Monthly Archives: July 2011

Agency Collaboration: Why Working Together Beats Choking for Air in your Plastic Bubble

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Yesterday I sent out this tweet:

It got retweeted by some great folks who I could honestly recommend in their respective fields without worry any day of the week. It wasn’t however the retweets that mattered but rather more about those that did not retweet. In fact, it wasn’t more than a few minutes before I saw someone post an article about how client-centric business was all but dead. Really?!?!?

The Internal Agency Dilemma 

If you’ve ever hired an agency for anything you know that many times they are fishing for additional work. I respect that, I do. However, when agencies take on work that falls well outside their wheelhouse then I take issue with that. To be fully transparent the genesis of my tweet came from a call I had with a client where the project lead told me about a traditional ad agency that had promised her the ability to implement and integrate campaign data coming from Omniture. On the second call with that agency she had a gut feeling that the agency was saying yes to her request with no prior experience. When asking them what she would need to provide them with to implement Omniture Test&Target the agency asked her, “What is Test&Target?” You can imagine how the rest of that call went. Ultimately, this left such a bad taste in the client’s mouth that she fired the agency altogether. 

Look. I get that we are all vying for sustainability and new business is not always easy to come by but why are agencies still doing this? Why not partner with an agency whose strength lies in the area you’re not so good at? I say, look like  the hero instead of an ass! 

A Lesson : Why Learn the Hard Way? 

I was 14 years old and I was an avid weightlifter. My mom bought me my first gym membership and there were two brothers at the gym that were a year or two older than me. One of the brothers came up to me and asked what I could bench press. I said 175 and he didn’t believe me, asking for proof. I lay down on a bench, loaded up the bar and promptly pushed the weight off my chest three times. I followed up by asking, “What can you bench press?” He said 200. Of course, I asked him to prove it and he told me that he’d just worked out and was spent. The following week I asked him again and he told me his chest was spent from a prior workout. As my friends at the Discovery Channel would say, “Myth Busted.” 

Common Theme?

Sound similar? Yeah? This is the agency that promised you the world and is delivering little. Maybe they’re buying time to hire a new person to fill your needs. Maybe they’re hoping someone internally will pull a rabbit out of a hat and magically serve your needs. I doubt it.

The Solution

Well, seriously, that’s simple. Be honest with yourself, your resources and capabilities. LIVE the customer-centric mindset! I don’t want to sound in any way like a cliche but a HUGE percentage of our business here at Keystone Solutions comes from internal referrals. By going above and beyond, being honest, fair and exceptional within our strengths we have an impact that gets noticed. Get noticed for your strengths and partner with agencies whose strengths fall outside your core focus. Trying to be everything to everyone means you’re likely to be nothing to anyone.

Thoughts?

Photo Credit: kthypryn

Custom Link Tracking in Omniture using jQuery

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One of the most common things I get asked to track are specific links on the website. Typically to do that I would use a custom link tracking function. This typically involves adding a large chunk of JavaScript code to each link, or adding a function to your s_code file and then calling that function using an onClick function added directly to the link. That methodology works fine, and I’ve been doing it forever. But that means working with IT to add more code to your pages, something I want to try to avoid as much as possible. So how can we make the implementation of our link tracking quicker and use less code? If you haven’t figured it out by now, we’re going to use some jQuery.

The reason I like to use jQuery for link tracking is that it allows me to take advantage of the current code I already have on the page, and let’s me track links often without having to add any additional code to the page at all. It lets me take advantage of the attributes that are, or at least should, already be in place.

Lets say we have some links we need to track in the navigation of our page that look like something like this:

<a href="http://www.mysite.com/contact.php" title="contact" >Contact Us</a>
<a href="http://www.mysite.com/about.php" title="about" >About Us</a>

We want to be able to track which link in the nav gets clicked, and how many times it gets clicked. Using jQuery we can do that without adding any code to the links at all. We just need to add a jQuery function to the s_code file and we are all set. Here is what it would look like:

$(document).ready(function() {
$('.navLink').click(function(){
var s = s_gi(s_account);
s.trackExternalLinks=false;
s.linkTrackVars='eVar1,events';
s.linkTrackEvents=s.events='event1';
s.eVar1 = $(this).attr("title");
s.tl(this, 'o', 'Nav Link Click');
});
});

What the code does is it will look for any click on an element with the class of navLink. Next it will grab the value of the link attribute “title”, stick that in an eVar and submits that along with event1 in a s.tl() call.

