Friday, March 27, 2009

Anil Batra for WAA Board of Directors

I am running for the Web Analytics Association Board of Directors position. The voting for the position is now open. I will appreciate if you can support me and vote for me. If you are wondering why you should vote for me then please read my answers to the question WAA nomination committee asked me (below). If you have any questions, you can always reach me at 425-442-2036, batraonline@gmail.com or @anilbatra on Twitter.

Thank you for your support.

WAA nomination committee Q&A

Anil Batra Chief Analytics Officer, Ascentium

I have over 13 years of experience in Online Marketing, Web Analytics, Behavioral Targeting, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Product Management, Team Management, and Consulting. I am a team leader with proven skills in building, leading and managing cross-functional teams, and tackling complex key strategic issues. I bring a unique blend of Marketing and Technical Skills.

I hold a B. Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from India and an MBA from University of Washington, Seattle

My blog is one of the top Web Analytics, Behavioral Targeting and Online Advertising Blogs in the world. I am also a speaker at various web analytics and online marketing conferences and events and contributor to leading industry research.

What major contribution will you bring to Web Analytics Association and its membership?

I have been active in Web Analytics community via various activities that include


  • Blog on Web Analytics, Online Advertising and Behavioral Targeting to help spread the knowledge I gain from working with various clients and tools

  • Online Tutor for UBC courses – My interest in educating got me interested in this program

  • Contributor to UBC course work

  • Speaker and panelist at various conferences including eMetrics

  • Organizing and participating in Web Analytics Wednesday in Seattle area

  • Free Seminars on Web Analytics

  • Contributed to last year's CMS Watch Report

  • Wrote a paper on Bounce Rates to help companies understand what to expect from bounce rates

  • Whitepaper on Website Optimization Landscape

  • Active on Web Analytics Yahoo group, helping people resolve their issues related to web analytics

  • Started a section called “Ask an Expert” on my site to get some free advice on various topic in digital marketing

  • Instructor for various WAA Base Camps


Why should members vote for you?

I have been contributing to the industry and will continue to do so. I am dedicated to the field of Web Analytics.

I have worked with people/organizations that are just starting to use web analytics to companies who have been using web analytics for years, involved with optimization and now looking to bring other data sources together and other thinking about or working on personalization, behavioral targeting, predictive analytics, social media etc.

Being involved in the conversation with people at all levels and different countries I hear various views and I will make sure your voice is heard at WAA board.

Having been worked on both IT and Marketing sides I understand the needs for both of them and will represent both sides.

I am open-minded and always solicit feedback. I am enjoy new challenges and am ready to take on the challenge take WAA to next level.

Where do you think the Web Analytics Association should be in the next two years?

Many organizations that have already been doing web analytics for some time and now are looking at web analytics can be extended or enhanced to help them get a 360 view of customer and hence optimize their marketing efforts. This includes CRM systems, Social media etc.

On the other hand many organizations are still getting warmed up to Web Analytics and learning how web analytics can help them improve their bottom line.

In light of these two developments, education at all levels will continue to be a key initiative for WAA.

WAA is already an international organization but continued focus on expanding internationally will be key for WAA. Since business spans continents these days, we will need to make sure international voices are heard as we develop standards and best practices.

New media, tools, technologies will continuously need to be taken into account as we develop education, standards and best practices.

What is the biggest challenge facing the digital marketing industry?

New technologies and new form of media is emerging. The challenge will be to interconnect different customer touch points and get a comprehensive view and optimize accordingly. As we connect these data points it will be critical to makes sure we do not compromise the privacy of visitors/customers.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

5 Questions To Ask When Choosing Behavioral Advertising Partners

At OMMA Global, this week, I attend a panel titled “Behavioral Advertising Partners: Choosing Wisely”. The panel was moderated by Brian Massey, of ClickZ and the panelists were

Joe Apprendi, Founder and CEO, Collective Media
Richard Frankel, President, Rocket Fuel Inc.
Jeff Hirsch, President & CEO, Audience Science (formerly Revenue Science)
Nancy Marzouk, VP Media Sales, x+1
Dave Zinman, VP and GM Display Advertising, Yahoo

Panelist were asked to come up with one question that the advertiser must ask before making a decision about which networks to use for their Behavioral Targeting campaigns. Here are the 5 questions that they came up with:

  1. Where are my ads going to run?

  2. How am I going to achieve my goals?

  3. What data is going to be used for Targeting?

  4. What is fundamentally different about what your company does as compared to other networks?

  5. Why should I be spending my time with various networks, what do they do different?


It was clear that the onus is on the advertiser to dig in and get their questions answered.

