Today the 17th of July 2023 I’ve decided to relaunch our old blog about web/digital analytics that I launched in 2006.
Not that I want to write a lot about the subject 7 years later, but I thought it would be useful and I hope insightful for the new generations of digital analysts. I will write some posts from time to time and I hope that the historical posts and the news will be valuable to you.
I want to thank the former writers of this blog: my ex-wife Aurélie Pols, my former employees that have crushed after their OX2 experience Julien Coquet and Siegert Dierickx. Thank you to the three of you. Without you this blog wouldn’t had been possible. Also thanks to all commentators of our posts. We had over 200 insightful comments in less than two years. Thank you to all of you! And of course I couldn’t finish this short post thanking all the former OX2’s team, without you nothing could have been possible; I just was the sales guy 😉
Cheer Regards from hot Madrid!
René Dechamps Otamendi
Posted in Web Analytics | Comments Off on I’ve revived our old Web Analytics blog
It had been brewing for quite some time as my little Web Analytics unit has been expanding its consulting offers related to Web and Customer Analytics well beyond the Belgian borders, actually all over Europe, in order to help companies reap the benefits of measurement and accountability of the online media.
While WebTrends first landed on my desk, in another lifetime back in 1999, as a business analyst, I felt help would inevitably be needed to get the most out of what Web Analytics coud bring to any business. And so when René asked me to help him set-up OX2, an Interactive Agency, back in 2003, my initial request was to set-up a Web Analytics team as well.
To be honest, a lot of people felt that back then, we were kind of weird, which we totally understood but as the online medium is the most masurable of all channels and following my background as an economist, it really made sense for me to not only have a team to support clients in their online strategy but also prove that what we were saying made sense and added to the bottom line. Accountability through measurement was thus our early mantra as hard data remains undisputable when having to make strategic business decisions.
The early days – as from 2003 – allowed us to patiently build up our Web analytics expertise and team, first with WebTrends and adding gradually European supported solutions such as Google Analytics, Omniture, IndexTools, Unica, amongst others.
We also gradually moved from log file analysis to tagging, from using the reports within the Web Analytics tools to custom made automatised dashboards, which integrates data coming from other sources as well, ranging from campaign information to actual margin related data for ecommerce websites, moving beyond pure turn-over in order to get as close as possible to a companies’ impact on the bottom line.
To make a long story short, we were looking, from our little Belgium, for a pan European partner/acquirer that shared our accountability vision, had been thinking about Dashboards, Balanced Scorecards, Strategy Maps – thank you Kaplan & Norton – in order to reap the full benefits of our favorite channels’ measurability potential.
In a short: data driven strategy.
I’m convinced that LBi shares our vision to build an accountable future and am looking forward, as well as my team, to a fruitful collaboration.
So you had all heard the news and many of us blogged about it right away: Omniture acquired Visual Sciences for an amount equal to half the GDP of a small African country, but I digress 😉
The convenient truth (that no one in the world of vendor partners will admit to) is this: it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier to market SiteCatalyst-class and Discover-class solutions, without having to have our clients choose between Omniture and Visual Sciences.
Let us look in detail at the new array of solutions being offered by the Jolly Green Giant (ho ho ho):
“Traditional” Omniture solutions:
Omniture SiteCatalyst: with version 14 coming soon, this is undoubtedly the established standard for web analytics reporting. No surprise here.
Omniture Discover: the Java-based 3D data exploration module that makes web data mining a breeze (notice how I bolded ‘web data’)
Omniture Genesis: the hub module that ties together data from other solution partners for integration into SiteCatalyst
Omniture TouchClarity: the BT (behavioral targeting) module
Omniture Offermatica: the MVT (multi variable testing) module
Omniture SearchCenter: the bid management tool (to bid on keyword auctions)
Rebranded former Visual Sciences solutions:
HBX becomes… *drumroll* … SiteCatalyst HBX! As you can imagine, Omniture will no longer take on new HBX clients but will support existing customers until they eventually migrate to “regular” SiteCatalyst.
