Web Analytics Still Not Very Useful - Drowing in Data

I love data. But I love information more, ultimately it is the power that I get from making that information useful as knowledge. I am sure that I am no different from other folks. (OK I know I am a bit special).

It is interesting to see if in the migration from the conventional marketing world to our new data driven digital world of marketing, there are good enough tools and skills to make that happen. Apparently many players think not.

A study published by eMarketer from the original data by Unica shows that there are significant barriers. One would think that the usual bleet would be about the lack of funds. True but that is only ranked 4th behind three others which the article describes thus:

"The biggest challenge for marketers was integrating Web analytics with other marketing solutions, cited by 46% of respondents. Verifying the accuracy of data was a problem for 41% of marketers, while 32% reported trouble with analytics that were not comprehensive and 29% complained of budgets that were too small. "

So are we drowning in data - YUP! We need better information and for sure we need better consistent metrics. It is the latter that I believe becomes more critical in today's environment but so far it is the least understood and consistency is totally absent.

So what do you think?

Do Web Ads Have Time Period Sensitivity?

This is a fascinating question - is there a prime time to the web when advertising is better received.

As we all know (or should know by now) the web is now absorbing as much mindshare as TV. For certain population segments the web has surpassed that of TV. Conan O'Brien who takes over from Jay Leno on the Tonight Show June 1st is even running ads on the US Network NBC touting that his show looks better on TELEVISION.

eMarketer using UK research drawn from Lightspeed Research and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB UK), show that the best time is (not surprisingly) night time.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=34367341

Now note that because effectively you live in REAL time on the web - yet you can time shift tv - this is more effective information that can be used. Thus Evening viewers really are evening viewers rather than slotting a commercial into US Prime Time TV that has a greater than 40% chance that it will be time shifted.

But perhaps we should accept that the amount of influence formal advertising has over us has diminished over time and now the new "Hidden Persuaders"* are those who run Google and Facebook.

Time to finally move over Madison Avenue - its all about the Valley now.

Cheers


* For those who are tender in their youth and don't get the reference - go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vance_Packard