I also suggest reading following two blog posts, which I wrote on this subject, before you start engaging in behavioral targeting.


You might also be interested in other Behavioral Targeting Posts.



I am running for the WAA Board of Directors position and will appreciate your support and vote. To learn why you should vote for me please view my details at WAA Site. If you have any questions please feel to email me at batraonline@gmail.com.

Site: AnilBatra.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/anilbatra

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Google Officially Begins Behavioral Targeting

In March of 2007 I wrote that Google should enter behavioral targeting and I even predicted that it will. Guess what? On Wednesday (March 11, 2009) Google officially announced that it will start “Interest Based Advertising” (which is also called “Behavioral Targeting”). Google has tried Behavioral Targeting in past and started talking about ad personalization, but this is the first time it officially announced that it will start Behavioral Targeting.

In my post titled Google and Behavioral Targeting I wrote:

“I think it is a matter of time when Google start connecting the dots and announce it’s entry into Behavioral Targeting. They might call it something else but at the core it will be leveraging the visitors’ behavior all across the web to better target ad on its network.”

At this point I am not clear on where Google will collect this data from. I encourage you to read my blog post to see what sort of data Google can potentially use for Behavioral targeting.
Google’s large footprint (e.g. Google Search, Google Analytics, Adsense, Adwords, AdManager, Google Checkout, Blogger and list goes on) will surely draw privacy concerns with this announcement.

According to Informationweek.com:

“To counter potential criticism, Google has taken steps to offer some transparency into how it delivers ads and to give consumers some measure of choice, and control. It has, however, made one important choice for its users by forcing them to opt out of behavioral ads rather than inviting them to opt in.

Google provides information about how it serves ads through the Ads By Google link that accompanies Google ads. It also created a tool called the Ads Preference Manager, which allows users to "view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you." And it provides users with the option to opt out from the receiving the AdSense/DoubleClick cookies used to track user interests. “

The thing that really bugs me is that by default all the visitors (who visit any site that uses Google products such as adsense and maybe Google Analytics) and all the sites (publishers using Google products) are automatically opted-in to share their data with Google for targeting.
Visitors (like you and me) and publisher (like me - I use Google Analytics and Adsense and this blog is on blogger) will have to take an extra step to opt out. For visitors this opt-out will work via cookie and if they delete the cookie they will be opted back in. (See my post on How to Opt out of Behavioral Targeting Networks).

As I say in all my presentations on Behavioral Targeting - "It's a Targeted Targeted Targeted Targeted World". You will be Targeted.

Other blog post on this topic that you might be interested in:

Comments? Questions?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking to fill your Web Analytics or Online Marketing position?
Post your open jobs on http://www.web-analytics-jobs.com/
Sr/Lead Analytic Warehouse/Java Engineer at Saas Company In the SF Bay Area (Emeryville, CA)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Site: AnilBatra.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/anilbatra

CMS Watch Report on Web and Mobile Analytics Tools

CMS watch various web analytics tools in their yearly report. This year they expanded the scope to include Mobile analytics vendors as well. It evaluated a total of 20 commercial tool and 4 open source web analytics tools. This is the most comprehensive report on this subject.
Here is a list of tools that this report evaluated:

Web Analytics

Coremetrics - Online Analytics

Digital River - Fireclick Advanced Warehouse

Yahoo! - Yahoo! Web Analytics

Nedstat - Sitestat

VisiStat - VisiStat 6.0

Omniture - SiteCatalyst

Intellitracker - Intellitracker Enterprise R6

Google - Google Analytics

Foviance - WebAbacus

Auriq Systems - RTmetrics

Lyris - ClickTracks

Unica - Affinium NetInsight 7.2

Google - Google Urchin 6.5

WebTrends - Analytics 8.5

Mobile Analytics

Mobilytics - Mobilytics

AdMob - AdMob Mobile Analytics

Amethon Solutions - Mobile Analytics v1.5.3

Bango - Bango Analytics 3.0

Video Analytics

GlanceGuide - my GlanceGuide

Visible Measures - VisibleSuite 209


Open Source Analytics Tools

Analog

AwStats

phpMyVisits

Webalizer


Yahoo Web Analytics came close to Omniture, Webtrends and Coremetrics in feature set. (I came to same conclusion in my blog post last year on Yahoo Web Analytics.)