Visual Site, Visual Sale, Visual Bid and Visual Search… Wellthey’re going the way of HBX so wait and see…
Visual Workstation becomes … Discover On Premises! So far, everyone I have talked to agrees that the rebranding is misleading. Discover On Premises suggests that the product offers the same exploration capabilities as “regular” Discover but with the ability to host the solution in-house. Now when I bolded “web data” earlier, it was to emphasize the fact that Discover On Premises handles all sorts of marketing information: both web and offline data.
What about Platform 5 you ask? that’ s a question for a follow-up post 🙂
In the meantime, please leave your consitructive comments at the beep 🙂
De retour de Paris après une journée à rallonge et un retour plus que mouvementé (le progrès ne vaut que s’il est partagé par tous), je voulais vous faire part de mes impressions sur le 2ème Forum e-Marketing. Avant d’attirer des commentaires, je tenais à préciser que ce billet ne porte que sur la journée du mardi 29 janvier et ne prend pas en compte les interventions du mercredi 30.
OX2 provides, among other things, web site auditing services for our clients. We try to help them figure out what they really want to get out of their web site, especially when the answer isn’t quite so obvious as “increased online sales.” Sometimes it’s providing product information to prospective customers, then referring them to retail sales partners. Other times, it’s helping provide product support, such as downloads of product manuals or tutorial videos. And sometimes, it’s engaging readers by providing content, as on a site for a magazine or newspaper publisher.
One of the steps of our audit is to help make sure that their analytics tools are capturing everything they are expected to. But no matter how well-written the javascript code is, and how well the Rich Internet Applications are designed (RIA such as Flash, Flex, AIR, Ajax, and others), if you have a partner such as an advertising agency who is helping with the design and implementation of your site, then you have to have a good process in place to make sure that your analytics tagging is consistent and complete.
For many of our clients, great care is taken to ensure their primary site is well-maintained, but the process sometimes fails when multiple agencies help create sites for individual countries, or business units or divisions of the company, individual product lines, or even one-off campaigns, such as launching a new product and coordinating it with television, print, and other media vehicles.
When we explain why consistency and completeness are important to gathering metrics, so that business decisions can be made with the benefit of insight and interpretation from robust data, our clients are often ask us if we can help validate their data capture efforts.
This is when we are pleased that we have partnered with MAXAMINE to offer their tactical-level auditing solutions to complement our strategic-level process and design work. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, we were pleased to see a couple emails from our friends over at MAXAMINE announcing their acquisition by consulting giant Accenture.
Debbie Pascoe, VP of Client Services for MAXAMINE, shared with me their formal statement, “We are excited about this tremendous opportunity, and believe it will ultimately expand our capacity to deliver compelling value to our customers and partners. Accenture Marketing Sciences shares our unwavering commitment to maximizing the value of digital investments and online operations, and can help us deliver on that promise within the broader context of overall marketing excellence.” Read the rest of this entry »
Comme l’année précédente, OX2 sera présent en tant que visiteur au 2ème Forum E-Marketing qui aura lieu les 29 et 30 janvier au Palais de Congrès de Paris.
C’est pour nous une des étapes qui nous permettent de nous faire une idée plus fine de l’état de l’art et notamment dans le domain des web analytics.
Je vous conseille les deux séries de conférences de mardi:
Avec ses 250 exposants, 150 conférences, et ses 12000 visiteurs attendus, le 2e Forum E-marketing est l’événement Internet pro de la rentrée. Un événement entièrement dédié au marketing. Trois nouveautés cette année : un focus sur le mobile marketing, le marketing comportemental et une nocturne le mardi, de 18h00 à 20h30. Pour profiter à fond de l’événement !
N’hésitez pas à me contacter au 06 15 08 27 68 pour organiser un point de chute et discuter entre deux conférences!
Posted in Web Analytics | Comments Off on OX2 au 2ème Forum E-Marketing les 29 et 30 janvier
If you haven’t read about them yet, I suggest you take a look at Anil Batra‘s interviews of web analysts.
In the latest installment, our own David “Wandering Dave” Rhee answers Anil’s questions.
Excerpts:
What are the major challenges you are facing in this industry?
