10 Digital Marketing Trends for 2013

This blog posting is one of my favorite series, I’ve been posting a list of 10 digital marketing trends in ’11 and ’12.

So what’s expected to happen in 2013?

Brazil has the FIFA Confederations Cup in preparation for the ’14 World Cup, the US has a fiscal cliff to climb and together with the EU an imbalance on revenues and expenses to address.  The NFL has some skulls to crack to fix their concussions problems, those employed in the US will hire the unemployed in foreign lands (read more outsourcing), more foreigners will purchase US land, buildings, businesses and IP, and of course, VP Biden is the newly assigned czar on gun control.

IMHO, 2013 will follow Amara’s Law: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”

So here they are: The top 10 digital marketing trends of 2013.

10. Gamification – “All Play and no Work makes Jack a rich boy!”

9.  Cloud computing enables scalability to allow for new experiences in video games

8.  Digital Content across devices enables personalization that follows users across platforms

7.  TV is old.  It’s still king of the screens, but it’s content that folks want anytime, anywhere on all four screens. 

6.  The Smartphone begins its attack on plastic in mobile payments.

5.  Tag Management becomes a competitive imperative

4.  Users prefer mobile devices when reading magazines and shopping

3.  Social Media Mainstream and Niches continue to grow, especially in Emerging Markets except China

2.  Big Data will lead to consumer insights and smarter experiences at the speed of light

1.   The glory goes to the man in the arena and not their bankers and consultants.  

10.  Gamification – “All Play and no Work makes Jack a rich boy!”

So have you seen websites that try to encourage your behavior by offering you a little badge for doing something?  Foursquare gives you a badge when you check into the same place three times for example.  Dashlane offers badges when you save passwords in their password and credit card maintenance software, and Fitocracy makes working out with your friends a competitive game.  Users can Level Up by improving their bench press and earning a badge, post it to facebook and let the world know about their development.

As Daniel Pink will tell you in his book, Drive, human nature is best motivated by a sense of purpose, autonomy and self-mastery.  These types of immediate rewards for accomplishing small tasks might seem like it’s meant for grade school kids, but the data doesn’t lie.  Gamification increases engagement, helps users spend more time on site, and

that drives ad revenue and subscriptions since folks tend to develop a sense of being invested based on the recognition and the bragging they’ve done on social networks.

We’ve come a long way from that LinkedIn profile bar that showed 90%complete.

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Web Analytics for Amateurs: Part 1

Those who are new to the mysteries of web analytics may ask: What is web traffic analysis?  What are its principal metrics?  How can measuring it help me grow my business?

Web analytics is the study of user behavior on a web page.  The Web Analytics Association defines it thus: “Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage.”

Those who are unfamiliar with web analytics usually consider it a technical tool.  But make no mistake – web analytics is, first and foremost, a business tool, which can and should be used by any organization with a digital presence.  Good web analytics tools measure critical factors such as return on investment and site usability with speed and precision at a reasonable price.  They allow users – even those without a technical background – to measure their digital marketing strategies in minute detail.  Stakeholders can see results in real time, allowing them to make critical business decisions quickly, or look at “big picture” reports that clearly show whether or not their ebusiness communication strategy is going in the right direction.

What does web analytics give us?

Web analytics allows businesses to better identify user preferences, and understand how visitors interact with their website.  Stakeholders can easily determine which site features and content are the most popular, and which are leak points.  They can uncover visitor preferences according to geography, user actions, length of visit, or completion of certain tasks.  This type of segmentation is an organization’s best ally, allowing marketers to customize their offerings based on actual user behavior, rather than simply throwing around hypotheses based in conventional wisdom about what works and what doesn’t.

What tools do you need to get started?

People: It’s impossible to overstate the importance of investing in talented analysts, who possess the education and experience necessary to transform raw data into valuable information.  Avinash Kaushik isn’t exaggerating when he says that, for every $10 spent on analytics tools, $90 should be spent on the people who are going to use them.