Comparing Yahoo Web Analytics and Google Analytics, Yahoo is clearly the winner.
However, I would like to make it clear that you need to look at your needs and determine which tool will work best for you. For example, Google Analytics clearly works better than Yahoo Web Analytics when you spend a lot of money on AdWords and need easy integration of web analytics and Adwords.

This report has done all the research for you and will defiantly save a lot of time and headache. You can buy the report at CMS Watch’s Site

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking to fill your Web Analytics or Online Marketing position?
Post your open jobs on http://www.web-analytics-jobs.com/
Sr/Lead Analytic Warehouse/Java Engineer at Saas Company In the SF Bay Area (Emeryville, CA)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Site: AnilBatra.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/anilbatra

Monday, March 02, 2009

Upcoming Events and Conferences

The next few months are going to be busy with a few conferences. Below is the list of the conferences where I will be, starting with the most recent. I would love to meet with you if you are going to be at one of these conferences.


  1. Do's & Don'ts for Behavioral Segmentation, Targeting & Interactive Marketing – San Francisco, CA March 9th
    Expanding on their Web Analytics Association webcast, this interactive panel session digs deeper into the proper methodology behind developing a comprehensive online marketing plan. Discussions include:

    • Techniques to build comprehensive online behaviour profiles

    • How to take action and target segments with relevant content

    • Extending analytics to target both online & offline


    This event begins at 8:30 with breakfast and runs until 12:00 noon. Space is limited, so reserve your seat at this complimentary event today. Register now

  2. Market to Max – SDMA Conference, Seattle, March 11th
    Future of Web Analytics – Measuring in the Web 2.0 World - I will be moderating a panel to discuss the future of Web Analytics. With the growth of rich media applications, mobile browsing, and social sites, web analytics is more interesting and more confusing. Industry insiders will share their views on the future of web analytics in the web 2.0 world and beyond, plus opportunities and challenges of tracking in this frontier.

  3. OMMA Hollywood, Hollywood, CA March 23-24th
    Defining Engagement: Moderated by Jim Sterne, this session is a must for any marketer that is preaching engagement. The term is often used and rarely defined, so let’s define it. We will debate the merits of view-through, action attribution, time spent, and other interactive measures to demonstrate how a campaign can be evaluated beyond clickthrough. How does a marketer truly measure performance of their efforts?

  4. WebTrends Engage, Las Vegas, NV, April 7-9th
    WebTrends Enagage is WebTrends User conference. Plan for three days of interactive learning at WebTrends Engage 2009, filled with practical, solution-based ways to improve your digital marketing and get even more out of your WebTrends investment. If you are using webtrends or evaluating web analytics tools then you must attend this conference.

  5. eMetrics San Jose, CA, May 4-7th
    eMetrics – Marketing Optimization Summit does not need any introduction. If you care about increasing your ROI on the web then you must attend this conference. You will find everything you need to know about web analytics and optimization at this conference. This conference is attended by the “Who’s Who” of Web Analytics and Optimization experts, and all web analytics vendors and experts from various industries. In this economy, if you only get approval to attend one conference then this is the one to attend. I will be speaking on “Advanced Behavioral Targeting”.

    Bonus: If you want to attend eMetrics in Toronto or San Jose, use Promotional Code: BATRA10 for a 10% discount. Why should you attend eMetrics Toronto? Here’s why in Jim Sterne’s words:
    "Sears, Bell, Travelocity, AdMonsters, Rogers, IAB, CBC, Quebecor, Shaw, Aeroplan, Tribal DDB, Overstock, Microsoft, Canoe and a whole bunch of really smart consultants and tool vendors all sharing how they optimize online marketing? What could be better?"


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking to fill your Web Analytics or Online Marketing position?
Post your open jobs on http://www.web-analytics-jobs.com/
Sr/Lead Analytic Warehouse/Java Engineer at Saas Company In the SF Bay Area (Emeryville, CA)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Site: AnilBatra.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/anilbatra