Once again, enterprises, vendors, consultants, and industry analysts got together to ponder the state of Web analytics at the fourth Emetrics conference (Santa Barbara, CA, June 2 - 4).  Organized by Jim Sterne, the President of Target Marketing of Santa Barbara and author of Web Metrics, the conference continues to grow in attendance: in 2002, or year one, it was a cozy affair; in 2003 it drew 75 attendees; this year Jim ran two conferences, one in London and one in Santa Barbara, with the Santa Barbara soiree (it was held at the Four Seasons Biltmore) drawing 100 attendees.

The themes this year were several:  measuring and metrics; things to look for when purchasing a solution; usability and conversion issues; the nastiest problems to solve; and stories from the Web analytics front lines, including presentations from Amazon.com, Avaya, Carat Interactive, Hewlett-Packard, InterContinental Hotels, SAP, and SmartDraw.com.  A summary of the conference, and best practices highlighted at the conference, follow.

Jim Sterne began the conference with a lively history of Web analytics, pointing out how data capture methods evolved from transforming server log files, to sniffing packets on the network, to tagging Web pages with Javascript, to online surveys, to monitoring visitor eye movements -- and with many stops in-between.  However, as Jim noted at the end of his talk, "All of this is useless unless it's actionable -- and that means (1) the business goals must be clear, (2) technology, analytics, and the business must be aligned, and (3) the feedback loop must be complete."

Next, Robert Nelson presented on behalf of the CMO [Chief Marketing Officer] Council, a private non-profit organization with 800 members and representing more than $40 billion in marketing spending.  He specifically discussed the Council's Marketing Performance Measurement (MPM) Initiative, a study of how the industry is measuring marketing effectiveness with hard numbers, rather than gut feel.  Polling practitioners via both telephone and online surveys, the Council's findings were that although  over 90% of companies rate MPM a High or Moderate priority, few companies have a formal MPM system, with almost half using an informal system.  The result is that less than a quarter of respondents are Satisfied or Very Satisfied with their company's ability to measure marketing performance.  Web analytics served as a bright spot in the survey, as it was one of three areas that was easiest to measure (the other two being direct mail/e-mail campaigns and telemarketing/contact management).

Troy Skabelund of the Walt Disney Internet Group then reported on the progress of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Measurement Task Force.  The Task Force is working on a global approach to counting and measuring on online advertising impression by reducing counting discrepancies between ad publishers and third-party ad servers.  These newer guidelines will supercede the current January 2002 guidelines.  One of the ways the Task Force will make sure the new guidelines are adopted is by using the stick of demanding that agencies accept only certified impression counts.  continued...

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