I think the entire industry is at a point where our ability to analyze goes beyond the ability of the tools to deliver unified data in a cost-effective manner. In other words, we can imagine many different data sets we’d like to correlate, but only very few of us can get the various data sources to play nicely with each other without spending an inordinate amount of time, effort, and money, most of which we don’t have access to.
Beyond that, most organizations aren’t yet at the point where they know how to take advantage of the insights web analytics, or rather, an analytics-framed mindset, can offer. As a consultant, I see mos firms struggling to implement a tool correctly, and after that, maybe to figure out some truly useful KPIs, then do some basic campaign analysis. Few organizations are at the point where multi-channel measurement is common, or where web analytics is used to help allocate marketing spend most effectively, or where true ROI is being captured, and good business decisions made accordingly.
Web analytics will mature as an industry, but part of that means that the skill sets will become better defined and more widespread, so that any firm that really needs an analyst will be able to hire one. Beyond that, web analytics and business intelligence will merge in terms of an aggressive approach to data analysis being applied to many areas of an organization — not just their web site, or even their online marketing, but all of the marketing, production, sales, and other operations. It’s neither easy nor cheap to get there, but I’m sure that those firms which can execute well on an analytics vision will certainly see unparalleled success.
Recently, Dennis R. Mortensen, COO of IndexTools, shared with OX2 a sneak preview of Rubix 1, which is part of their new marketing optimization framework, and we were so impressed that we wanted to share with you (with Dennis’s permission) a little bit of what we learned.
Aurelie Pols, Julien Coquet, and I (“Wandering” Dave Rhee) all agree that one of IndexTools strong points is that, unlike the American market leaders, they do not feel compelled to re-invent everything with new terminology, and pretend that it is new. Instead, they quite happily take the best of every tool already available, listen closely to their customers about what their most important features are, and then focus on developing only the most valuable items to the business user.
For example, Jim Sterne and the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits have influenced everyone to think about web analytics as one part of a larger marketing optimization program. Our friends at Omniture have made clear their partnerships with other firms, and acquired many other players to be able to offer a wide spectrum of complementary products and services.
IndexTools (IT) continues this trend by branching out from their basic web analytics offering, comparable to Omniture’s SiteCatalyst. (The primary difference is that IT includes their data warehousing functionality for free, while Omniture offers their data warehouse as a separately-priced product.) IndexTools also includes their integration platform (which without any fuzz is called “External Data Sources”) in the base costs, while using Omniture’s Genesis platform typically incurs additional integration charges. Read the rest of this entry »
A few months back, during our Web Analytics Day, Eric Peterson kept me mesmerized with his iPhone and I started counting the days when it would be made available in Europe. Then again, I gave in and visited an Apple Store while vacationing in the U.S. but that’s another story 😉
Anyway, as the Apple iPhone is gradually being launched across Europe (and eventually across the rest of the world), this phone is undoubtedly positioned as an ideal high-tech Xmas present, much to the pleasure of AT&T, O2, Orange and other telcos who signed exclusivity deals with Apple 🙂
No matter the take one may have on the topic of Apple’s marketing strategy, it is undeniable that the iPhone has left its footprint in the Web ecosystem. If only to comply with the excitement/hype/craze, quite a few sites have decided to make a copy of their site available for the iPhone. The first sign of the creation and adoption of iPhone-specific content can be seen in most web analytics tools, in which the market share for the Safari browser increases… but not linked to PCs or Macs! This increase in traffic, although somewhat modest, is an indication that Time Magazine’s gadget of the year is indeed an ideal portable Internet access terminal, with high usability and user friendliness.
Another telltale sign of iPhone activity is revealed in the screen resolutions report: check for a resolution of 320×396 pixels and bam! that’s iPhone traffic for you.
As you can imagine, the integrated Safari browser provides for a totally new web browsing experience for a mobile device with one major difference with other technologies: the iPhone does not provide you with access to mobile-specific web content but rather gives you access to mobile web content. Read the rest of this entry »
Orange, le distributeur officiel de l’iPhone en France doit se frotter les mains car l’exclusivité qu’il a récemment signée avec Apple lui assure de faire de l’iPhone un super cadeau de Noël high-tech.
