X CHANGE is made up of small group conversations or "huddles" where participants join 12 to 15 fellow professionals and a facilitator who Semphonic and Web Analytics Demystified have identified as an expert in his/her field. Together, you'll explore common problems and possible solutions. You choose the Huddles you're most interested in! It's a fantastic opportunity to TALK and WORK in-depth with the best practitioners in areas they are most expert.The huddles will cover a range of critical topics in the areas of People, Process, and Technology and focus on the concerns of business owners of all sizes.
2009 HUDDLE TOPICS
Measuring and Driving SEO in Rich-Media World
Francis Lavelle HowStuffWorks
A great deal of traffic measurement has been focused on non-organic marketing campaigns whereas tracking of natural search and other referral sources has been primarily left to ordinal ranking of search terms by engine or number of visits by referrer. Increasingly, however, as organizations see increased traffic from SEO and other referral sites such as Digg, Stumble Upon, Facebook and Twitter become more important sources of traffic we are finding that the best discipline comes from tracking organic traffic in ways very similar to that of other marketing campaigns. Francis Lavelle of How Stuff Works will lead this Huddle on measurement to drive and support natural search, and other popular organic traffic sources. Natural Search optimization is a priority for most sites – especially media sites. This Huddle will discuss ways to measure organic search, tracking organic search as a separate event, using keyword rank parameters, minimizing the SEO impact of measurement in terms of URL encoding, techniques for wrapping video and other rich media assets for SEO, and techniques for measuring organic referrals, referrals from social media via shares and tweets.
Creating a Metrics Driven Organization
James Robinson The New York Times
Translating measurement into action is a challenge for every organization. At the New York Times, James Robinson has led the effort to create a metrics driven organization. This Huddle will discuss a range of topics related to the production and adoption of metrics throughout the organization. Some of the key discussion topics will be the benefits of focusing on simplicity in analysis, techniques for translating online learnings into offline business decisions, and the value in bringing tactical managers and implementers not just senior decision-makers into analytics presentations.
Using and Integrating Online Surveys and Customer Feedback with Web Analytics
Russ Rueden Kohler Company
Many companies have web analytics. And many companies do online survey research. But a far smaller number actually combine the two and take full advantage of that integration. At the Kohler Company, Russ Rueden not only integrates survey research with web behavioral data, but has made this integration a cornerstone of their approach to analytics and reporting. This Huddle will cover the full range of VOC and measurement topics including appropriate tools, the different uses of online surveys and customer feedback mechanisms, strategies for integrating survey and behavioral data, reporting and providing access to online survey data, and the best approaches to combining survey and behavioral data in analytic projects.
Measuring and Analyzing a Major Site Re-Design
Dennis Bradley and Kevin Chan Charles Schwab
Measuring the effects and effectiveness of a major site re-design is one of the most visible, important and challenging tasks in web analytics. Dennis Bradley and Kevin Chan lead the web analytics efforts for Charles Schwab and they've been analyzing and reporting on the release of a completely new customer site. This Huddle will cover the key issues in re-design measurement from establishing a baseline, tracking key audience segments, collecting client feedback, and creating a set of expectations throughout the organization about what to look for and how to interpret the results.
Measuring the Mobile Internet: Technology, Tools, and Techniques
Greg Dowling Nokia
No area of online is growing faster than Mobile. From the exploding market for mobile apps to the dramatic growth in mobile internet, phones are becoming a huge part of the internet equation. Greg Dowling of Nokia has been leading their efforts to implement and use mobile tracking across an array of consumer-facing sites and applications. This Huddle will cover key issues in mobile measurement around choosing the right infrastructure, targeting platforms, counting uniques, handling carrier and phone restrictions and limitations, integrating with fixed web, working with mobile apps and developers, experimenting with wire line capture, and measuring monetization opportunities.
Creating a 360degree -view of the Customer
Shubhra Shivrasta Nokia
Online Measurement is transitioning from a discipline focused on content measurement to a discipline focused on audience measurement. Shubhra Shivrasta is leading a broad-effort to build a customer-focused measurement practice at Nokia. She'll lead this Huddle, focusing on the tools and the techniques necessary to make the transition from looking at siloed data sources, to a single customer view . This Huddle will discuss the additional tools necessary for doing customer-focused reporting /analysis as well as the integrating in key data sources like click stream data, backend transaction data, marketing data, and demographics that can drive a comprehensive understanding of the customer. Perhaps even more important, the Huddle will cover the techniques and methods for creating audience-focused measurement: from segmentation to advanced measures of engagement to studies of lifetime value.
The Management Perspective on Building a Web Measurement Capability
Gil Roeder Barclays iShares
How do you get an organization to commit to analytics? And once you get that commitment, how do you bootstrap an organization from early stage to world-class? Gil Roeder has been leading the creation of an enterprise-wide analytics capability for Barclays and iShares. In this Huddle, he'll lead the discussion around selling analytics to the organization, communicating the challenges and potential to really senior management, navigating the organization to build a measurement capability, and figuring out how to leap forward in expertise without taking on undue risk.
