register that bribes patrons to narc on the concession folks if they fail to do so.)

I suspect it couldn't be too hard to make movie-going fun again. I can think of tons of things I would try if I owned a theater. Maybe free popcorn (if salted properly, a nice loss leader for soft drinks). Seat consoles that let you vote on what parts of the film you liked or didn't like. Participatory cinema, like the geniuses at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema do in Austin, TX.

I'm probably not the first guy to come up with this and more, so I wondered (while waiting for the NyQuil to kick in) why only the random independant theaters ever do anything that attempts to re-inject the positive back into an experience that can only be defined (generously) as craptacular. It occurred to me that, in all likelihood, the Standard Corporate Theaters (SCTs), such as the ones I patronized this weekend, were capable of the same ideas, but were probably stuck in a rut looking at the wrong things to see real results. My suspicion is that the SCTs rely on a multiplier of concession sales, tickets sold per movie showing, and advertising income to determine revenue. Asking a customer six times if he would like a combo is a good thing, because a test of such would demonstrate an immediate X% lift in concession sales. Any cost (e.g., a bad taste in the mouth for most patrons) wouldn't hit the bottom line until long-after it could be attributable to ComboMania. Now contrast this to a theater owner who gets permission to run a more disruptive (in a good way) free-popcorn test- the test is almost always doomed to failure, since, quite obviously, concession sales will deteriorate significantly in the short term if you are giving away free product, and any positive impact from word of mouth will take many weeks to cultivate. If the SCTs never take a step back and let a deeper change happen, I think we can expect little in the way of real improvement (and, most likely, combo offers in the bathrooms).

Maybe in addition to measuring a radical new idea on the same success metrics, the SCTs could learn something by finding new things to measure, like relative customer satisfaction, propensity to return, etc. When you are looking to fundamentally disrupt the way your business operates, new measurements are generally a necessity. You never want to abandon the bread-and-butter metrics of your business, but it is unfair to hold tests that seek to go beyond the normal parameters of the business model to only those measurements collected for the old business model.