En effet, même s’il n’est arrivé officiellement en France que depuis quelques semaines, l’iPhone d’Apple a vraiment apposé son empreinte sur le Web depuis sa sortie aux USA au mois de juin. C’est particulièrement notable dans les rapports de nos outils de reporting préférés, où la part du navigateur Safari augmente… mais pas sur Mac ou PC 🙂
Great news for Google Analytics fans, December 13, 2007 marks the official arrival of the replacement to urchin.js we have all come to know and love (or hate) 🙂
The urchin.js tracking script has been downgraded to legacy status and should be phased out within the next 18 months or so.
The new ga.js code has a new syntax and comes with all sorts of bells and whistles to make your life easier and, let’s face it, spend more time hooked on GA 😉
Included with this update is the beta functionality that allows for the analysis of multiple metrics directly from the calendar interface. You may now select page views and visits for instance and compare them across time periods or against the entire site.
New tracking code and functionalities
If you look at your Google Analytics interface under Settings > Check Status, you will see that Google now offers both code snippets for the GATC (Google Analytics Tracking Code) that rely on the _getTracker method which generates a page tracking object with a host of new functions.
Nouveau code de suivi et nouvelles fonctionnalités
Dans votre interface d’administration de Google Analytics, si vous allez voir dans Paramètres > Vérifier l’état, vous verrez que Google vous propose le nouveau code de suivi (GATC ou Google Analytics Tracking Code) qui se sert de la méthode _getTracker pour créer un objet qui va ensuite mesurer le trafic de vos pages.
Nouvel épisode de notre série des indicateurs clé de performance tiré de la traduction française du livre d’Eric PetersonThe Big Book of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)!
Pourcentage de nouveaux visiteurs et d’habitués
Le pourcentage de nouveaux visiteurs et de visiteurs habitués est un KPI marketing qui fournit un indicateur de haut niveau de la santé générale de votre activité. Read the rest of this entry »
Ceci est le premier d’une série de bilets sur les Indicateurs Clés de Performance (en anglais Key Performance Indicators ou KPI) que vous retrouverez dans la version française du livre d’Eric Peterson,The Big Book of KPIs.
Chacun des indicateurs sera présenté de la manière suivante:
Introduction: présentation rapide de l’indicateur
Définition: définition et méthode de mesure de l’indicateur
Présentation: comment présenter cet indicateur au sein d’autres rapports?
Attente: à quelles valeurs faut-il s’attendre? comment étalonner l’indicateur?
Action: comment traduire et indicateur en actions concrètes pour optimiser votre site?
Les mentions en gras et italique font référence à d’autres indicateurs décrit dans le livre.
Nous commençons donc cette série avec le coût moyen par visiteur:
Coût moyen par visiteur
Les coûts d’acquisition de visiteurs peuvent parfois atteindre des proportions astronomiques si on n’y fait pas attention. Si le contrôle de ces coûts est difficile, il porte ses fruits sur le long terme.
Définition
Le coût moyen par visiteur est fonction des sommes engagées pour l’acquisition de trafic et peut se définir ainsi: Read the rest of this entry »
Après une petite pause au soleil bien méritée, notre équipe Web Analytics tenait à vous faire part d’une bonne nouvelle qui fait un peu calendrier de l’Avent: vous allez très bientôt pouvoir profiter de la version française du livre The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators d’Eric T. Peterson! Nous sommes en phase finale de traduction et son titre en français sera: La Bible des Indicateurs Clé de Performance (KPI)
En effet, grâce au fait qu’Eric est devenu actionnaire d’OX2 (en sus du partenariat avec sa société Web Analytics Demystified), nous mettrons très bientôt ce livre en version française disponibilité au format PDF et… nous vous donnerons même un avant-goût de ce livre en vous faisant partager quelques-uns de ces indicateurs grâce à notre blog d’ici la fin de l’année.
I wanted to encourage our readers to subscribe to the WAA Blog that has just been launched this month.
