The eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit kicked off Monday, hosting approximately 550 marketing practitioners, vendors, analysts and gurus in Washington D.C. Some of the themes emerging from the event include measuring engagement, attribution and methods for capturing metrics on new mediums. Ian Thomas of Microsoft previewed the Gatineau tool, which is a free analytics measurement solution aimed at quantifying metrics critical to advertisers. The solution integrates with the MS advertiser toolset and enables segmentation, calculation of conversion values and visualization of behavioral data.
Avinash spoke on Bouncy, Bouncy, Bounce metrics stating that most search analytics metrics focus on the wrong issues and can be dramatically improved by finding out why customers who bounce “come to your site, puke and leave”.
Google spoke up on Day two with news of an upgrade to the Google Analytics product that includes site search analytics, event tracking and tagless link tracking. These developments expose users of GA to increased visibility into their customer on-site behavior and the ability to measure RIA’s using Flash, Flex, Ajax or Silverlight with strategic purpose. Brett Crosby outlined an event hierarchy that includes Objects, Actions and Labels, which are fully integrated with clickstream data within Google Analytics. Additionally, Google announced a long awaited update to its Urchin Software with a renewed pricing structure and added functionality.
Jim Sterne, the fearless leader of the Summit conducted an informal poll on Day 3 to determine exactly where web analytics and optimization attendees report within their organizations…Marketing, IT, Line of Business or Other. Results determined by my show of hands estimate showed that Marketing is leading and closely followed by the undefined Other group. IT departments had very few direct reports attending this event alluding to the fact that marketers are increasingly driving the business decisions with data collected using analytics tools.
With a half day still to go, everyone I’ve talked with seems to view the event as a great success in terms of information shared, value delivered and networking opportunities. Emetrics succeeds again in creating an environment for professionals who share a common passion for analytics, multivariate testing, optimization and the pursuit of knowledge through customer interactions.