We are not always fortunate enough to have any unique information in a link to identify it in that way. Typically the links will be wrapped up all in a div that applies styling to all of them, and won’t have any title, or alt, or name attributes. Something like this is more what I usually come across:

<div >
<a href="http://www.mysite.com/contact.php">Contact Us</a>
<a href="http://www.mysite.com/about.php">About Us</a>
</div>

We can work with this too. Here we will just tell our code to look at every link (anchor tag) that appears in the in the navLink class. Then since we don’t have any other attributes in the links we can just take the display text in the link and capture that. That code would then look something like this:

$(document).ready(function() {
$('.navLink a').click(function(){
var s = s_gi(s_account);
s.trackExternalLinks=false;
s.linkTrackVars='eVar1,events';
s.linkTrackEvents=s.events='event1';
s.eVar1 = $(this).html();
s.tl(this, 'o', 'Nav Link Click');
});
});

We also have the opportunity to capture any attribute of the link. Check out this example:

<a href="http://www.mysite.com/" name="my site name" title="my link name" >Home</a>

Using jQuery we can capture all of the link attributes like this:

s.eVar1 = $(this).attr("name");  //returns the value of the name attribute
s.eVar2 = $(this).attr("title");  //returns the value of the title attribute
s.eVar3 = $(this).attr("href");  //returns the URL of the link
s.eVar4 = $(this).html();  //returns the display text of the link

If you have all of these variables used and would really like to add your own custom attribute, then that will work as well.

<a href="http://www.mysite.com/" sc="my custom attribute" >Home</a>

s.eVar5 = $(this).attr("sc");  //returns the value of the sc attribute

I probably shouldn’t have to tell you this but your site needs jQuery for this link tracking to work. You can get jQuery from here. Google even will host it for you so no need to worry about adding another file to your server, or worrying about the speed of delivering the file.

There is no Spoon ~ A Lesson in Data Governance

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“Do not try to bend the spoon — that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no spoon.”

It is true that there is no spoon, no magic potion, or super-shiny new piece of technology that will solve of your digital measurement issues, solve your implementation issues, or create that ever elusive value in the investment that your company has made in time, talent, and money in this world of digital measurement in which we are all working.

Over my next few blog posts we will explore the core components that are fundamental steps that companies should be taking and excelling in to be able to truly create and find that value.

  • Data Governance
  • Optimization, testing, and analysis
  • Data Architecture
  • The dreaded implementations

Chapter 1 – The mystery of the missing governance.

As we at Keystone Solutions are working with our clients to create sustainable digital ecosystems. We are called on more and more to help bridge the gap between digital, data governance and resource / technology issues.   The biggest gap that we encounter is the complete lack of any sort of reliable data governance.  I would wager Jason Thompson’s next paycheck that if you asked any manager of analytics at a large company if their IT department had a policy for how changes were requested and submitted and eventually deployed to the production websites, that after they sighed and let out a breath that revealed not only the existence of such a policy, they would regale you with stories about the many hoops that they are forced to jump through to get changes deployed.  Ask the same folks if they have a digital measurement data governance and I would bet that most of them do not.

So why do the IT departments have such policies in place?  Because they work.  They provide the checks and balances to make sure that any code deployed will not break the website, they are not overly concerned about if the code is properly tracking the site, but they make darn sure it does not cause the site to be negatively impacted.  Another side benefit that the IT department may not be as forthcoming in telling you about is that the mere existence of a policy with lots of hoops to jump through by default keeps a lot of requests from ever being submitted.   This same methodology to set up procedures that govern work intake, validating and prioritizing the requests that come in, and then executing and deploying new tracking requests should be created and then fiercely defended. Use force if necessary.   This takes time and dedication from all members of the analytics team, for as soon as you put this policy into practice you will have those that try to subvert the system and sneak in requests and not follow the policy.  This is where the fiercely defend part come in.  If you do not enforce this process then it is not the website that will break, but your data.  Once the data is broken, the stakeholders lose confidence in the data and can even begin to question the value of the investment in analytics in general.