As you know the Web Analytics Association is working hard since its creation to help the Web Analytics Industry.
The Social Media Committee of the Association has thus launched a blog which is open to all WAA members. So if you’re a WAA member and would like to contribute to the Association Blog, please read the Terms of Service and if you agree make your first contribution.
NEW YORK, NY November 19, 2007 – OX2, the Brussels-based interactive web agency reinforced its established position as an industry leader by building closer ties to online marketing analytics platform provider IndexTools. OX2 officially became IndexTools’ Strategic Alliance Partner in Belgium and the first company certified under IndexTools Certification Program. Two OX2 consultants passed detailed exams to qualify as a Certified Analyst and a Certified Deployment Specialist.
“OX2 has earned its place among the premiere Web Analytics experts in Europe,” said Dennis R. Mortensen, COO of IndexTools. “We’re extremely proud to strengthen our relationship.”
The partnership culminates years of close dialogue between the two firms. As a Strategic Partner, OX2 will work hand in hand with IndexTools in order to help their common clients benefit fully from the vast data rendered by the online channel and to provide tailor-made Web Analytics solutions to enterprise clients.
OX2 reported that joining the new partnership was no sudden move, but rather the latest development in a longer term, well-considered process. “We believe our independence adds tremendous value to our business,” said Ren� Dechamps Otamendi, CEO of OX2. “Before we agree on a partnership with a vendor, we want to be sure they will meet with the approval of our clients. In the case of IndexTools we liked that they have a European office with a strong familiarity of European business norms and culture, including European Web culture.” Read the rest of this entry »
I just spotted this video on YouTube. A conversation between Jeremiah and Jim regarding the state of the Web Analytics Industry recorded earlier this year.
If you haven’t been able to attend an eMetrics Summit yet, this will allow you to see Jim at work explaining very clearly his vision about Web Analytics.
If you’re not familiar about Web Analytics, after viewing this you will understand what Web Analytics is about. You will learn how Web Analytics can change your online business and thus affect the bottom line of your company.
You’ll see that you have a bonus discussion as you get a second discussion between Jeremiah and Jim about how to measure campaigns starting at the 16th minute.
You might have heard that Eric has launched a new survey about Web Analytics. If you’re using Web Analytics within your company now is the time to make a contribution to the industry by providing anonymously your opinion and experience regarding Web Analytics tools. The survey takes no more than 10-15 minutes.
Why should you give 10 minutes of your time? Because you will help us all to better understand the industry and particularly how practitionners relate to Web Analytics products. Also because the results will be freely available to the whole planet as the previous survey conducted by Web Analytics Demystified Inc.
Please take 10 minutes of your time, the industry needs your help and we all value your opinion in order to make this discipline evolve, based on your needs. Let your voice be heard, here’s your chance.
After my presentation at the eMetrics in Washington, I was approached by an off shore company specialised in data analysis based in India. Or at least, that’s what I thought it was, during our first encounter.
I had already noted the little black note books lying on the tables of the big hall where the keynotes were held and thought to myself that it was good timing as my third Google note book – which fits into my handbag – was already full. But the name of the company did not ring a bell even though the tag lines “data analysis – technology services” spiked my curiosity.
So, when the guy from Theorem actually came up to me, it rang a bell and I wasn’t really surprised by the idea of outsourcing data analysis to an off shore country. India seems the logical step as we had already discussed such possibilities of future evolution within the Web Analytics industry, when he was first approached by a couple of Indian guys some months ago. Read the rest of this entry »
This non Web analytics post to present you an interview of Aurélie and Thomas Dusart, Marketing Manager of Panos one of our customers. The interview is in dutch and was made the week after eMetrics Washington. Aurélie was sick that week (you’ll see it in the video) but still she decided to go for this interview. I hope that the dutch speakers will enjoy 😉
When René barged into our bedroom some 72 hours ago with my laptop in his hand, announcing Greg Drew’s departure from WebTrends, we finally understood why his name had been popping-up on searches to our blog for the last 24 hours in such an abnormal way.
