DigiThoughts

What’s New(s) in a Data-Driven World

 January 24, 2012 by Nicole Rawski
WAALA Analytics

Last week, Digitaria’s Analytics team attended the regional LA/Southern California chapter’s inaugural Web Analytics Association Symposium in Santa Monica. After a busy train ride to L.A., the Digitaria analytics team rode in unaccustomed limo style (pictured) to Santa Monica.

The one-day event allowed SoCal analytics experts to share learnings in an ever-changing industry. We heard success stories (and cautionary tales) and discussed what the industry should anticipate in 2012. Here’s a brief overview on what’s new -- or news -- in the world of analytics:

1. Web Analysts should be specified and delineated as either Business Web Analysts or Technical Web Analysts. Focusing on a specialty will enhance the quality of work and the expertise of the analyst.
~ Gigi Geiger, Sr. Analyst & Web Analytics Evangelist

2. Reports should be digestible in five minutes or less. Summarize key findings up front before delving into more detail, since stakeholders will most likely not have time to read through everything.
~ Hayley Bruton, Web Analyst

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Nicole Rawski Sr. Analyst

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Analyzing Analytics: WAA Analytics Review and Predictions

 January 11, 2012 by Nicole Rawski
Web Analytics

Next week, the Analytics and Optimization team from Digitaria will be joining other professionals for the WAA Los Angeles Symposium on Wednesday, January 18. This inaugural event for the local chapter is a half-day seminar that will include industry leaders from the web analytics community speaking about what did and didn’t work in 2011 as well as what to expect in 2012.

With attendance only $10 for members and $50 for non-members, this event is a must-attend for our team, where we can share strategies and solutions for measuring the web, mobile and social initiatives.

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Nicole Rawski Sr. Analyst

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DATA: Are you using it to your advantage...or just to make you look good?

 November 29, 2011 by Nicole Rawski

In it’s ideal form, data should be unassailable. But it’s not. Data can be twisted, tailored or censored to tell many different stories.

It’s not uncommon for marketers to skew their data because they’re afraid that showcasing the “real” numbers behind a marketing program could illuminate a failure. Web analysts, on the other hand, don’t have any motivation to skew data; their goal is to make informed decisions to optimize results.  

The practice of web analytics has evolved over the years, and today analysts can provide key stakeholders with actionable insights. For various reasons, however, that information often goes ignored.

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Nicole Rawski Sr. Analyst

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Web Analyst or Unicorn? Details on this elusive ‘trybrid’

 November 21, 2011 by Gigi Geiger
Elusive Trybird

Web Analytics is a relatively new and rapidly progressing discipline.  Some of the best and brightest in the web analytics industry came together at #Accelerate last Friday to discuss various tips and ideas.

After hearing industry leaders from ESPN, Salesforce.com, Sony and Symantec speak for 20 minutes each, I took the stage for a Super Accelerator session and presented my “one big idea” for analytics; the idea of the elusive trybrid.

Good web analysts are nearly as difficult to find as a unicorn.  This is because web analysts are comprised, in varying levels, of three very different skill sets: IT, analytics, and marketing.  These unusual skills allow the web analyst to excel in the wild – and in the business world.  The trybrid is not the kind of animal you see hunted on the Discovery Channel, but instead by recruiters and analytics managers.

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Gigi Geiger Sr. Analyst & Web Analytics Evangelist

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Twitter Visits San Diego AMA

 October 27, 2011 by Nicole Rawski
Twitter AMA Event

Last night, I met @GeneChanSF before hearing him speak about using Twitter for Brand Building & ROI, at the San Diego American Marketing Association’s monthly event. He recently joined Twitter to help redefine social media, and introduced his presentation with this inspirational video.

@GeneChanSF’s point is that you don't have to be an active participant to enjoy Twitter; you can enjoy all it's benefits by simply listening. Twitter's growth has been substantial. It has 100M+ Active Users, 600K+ new users per day, and 230M+ tweets per day.

With mobile devices growing, it was a surprise to learn only 57% of active Twitter users have it on their mobile device. @GeneChanSF also discussed how Twitter developed their ad platform, how they take into consideration relevance, resonance, and real-time results in an attempt to get brands the most from their offerings.

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Nicole Rawski Sr. Analyst

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The Measurable Impact of Steve Jobs’ death

 October 12, 2011 by Rachelle Maisner
Measuring Steve Jobs' Influence

What more is there to say about Steve Jobs? Everyone has been talking about his death last Wednesday and, still—one week later—tributes are being featured on the front page of major newspapers and his name is filling social media and news feeds. Most everyone has paying tribute to his visionary leadership and a few ‘bad apples’ discussing picketing his funeral (note this hilariously hypocritical tweet posted via Twitter for iPhone).