Software: Business owners who don’t invest in web analytics tools are like store owners who close their eyes every time a customer walks through the door – they’re turning their backs on their best bet for growth and success.  Web analytics tools help organizations improve not just their websites, but also their entire digital media strategies.  Fortunately, there are a number of online traffic management tools for organizations to choose from –some free and others paid.  Not all have the same functionalities or measure traffic in exactly the same manner, but all will provide valuable insights to any organization that wants to grow its online presence.  The most prominent include: SiteCatalyst (formerly Omniture), Coremetrics, Google Analytics, Webtrends, and Yahoo Analytics.

Stay tuned for our next post on Web Analytics for Amateurs.  We’ll be discussing KPIs, key metrics, and objective setting.

ObservePoint’s Founder speaks out about Web Analytics Audit Software

Interview with: Robert K Seolas, Co-founder and CEO, ObservePoint

We recently had an opportunity to interview Robert Seolas, Co-Founder of ObservePoint.  ObservePoint is a partner of Lima Consulting Group and is the software that we use to conduct web audits for Omniture’s SiteCatalyst products, Coremetrics, Google Analytics, and other popular web analytics solutions.

Q: Why did you start ObservePoint?

RS: My partner in ObservePoint, John Pestana, was a Co-Founder of Omniture, one of the world’s foremost Web analytics platforms. Before retiring from Omniture, John knew the company received regular calls from customers who often complained that their analytics software wasn’t working. They always wanted to blame Omniture, but when there were hiccups, most of the time it was because there were problems with the tagging on their websites. read more

IBM Expands Cloud Based Analytics for Smarter Commerce

I think it’s neat to see how companies are getting together in a consortium, if you will through IBM’s Coremetrics product.  Collectively, they allow any client that opts-into the program to view the aggregate averages within their industry.  Summary information is now being picked up in the press as an indication of how Black Friday went.  Pretty cool if you don’t have to share your information.  And that’s where the IBM Acquisition of DemandTek comes into play.

A sample dashboard from DemandTec

So this type of thinking helps companies competing in the digital marketplace to adapt to changes in consumer demands as they occur.  Companies that can quickly and effectively adjust their price points and product mixes in response to ever-shifting customer buying patterns will have a key competitive advantage in the era of mobile and social networks.

That’s why IBM’s acquisition of DemandTec this past Thursday will make the  Smarter Commerce initiative even more valuable to retailers and manufacturers of packaged consumer goods.  The San Mateo, California based DemandTec develops cloud-based analytics software that allows businesses to examine consumer buying data mined from both online and in-store sales.  DemandTec customers can use that information to quickly and accurately identify consumer trends, helping  them make better price, promotion, and assortment decisions.  And because DemandTec’s software is cloud-based, retailers and manufacturers can collaborate to make time-sensitive business decisions instantaneously.

A sample Coremetrics Dashboard

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10 Most Common Web Analytics Mistakes

So you want to know the most frequent questions I get about web analytics and online marketing? I’ve tried to present them here and answer a few of them so maybe I can save you, my clients and future prospects some time so we can get onto executing profitable campaigns.

1) Free analytics are good for my business and are just as good as paid ones

Coremetrics Platform offers more than Google Analytics

First, let me say, I like Google Analytics and Yahoo’s Analytics solutions. But Google Analytics was built for Google. It serves their interest, not yours.

This might be the most common myth out there, and possibly one of the most dangerous. First and foremost, to directly dispel this rumor, the truth is that enterprise analytics solutions offer levels of detail and capabilities that free solutions such as Google Analytics don’t. Although free solutions can be hacked to a certain extent to extend their capabilities, at the end of the day they fall far short of the paid solutions in providing meaningful reports to a diversified group of stakeholders. If for example you had any interest in tracking the video drop off rates, or immediately integrating custom analytics events, records or values with a recommendations engines, you can’t.

The Omniture Online Marketing Suite offers a platform to manage the online marketing discipline for sophisticated digital marketers.

Beyond capabilities alone, you also get a lot of important side benefits as well. First amongst them is accountability and support. With free solutions you’re not paying for anything, so you get a community of blogs and consultants, which we belong to actually. If you’re paying for a solution, and if for any reason it has a problem, we’ve got help from the analytics provider to get the job done.