I had thought Greg already looked tired when we briefly met in Washington and attributed that logically to the Road shows that WebTrends was holding, following its August release of the long awaited Marketing Lab² (ML²).
On the other hand, this news also reminded me of some discussions we had back in the spring in San Francisco with some WebTrends folks about the need for a refreshing touch within WebTrends in order to get past the very bad feeling we all shared about the first release of Marketing Lab. All partners we talked to were anxiously waiting – for far too long, I really want to stress that – for a more advanced release that would bring true added value to our existing clients. With ML1, this was clearly not the case.
So, let’s get back to WebTrends news as some more information has been published online regarding it’s top management changes.
The first thing that seems clear now is that Greg Drew and the other three VPs were asked to leave by the Board of WebTrends.
Bruce T. Coleman, who has become the interim CEO, knows WebTrends very well as he was member of the Board since 1998. So even if he has no experience in Web Analytics operations, my feeling is that he understands very well the sector and he has got some ideas for the future.
Coleman has also extensive experience in running technology companies and thus we can expect some changes in the coming months. From public declarations of their CMO Tim Kopp:
“The company has been doing great. We’re driving double-digit growth. But we believe we can continue to do better and the board wanted to make a change to help accelerate growth“.
So the objective is to increase growth and this seems to be the main reason of the management changes. This was corroborated by Bruce Coleman who stated:
“We need to get more new deals, this is a company that’s growing, but not growing as much as the marketplace. Given the investments, [the owners] want to see more of a return.” Read the rest of this entry »
Greg Drew, WebTrends’s CEO has now been replaced by Bruce T. Coleman.
Excerpts:
CEO Greg Drew and three other executives at WebTrends Inc. have left the company. Details of their departure remain unclear.
Pictures and biographies of each executive disappeared from the company’s Web site late Wednesday. Calls and a visit to the company, as well as a call to Drew, received no responses.
Drew had headed Portland-based Web analytics firm WebTrends for the past four years, and was part of the management team that took the company out as a separate enterprise from San Jose-based NetIQ Corp. in March 2005.
The WebTrends Web site now lists Bruce T. Coleman as CEO. He is CEO of El Salto Advisors, a consulting firm that provides interim management to computer software and service companies. He was most recently interim CEO of San Diego’s Websense until May 1999 and remains a director of that company.
[…] They speculate that with its market share slipping, WebTrends management wanted to sell the company to its biggest rival, Omniture Inc.
This particular piece of news begs the following questions:
why would two companies that just recently launched major upgrades to their product lines want to be acquired?
why sell to Omniture when WebTrends and Omniture have different views on Web Analytics?
were Visual Sciences and WebTrends in the same race and aware of it?
was Visual Sciences really favored over WebTrends? If so, what were the decisive factors in Omniture’s decision?
I am sure many people in the Web Analytics industry are as sad to see Greg Drew go as we are and wish him the best.
This is the blog of WebAnalytics.be, a Business Unit of OX2, a pan-European Interactive Agency based in Bussels capital of Europe.
This Blog has been created to allow our team members to share with you and the rest of the world their ideas thoughts and views on Web Analytics.
So you had all heard the news and many of us blogged about it right away: Omniture acquired Visual Sciences for an amount equal to half the GDP of a small African country, but I digress 😉
And now, an internationalized, English version of 
Après une petite pause au soleil bien méritée, notre 
I wanted to encourage our readers to subscribe to the 
NEW YORK, NY November 19, 2007 – OX2, the Brussels-based interactive web agency reinforced its established position as an industry leader by building closer ties to online marketing analytics platform provider IndexTools. OX2 officially became IndexTools’ Strategic Alliance Partner in Belgium and the first company certified under IndexTools Certification Program. Two OX2 consultants passed detailed exams to qualify as a Certified Analyst and a Certified Deployment Specialist.
After my presentation at the 
Bruce T. Coleman, who has become the interim CEO, knows WebTrends very well as he was member of the Board since 1998. So even if he has no experience in Web Analytics operations, my feeling is that he understands very well the sector and he has got some ideas for the future.
These are truly fascinating times for Web Analytics.
OX2 Web Analytics Blog 