Some of the premier companies out there in the world are spending the time to create such policies and support them with the staffing and training they need.  You do not need to look hard to find a great example as the team at Turner Broadcasting was nominated and a finalist this year in the Web Analytics Association Awards of Excellence for their work in data governance.

“Due to the uniqueness of each property’s data, Turner was also unable to fully monetize its audiences across the Turner network across properties. The solution was not immediately obvious. Turner brought in Keystone Consulting to assess each property and how they were trying to use data to run their business. Out of that process came 3 recommendations; a new Turner-wide contract with Omniture to replace 18 silo contracts – resulting in 350% more functionality for same cost; the creation of global standards; and the creation of a centralized team of dedicated experts drawn from 3 organizations that would work with each property in a hub-and-spoke configuration.”

Without solving the issue of data governance then throwing a new tool, naming an agency of record, or just adding more people into the mix will not solve any of the issues you are facing.  Take a step back before rushing in, and take the time to plan out the steps to get a handle on the governance policy for your data.  Defend and protect your data like it is your children then you will be able to move forward with solid data that everyone in the company from the mailroom to the boardroom can trust and benefit from and begin to make real, intelligent decisions.

Data Defender

With your data defender plan in place you will be ready to face the next set of obstacles to build and create your own world class sustainable digital measurement ecosystem.

Tracking ~ Why Business Intelligence leads to User Benefits

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A few weeks ago, I received an email from a respected consumer watchdog group campaigning for support for two online privacy bills currently being discussed in Congress. Here’s a sample of what it contained:

“Hidden ‘cookies’ in your computer that track your Internet movements and record what you buy online. Smartphones that secretly log the places you go. Even your personal information on Facebook may have been accidentally leaked to advertisers, according to media reports…”

“…The latest bill from Sen. Rockefeller would require companies to honor your decision if you do not want to be tracked online. And it would put the full force of the law behind your decision, so tracking companies would be held accountable if they go against your wishes.”

cookies

Data Leaks & Consumer Confidence

Things like Facebook data leaks and the recent Sony data security fiasco should be taken very seriously. Users should be able to feel confident that their personal information is secure. But this email, along with some of the legislation it references, mentions online tracking cookies together with major security breaches despite the fact that they are two VERY separate issues. *Ironically, the links in the email take you to a site that uses Google Analytics tracking cookies.*

Government Intervention

The first bill, proposed by McCain/Kerry, seems to me to make a lot of sense: if a website is collecting personal information, it has a responsibility to the users to notify them and keep their information secure and private. This falls well in line with how the Web Analytics industry treats data (see the Google Analytics or Omniture Terms of Service, or the Web Analytics Association’s Code of Ethics).

Another piece of legislation, led by Senator Rockefeller, is on the floor right now: a “Do-Not-Track” bill that will legislate a user’s ability to opt-out of having any of their online activity tracked. Along with this bill comes much propaganda like the above-mentioned email, scaring people into thinking technology that they don’t understand must be harming them.

I’m not saying that users should not be able to opt-out of online tracking. Most web analytics vendors already have an opt-out for the data mentioned above and most websites already have a privacy policy detailing what is being tracked. The industry is already self-regulating things like opt-outs- I have yet to hear of a case where a user’s request to opt-out has not been respected. Odds are, you go about your online business every day without ever looking for opt-outs and privacy policies because you don’t feel threatened until politicians bring it up.

The Problem with Government Involvement

The problem with the legislation and the information going out with it is that it lumps all kinds of tracking together, from security leaks of personal data (very bad), data-mining and sharing (potentially bad) to web analytics tracking (good). Web Analytics tracking, when done in accordance with industry standards, leaves practically no room for harm to the user and so much room for benefit for the user, but by legislating it and scaring the public with mixed-up information about it, it may lead internet users to opt-out of services that are actually beneficial to them.

