Latin American Countries Most Interested in the Cloud

Paul Lima     

Source: Terra.Com

A study from Tata Consultancy Services indicates that Latin American countries are the most interested in adopting cloud-based systems, followed by Asian countries.

The research, which included the participation of 600 IT managers from large companies, noted that 39% of Latin American companies are already using cloud computing applications, a figure twice the American rate (19%) and more than three times that of Europe (12%).

According to the same survey, 28% of Asian companies use cloud-based systems.  Respondents cited flexibility and simplification of procedures as their main reasons for adopting the cloud.  The model’s second major advantage for Latin American and Asian companies would be the possibility of adding or removing systems quickly.

On the other hand, concern with the cloud’s security weaknesses is the main reason for companies, especially public companies, not to adopt the use of remote servers – only 20% of respondents indicated that they trust cloud-based systems with their corporate data.

Even Smarter Analytics: IBM to Acquire SPM Software from Varicent

Paul Lima     

On Monday, IBM announced it will acquire Varicent Software Incorporated, adding sales performance management (SPM) capabilities to its already impressive Smarter Analytics offerings.  The move puts IBM in a strong position to compete for new business in the financial, insurance, retail, and telecommunications industries.

Varicent’s software should be particularly attractive to businesses whose revenue is driven by commissioned salespeople.  By automating and analyzing the collection and reporting of sales data across finance, sales, HR, and IT departments, Varicent helps businesses yield more profit from their sales, most notably by aligning compensation and other costs with strategic business goals.

In addition to state-of-the-art SPM software, Varicent also brings a network of more than 180 customers to the table.  Their portfolio includes a significant number of sales organizations within high-growth markets – in other words, the exact customers IBM must target in order to achieve their goal of building a $16 billion analytics empire by 2015.

We continue to be impressed with IBM’s strategy of uniting cutting-edge analytics solutions under the Smarter Analytics banner.  It’s also great to see software geared towards sales executives incorporated into a portfolio that already includes Coremetrics and Unica – both of which are more strongly associated with marketing.  Hopefully, by linking these two related disciplines in a single platform, Smarter Analytics will help reduce some of the tensions that often exist between sales and marketing departments.

The market’s appetite for software that can transform IT insights into profitable outcomes is still growing.  More and more organizations are realizing that analytics can help them use operational and financial data to gain a significant edge over their competitors.  And by folding the most powerful tools available into a single platform, we think IBM is positioning itself for unparalleled success in the ever-expanding analytics market.

Focusing on Content, Not Just Ads

Paul Lima     

For quite a while, the concentration in online analytics and tools to optimize results based on analytics revolved around ad optimization.  It was a world of sellers.  The focus was always on systems which could improve a company’s ability to recommend relevant products, increase conversions, and acquire traffic with increasing efficiency.  The solutions were skewed towards helping the sellers sell their ads, while putting less emphasis on the delivery of primary content.

Predictive Analytics are Ready for Early Adopters: Super Cool Sneaks from the Adobe Summit

Paul Lima     

Adobe announced their embedded forecasting and predictive models into Adobe Social, Discover and SiteCatalyst at their Annual Summit today.

I blogged about predictive analytics in my annual prediction for marketing trends entry for 2012, where I indicated that this would be the year for the early adopters to begin bringing these capabilities to digital marketing.

It’s here.

There are too many instances to mention, and many more that I expect are coming as the Product Development Teams begin to insert the Efficient Frontier (EF) models underneath the platform as underpinnings to nearly all of the products.  EF, in case you aren’t familiar with them, used Nobel-prize-winning Henry Markowtiz models called the Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) to apply the models that help financial engineers balance risk and returns on the stock market (which is essentially an auction) to the similar problem of risk (as defined by volatility and conversion metrics) and the price of keywords, which again is essentially an auction.  They’ve been around for over about a decade, and employ seven PhDs in the field.  I attended their workshops, and began to assess how these models will be embedded into the underpinnings of the Online Marketing Platform from Adobe.