The volume of public morning for a CEO is unprecedented. Individuals and companies around the world have paid unbelievable tributes to Steve Jobs from iPad vigils to a Google homepage tribute.

It’s clear from these public dedications that Steve Jobs had an immeasurable impact on the world. But as an analytics expert, my tendency will always be to go to the numbers.

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Rachelle Maisner Web Analyst

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New from Google Analytics: Real Time and Premium

 September 30, 2011 by Adam Rosenberg
Google Analytics new features

Yesterday Google rolled out two major new features: Real Time Analytics and Google Premium. Real Time Analytics further improves an already impressive offering of free Analytics tools, while Premium elevates Google Analytics to the enterprise level where they can compete with the big boys like Omniture and Webtrends.  

Google Analytics Premium

This long awaited feature opens up a new channel for Google Analytics. With a flat-rate pricing model and best-in-industry SLAs, Google Analytics Premium could be an attractive offering for companies that feel that their current solution is too expensive for the value they are getting out of it or would like to make the jump to an enterprise analytics tool.  In addition, Premium will offer a number of features out of the box, that are not available in the Standard Edition, and that are generally sold as add-ons with other tools.

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Adam Rosenberg Web Analyst

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'Moneyball' vs. Web Analytics

 September 23, 2011 by Adam Rosenberg
sabermetrics Moneyball vs. Web Analytics

This article originally appeared in MediaPost Online Media Daily: 'Moneyball' vs. Web Analytics.

A few weeks back, while the Padres were in the middle of their latest and worst losing streak of the season, our digital marketing agency got a bunch of tickets to the San Diego premiere of Moneyball, the big Hollywood adaptation of Michael Lewis’s best-selling 2003 book about the (literally) game-changing Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane, starring Brad Pitt, which opens today.

I love the book and have read it several times, not only because I’m a big baseball fan but because it once was a matter close to my wallet: earlier in my career, I worked for Linea Baseball Consulting, compiling and analyzing advanced statistical research, and arranging interpreter services for Major League Baseball teams. Moneyball was an extremely influential book in my professional development, and that baseball experience ultimately became a major factor for my entry into the world of web analytics.

At the core of Moneyball is sabermetrics, a late 20th-century term used to define the objective, empirical evidence of baseball statistics, some of them well-known like batting average and slugging percentage, while others are quite obscure but arguably far more revealing (like VORP, for “value over replacement player”; or BABIP, for “batting average on balls in play”).

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Adam Rosenberg Web Analyst

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Evangelizing Analytics with Avinash: Google Analytics Cert. Partner Conference

 September 22, 2011 by Mark Kegley
Avinash Google Analytics Certified Partner

As a Google Analytics Certified Partner, members of Digitaria's analytics team were invited to visit the geek’s equivalent of Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory last week, for the Google Analytics Certified Partner (GACP) conference.

During the two-day conference, we learned about new features offered with Google Analytics, Google+, Droid OS and Google Apps. Unfortunately, if we told you what they are, we’d have to kill you. (No seriously, Google has asked that we not share what we learned. We made up the killing part). But what I can tell you is that Google continues to innovate, and their platforms have exciting new offerings for analytics evangelists like us.

The highlight of our visit was a coffee chat at GooglePlex with Avinash Kaushik, the face of Google Analytics.

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Mark Kegley Sr. Analyst & Web Analytics Evangelist

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Three Analytics Trends - Lessons from OMMA Behavioral

 July 27, 2011 by Matthew Parry
OMMA Behavioral

The world of behavioral analytics does not have clearly drawn lines about what it is (and isn’t).  Where I work, we normally think of behavioral analytics as the way we recognize patterns of behavior based on site activity. Once we understand what visitors are doing on a website, we can create visitor segments based on those patterns to discover what is driving those behaviors.

For example, we can use onsite behavior to uncover which site assets are being downloaded during the first visit of a visitor who would later register on the site.  By understanding what content drives future registration, we can help our clients prioritize which assets to create (assuming registration is their goal).

Last week, I was invited to speak on a panel at OMMA Behavioral in San Francisco (recorded video here), regarding how behavioral analytics allows brands to connect with their target audience online.  Unlike the post-click analysis we typically do, OMMA Behavioral is primarily relevant for brand advertisers who use analytics to purchase media targeted at behavioral segments. Instead of post-click engagement and conversion, behavioral advertisers measure success by brand lift and purchase intent.

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Matthew Parry Sr. Analyst & Web Analytics Evangelist

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