Let’s take a look at just how “evil” these tracking cookies are and what information they store. On my blog currently (unless you have blocked it) I have set an Omniture cookie that may look something like this:

The “value” (what the cookie contains) is just a string of arbitrary letters and numbers that serve no purpose other than to identify the user from page to page. “User afb5ced3bc5c8c3767728316b1db17f2 came in on the Google keyword ‘blue wugs’ and went from the home page to a content page then left the site.” If I had a retail site, I might use this cookie to track what items were purchased and how much revenue I generated, so that I could tie it back and see which marketing efforts are returning value.

Consumer and User Benefits

Every internet user should WANT this kind of tracking on them. It’s like voting by secret ballot: every time you click (or don’t click) on an item, you are submitting an anonymous vote for how the website could be better.

These are the kinds of messages you are anonymously sending to the website you are on, without even knowing about it, when you are tracked:

  • “It took me 18 clicks to get to the content I was looking for. Not cool. Please streamline your website.”
  • “Your advertising partner’s “interactive media” ad on your homepage is so annoying that I could only handle being on your site for two seconds before I closed my browser. You may make money off of hosting that ad, but you just lost my business.”
  • “Your video got really boring about 2 minutes into it. Best keep it short and sweet.”
  • “That article was fantastic, I clicked your share button to pass it along! Please make more content like that!”
  • “Asking me to verify my email address for a third time on your 16-field form probably wasn’t a great idea. You won’t find me hitting the submit button on your form until you ask for less info.”
  • “I can’t find the Technical Support information I needed online. Instead, I’m going to have to call one of your employees, wasting both my time and your staffing budget.”
  • “I came from a Google advertisement on one of my favorite blogs and ended up finding just what I needed. Thanks!”

When these pieces of feedback are looked at in aggregate- thousands of users all trending one way or another- Web Analysts not only can see what ways to improve their site but also where they should spend marketing dollars.

Targeting vs Relevancy

Much of the current legislative hullabaloo is around targeted marketing efforts. Targeting is when websites use tracking technology (usually something beyond basic web tracking) to automatically present a user with content that is particularly relevant to them based on information that the website has learned about that user. For instance, on Facebook I just saw this ad:

Either highly coincidental, or Facebook has learned (probably from my user profile where I state my profession as a web analytics professional) that I have an email-based job and that I am obsessed with measuring/analyzing data. This is targeted advertising and it comes in many forms. Once you get past feeling mildly creeped out (it helps to remember it’s all anonymous and automated), targeted advertising benefits you in all sorts of ways.

All internet users want online marketers to succeed, whether they are aware of it or not. The existence of (and free access to) the sites we know and love relies on successful marketing. I know no one loves an internet cluttered with ads, but I’m pretty sure we’d hate it even more if it were ad-free with the caveat of having to pay for each site we visited. The more relevant the ads can be to the users, the more successful they are- meaning less ads are needed to keep the internet afloat. Targeting not only helps keeps the internet free it makes the internet more relevant to users.

With web analytics tracking technology as it is right now, you can send an online marketer a message that their ad is annoying or ineffective by simply not clicking on it. Marketers can see if their ads are a waste of your internet space and a waste of their marketing dollars.

These are just a few of the ways that, by volunteering a little bit of anonymous information about their web usage, users contribute to a better internet- not just better for marketers and analysts, but better for internet users everywhere. Regardless of current legislation, the Web Analytics Industry must put effort into educating the public about what is being tracked, why, and how it benefits the average user. Where do you stand?

TEDx Speech- A “Moral Operating System”

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Your Name:: Jenn Kunz

At TEDx Conference in Silicon Valley, Damon Horowitz (who recently joined Google as In-House Philosopher / Director of Engineering, heading development of several initiatives involving social and search) reviews the enormous new powers that technology gives us: to know more — and more about each other — than ever before.

A deep-dive into the ethics and philosophy behind the power of data.

Long (around 16 minutes) but worth the watch if it gets you thinking.