callyway's score

Pliable truth ...

That phrase came to me while I captured my thoughts from the conference.
Sort of like silly putty -- the truth can be molded to form an exactly perfect response to a tough question.
On the spot.
Quick.
Spin to win?

Marines, Music, and Marriott ...

The 3 Ms ...
What do these have in common?  Let me tell you how I made the connection ...
I was thinking about the Marines yesterday --

Don't discount the fun factor ...

If you're trying to sell to the boomer crowd, those that have been running around the planet for a while, or those that are "near boomers", remember this:  we love fun.  Yes, fun is NOT reserved for the 20somethings or even the 30somethings.
Fun needs to be

Going mobile ...

I finally have a blackberry -- so I'm officially mobile now.
Reminds me of the old Who tune: going mobile ...
I used to ride home from college singing that song at the top of my lungs with the windows down: no air in the old car ... summer in Texas ... no radio either ... so my singing was all there was!  I thought the 4 hour drive was only 20 minutes or so thanks to that plus a few other tunes.

Now there's something else to it ... there's a lot more to the idea of "going mobile" these days.
In fact - it is what every web manager needs to think about if they haven't already been doing so.
We (the U.S.) are finally getting our mobile-ness in order and ready ... our devices may still be dated, but we are texting and searching and even ordering on our phones: so get ready for the rest.

What rest?
I don't pretend to know that (that's why I read Steve Smith) -- but I know this year there will be a BIG push (i.e., The BIG) toward mobile ... so we, in the analytics world, need to understand and know what to expect.  We need to think and talk and share.  We need to prepare the questions so that our clients are ready ... so that our employers understand ... so that we can eliminate the problems that typically tag along with any type of technology shift.

The Who can sing it and we can live it (and then measure it and report on it and re-tag it and loop back).

Note: I found this other post about mobile while searching for relevant mobile links.

Preferences ...

It's easy to forget just about everything these days ... thanks to our handy tools such as contact lists that hold the memory so that our minds can be used for other important ideas such as remembering that there is a preference feature in iTunes that actually makes sense.

While loading some songs last night and today, I realized that my preferences must be wack-o --- since, in order to have something other than "Track XX" display, I was typing in the song name.  Why?  Because my advanced import preferences didn't have a check where a check was needed: to find the names of the songs on the Internet.  Oh thank heaven for the Internet!

After correcting my iTunes preferences so that the songs load quickly, I turned my thoughts to other preferences -- such as those found in marketing.  I know that many marketers, when building a form for a Web site, ask for every type of preference.  This extreme version of a preference form is meant to capture as much data as possible: so that they can fill their little database and make it a big database.

Sometimes these forms ask for too much; in fact, Jakob Nielsen recognized "cumbersome forms" as a top design mistake in 2005. 
When is a preference only a preference and not an invasion of privacy?
One clear answer: when it's in iTunes ... at least I hope so (I could be wrong). 

But then, I tend toward conspiracy theory when I start to think about the databases that I'm already in -- and it becomes near obsession when I think about the future databases that I'll be in...
or maybe those already exist in D.C. ??

This post has rambled from memory to preferences to conspiracy ... so where's the Web Analytics in that?
Web Analytics will help you determine if you've allowed the marketers to step over the line to near privacy invasion.  How so?
By monitoring your forms or changes in your forms: use the famous bounce rate as a measure (you'll notice that Grok's description is not about monitoring forms -- but a form is a page and thus it makes sense to use this measure).
 
If you make a major change or build a brand new form -- you may even want to monitor each field within the form: where specifically does your visitor drop out?  Before moving forward with field-level analysis, though, you'll want to weigh the cost of data-capture against the benefit: many reporting tools today charge for each event (rather than by the page view).

Thank you NPR and ...

I love it when I happen to listen to a radio fragment -- and I learn something incredibly appropriate for me for this day or this week or this month: meaning it's the perfectly perfect bit of information for my life right now.

That very thing happened yesterday.

I was listening to NPR and heard this story: The Greening of the Holiday Catalog.

How perfect!
How timely!
What is it exactly that is so perfect?
    Some wise folks have built a Web site so that I can easily tell all the direct mail maniacs that I'm tired of getting their catalogs (one during the year is enough -- 6 within 12 weeks from ONE COMPANY is stupid).
The site name is easy to remember too: CatalogChoice.org
How wonderful that NPR shared the info and how even more perfect that the following green groups are making my life easier!  These are the groups:
    The Ecology Center
    The National Wildlife Federation
    The Natural Resources Defense Council
    and these are the additional funding sources as listed on the site: The Overbrook Foundation, The Merck Family Fund and the Kendeda Fund.

I had started yanking off the mailing label page from all of the catalogs that I was receiving this year -- with the plan that I would literally mail them back to the company saying: get me off your list! ---- and now, there's a Web site for doing it!  Yippee!

This is a shining example of why I love the Internet (today I love it anyway).

By the way -- you know direct marketing has run amok when:
    the lists are not cleaned
    the catalogs are mailed over and over and over and over
    and there is a Web site built for the sole purpose of reducing the number of catalogs that are mailed.

Ads to the left .... jokers to the right ....

That's my spin on the current state of Web sites ... ads are actually everywhere ... and I am stuck in the middle with <fill in appropriate little dab of content>.  Seriously, I am tired of ads.  I get the point and may end up putting some on this blog (the point = $) but I hope I can hold out at least for, ummm, 3 months.

The ad that started this: a Sony Vaio ad on the Macworld site! 

That's like ...

• selling Fox News on CNN
• placing a Cadillac ad on the Mini-Cooper site
• placing an ad for the ballet on a hockey ticket stub

Does that mean I'm missing the audience?
Or does that mean I'm reasonably assessing the audience?
I think the latter ...

The key with competitive placement is not to offer a competitive product where it won't be heard ...
the key is to find the place where it will be!

I don't think Mac users will hear Sony when on the Macworld site.  And who uses the Macworld site?
It's bound to be Mac users with an occasional "I'm thinking about a Mac" person.

Sony Vaio is certainly an option for someone who is looking for an ultra-portable ... but not if they're currently a Mac user ... those folks are going to stick with or upgrade to another Mac. 
I just don't see a switch happening! 
I certainly can see a switch from a Dell to a Vaio ... or from any other PC brand ...

And yes, I'm one of those PC users that searched and shopped and now I have a Mac!
I even drove a very long way to be able to test-drive both the Vaio and the Mac in one afternoon, under one roof (at one very expensive mall). 

I had FUN on the Mac (and it's light-weight). 
The only thing the Vaio had going for it was the weight, or lack thereof.

So how does any of this relate to Web Analytics?     (you know it must since I'm writing about it ...)

It's important to monitor your marketing campaigns, no matter what the source.  In fact, all of the major reporting tools allow you to track campaigns by source as well as other dimensions (creative, channel, etc.).  I think that most marketers get this -- and are effectively using the reporting tool to complete the basic analysis.  I think the place where marketers may need help:

• how to streamline the campaign setup process
• how to select which type of campaign is most effective
• how to integrate the analysis of offline and online campaign data

But, I could be wrong ...

Soon, I'll add more thoughts on the 3 ideas mentioned ...