With paid solutions you own your data and can integrate it seamlessly with PPC bid management platforms, multi-variate testing platforms, and a host of other add-ons and integrations like Salesforce, NetSuite, SugarCRM, email marketing solutions, ad-server networks and more.

The future of analytics is in an analytics suite approach, not in point solutions. Of course, if you want to own your own data from Google Analytics, they offer a license to purchase Urchin for approximately $3,400 (the company that Google acquired in 2004 that is today known as Google Analytics). The future of analytics isn’t more data, but instead the ability to act upon that data in an a fast, efficient, and measurable way. Free solutions will never offer the level of integrated optimization that paid solutions do, and due to the great competitive advantage that such features offer, a business should be wary of the risk that going “free” might entail. Bottom line: If your business relies on the internet, you should investigate using a paid analytics platform. I have seen cases where the answer is to stay on a free solution, but more often than not, it’s time to increase conversions and there’s too much at stake to penny pinch.

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Google Announces Analytics Premium

Google developed Google Analytics Premium around these pillars: more data, advanced tools, dedicated support and guarantees. Here’s a summary of what that covers:

• Extra processing power – increased data collection, more custom variables and downloadable, unsampled reports
• Advanced analysis – attribution modeling tools that allow you to test different models for assigning credit to conversions
• Service and support – experts to guide customized installation, and dedicated account management on call – all backed by 24/7 support
• Guarantees - service level agreements for data collection, processing and reporting

Introducing Google Analytics Premium

How much does Google Analytics Premium Cost?

About $150,000 according to sources close to the product.  It is a fixed annual fee and at the launch of the product can only be purchased in the United States, Canada and the UK.

Will Google Analytics stop improving the free version?

I think that every enhancement to the free version will be more closely reviewed and categorized as something that goes into the free vs the paid version.  So if I were the product manager at GA, I would really assess the ROI for various features and of course I would probably be prioritizing the technology roadmap on the product that’s getting the traction and resulting in revenues.  It’s my belief that Google Analytics data is used in assessing the cost of that company’s Price Per Click.  Those websites with the best conversion rates and lowest bounce rates are more likely to be rewarded with lower costs per click.  In other words, the assessment about where to place the efforts for feature enhancements may not be purely based on the revenue opportunity from GA Premium so it won’t be an easy decision for the Product Development teams about where to put their energy.

Will Google Analytics Premium really provide competition to Coremetrics and Adobe?

For some clients that don’t need a platform, it may, but for clients that need an online marketing platform, it shouldn’t.  Both the Coremetrics and Omniture platforms have a recommendations engine, integration with all of the pay per click platforms (not just the Google Adwords platform), integration with dozens (if not close to 100 now) email marketing vendors, CRM systems, landing page optimization platforms, ad-serving networks and many other solutions that sophisticated digital marketers need to acquire visitors, convert visitors and engage visitors.

Coremetrics purchased by IBM puts Web Analytics in the mainstream

As I am out and about in front of big and small companies alike, I sometimes feel like it’s necessary to explain to even sophisticated marketers the importance of measuring the Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) using software tools such as Omniture’s Site Catalyst, or Google Analytics.  The recent Adobe acquisition of Omniture seemed to make my story more believable since a known name legitimized the market leader by rolling them into their core offering.  I’m excited to see how Adobe integrates the Omniture suite deeper into it’s product lineup.

And the consolidation continues.  IBM wants to get into the analytics game.  Accenture already has.  The IBM product called WebSphere is really a set of software tools that can be configured to put together highly personalized online user experiences.  Many if not all of the WebSphere websites are generally e-commerce websites and organizations that generally have enough inventory where business process and supply chain management are supported through sophisticated automation.   Coremetrics complements IBM’s existing software and services portfolio of offerings from WebSphere, information management and business analytics and optimization.  Coremetrics has about 230 employees and IBM agreed to maintain them, as was the case with the Omniture-Adobe acquisition.   read more