So here are three things that impressed me, and keep in mind that since the EF acquisition only happened six weeks ago, none of the models have been incorporated into the platform at this time.

The Adobe SiteCatalyst product will be releasing The Navigator feature, there are new predictive analytics capabilities in the Discover 3.0 product and Abode Social shines the headlights around the corner to predict sentiment and help marketers more carefully use words that will increase engagement. read more

7 Ways to Monetize Pinterest Without Alienating its User Base

Paul Lima     

Pinterest is the fastest growing social network on the web right now.  Usage has increased almost 4,000% over the past six months.  Visitors are lingering for an average of 88.3 minutes, far longer than most other social networks – in fact, the only places they spend more continuous time are Facebook and Tumblr.  And the site is particularly popular with middle class North American women, who sign up to share recipes, craft ideas, decorating tips, and cute pictures of babies.

In spite – or perhaps because – of its simplicity, Pinterest presents numerous opportunities for forward-thinking marketers.  However, those who seek to monetize Pinterest would be wise to tread carefully. Angry users, particularly early adopters, are already worried that marketers have ruined Pinterest by sponsoring pins, flooding the site with spam, and decreasing the overall content quality.

Fortunately, there are plenty of things marketers can do to engage with Pinterest users in a meaningful way – without violating site etiquette.  Here are just a few: read more

What Can Digital Marketers Learn from Moneyball?

Paul Lima     

Did you see the movie Moneyball yet?  Billy Beane changes the game of baseball by using data.  And the same trends have been happening in the digital marketing arena for just as long.  

According to leading web analytics guru Avinash Kaushik, many large organizations still practice online marketing as a faith-based initiative – that is, they place their trust in intuition, bad data, and inefficient indicators when making strategic decisions.  Unfortunately, the use of weak metrics like clicks and page views often makes web analytics results look more impressive or meaningful than they actually are.  This allows managers to feel comfortable and content with their marketing decisions, without digging deeper to determine if their efforts are actually yielding useful results.  We think those types of metrics are generally ineffective.  We call them “caveman analytics”.  read more

“Your Ad Choices” and Self-Regulation in the Advertising Industry

Paul Lima     

On January 20 of this year, the Digital Advertising Alliance launched a campaign to inform the public about new forms of internet-based advertising, as well as ways consumers can protect their privacy online.  Called “Your A Choices,” it is one of the largest US-based campaigns about consumer privacy to-date.  Interestingly enough, “Your Ad Choices” was initiated around the same time the public debate surrounding SOPA and PIPA began to escalate.  Both these events have led consumers to think more about their rights online.

The “Your Ad Choices” logo first appeared in online advertisements last year.  It was introduced with one specific function: to serve as an advertising option button, which allows consumers to decide whether they want to watch online advertising based on their specific internet navigation activity.  This practice makes it possible for brands to offer their users ads that correspond as closely as possible with their interests – while also providing consumers the opportunity to opt-out.  This strategy is closely associated with the practice known as “Permission Marketing,” which is typically characterized by an emphasis on security, transparency, and user control, thereby promoting self-regulated best practices.

Self-Regulation in the Advertising Industry

The DAA is a strong advocate of self-regulation in digital advertising.  It develops and implements industry practices and rules of conduct, to which advertising professionals voluntarily submit.  But is there truly a need for such standards alongside economic regulation in the market, as well as legal regulation from the state?

Indeed, legislation is adequate to establish general principles (for example, that advertising should not be misleading); however, the protection offered in theory may not actually be available in practice – after all, the law is typically slow to respond to consumer protection complaints.  In contrast, self-regulation is specifically designed to proactively address the details and nuances of advertising content, and offers consumers a simple form of protection.  Self-regulation helps prevent actions that might cause harm or injury, as opposed to after-the-fact legal sanction, which seeks only to repair damage that has already taken place.  Thus, the form of self-regulation promoted by the DAA is not designed solely to benefit the online advertising industry, but also to protect the general public by incorporating the option of internet-based advertising.