Video Measurement
Tom Cattapan Turner Broadcasting
Video is becoming an ever more important component of web sites – especially in media. And while measurement of video has improved in the last few years, there are still significant trade-offs and issues with any video measurement implementation. Tom Cattapan of Turner Broadcasting will lead this discussion on measuring video. This Huddle will discuss the appropriate level of measurement in video, balancing the cost of server calls vs. the needs for measurement, the role of web analytics tools and the ad servers in providing measurement, and solutions for tracking and monetizing video widgets and syndicated video in general.
Media Metrics
Tom Cattapan Turner Broadcasting
Many X Change attendees have expressed an interest in a vertical-specific huddle. In this session, Tom Cattapan of Turner Broadcasting will host a discussion a Media-specific metrics. Everyone at X Change understands the basic web metrics – things like page views, visits and uniques. But most verticals have a number of highly-specific and particularly useful metrics that are peculiarly suited to their business. Tom has been leading an effort at Turner to develop and standardize on a set of truly useful media metrics for audience measurement, site efficiency, channel performance, editorial support, video impressions and more. This Huddle will let people exchange ideas on the right metrics for tackling media problems and the techniques necessary to capture and report on them.
Segmenting and Targeting Visitors: Advanced Tips and Tricks
Matt Jacobs Adobe
Many organizations are trying to move up the maturity curve in analytics – from reporting to analysis and action. A key part of making that jump is understanding how to identify and target visitors based on their behavior. Matt Jacobs heads up Adobe's marketing analytics, optimization and database operations teams (including web analytics) and he’s been focused on improved visitor targeting for over 12 years. In this Huddle, he'll lead a discussion of common targeting strategies, audience segmentation and identification, magic moments, behavioral profiling and targeting, and the tools and techniques necessary to refine your audience and your message to achieve maximum relevancy.
The Web Site Optimization Ecosystem
Bill Gassman (Gartner) and John Lovett (Forrester)
Advanced Web analytics practitioners have evolved beyond click-stream data analysis and reporting to infuse data within their larger business ecosystems. Yet, aligning multiple tools such as Voice of Customer, Content Management, Marketing Optimization, Testing and Social Media Listening platforms is a necessary but arduous task. Join Bill Gassman from Gartner and John Lovett from Forrester, without argument the most knowledgeable industry insiders working today, and discuss how these disparate systems can integrate to support the flow of customer insights from data collection through analysis and ultimately to drive effective content across digital channels.
Web Analytics Standards (or a Lack Thereof)
John Lovett Forrester
The Web analytics industry has experienced tremendous growth and innovation in its near 15 year existence, despite a lack of unifying industry standards. It is remarkable that we can communicate at all given the void of common definitions on which we agree upon and work against. Join Forrester analyst John Lovett and discuss the current state of industry standards, proposed definitions and our collective understanding of analytics terminology. Topics will include WAA and IAB definitions, vendor interpretations, demarcation guidelines and how to attain common ground within the Web analytics lexicon.
Taking it to the Next Level: Organizational Issues in Web Analytics
Bill Gassman Gartner
The one recurring theme across all companies doing web analytics successfully is that of "People, Process, and Technology." Technology is easy to buy, the people are out there, but time and time again businesses fail when it comes to organizational issues and business process. Join Gartner senior analyst Bill Gassman and discuss the organizational issues that stand in the way of "best of breed" web analytics usage (and how you can overcome those challenges.)
Staffing for Success in Web Analytics
Dylan Lewis Intuit
It is one thing to have analysts and consultants declare "web analytics depends on people" and another to find, hire, and train those people to work together as part of a valuable web analytics practice. Not every company has figured out the secret formula to justify the expense and realize the value of dedicated web analytics practitioners, but without a doubt Intuit has. Join Dylan Lewis, Group Manager of Web Measurement at Intuit TurboTax, and discuss which hiring strategies work best and what characteristics the most successful analytics practitioners have today.
Measuring the New Retail Model: Social Commerce
Lynn Lanphier Best Buy
Few themes get management more excited lately than "social media" especially when the results of social media can be directly monetized in a measurable way. One company clearly leading the charge for "social commerce" is Best Buy ranging from their participation in Twitter, Best Buy Connect, Blue Shirt Nation (social network for employees), and now the Best Buy Remix APIs. Join this huddle and discuss with Lynn Lanphier, Senior Manager, Customer Experience at Best Buy, how social media is impacting commerce (and how that impact is being measured using web and social media analytics tools.)
Integrating Online and Offline Customer Data
Lynn Lanphier Best Buy
Data integration projects are getting tremendous attention within the web analytics and marketing community lately and for good reason—our customers and prospects are the same, regardless of the channel they choose to communicate with us in. Especially when analyzed using powerful systems, integrated data sets have the potential to change the way we think about and communicate with the outside world. Join Lynn Lanphier, Senior Manager, Customer Experience at Best Buy to discuss her experience integrating online and offline data and learn more about the challenges and opportunities associated with data integration in general.
Analytics Across the Enterprise
Jim Hassert AOL
While some in our industry still declare that "web analytics is easy", Jim Hassert politely disagrees. Jim is responsible for analytics implementations across AOL, and faces a set of challenges that are surprisingly common, even in companies significantly smaller than AOL. Join Jim to discuss the nuances of rolling out web analytics across a large organization, including the definitions of metrics, the distribution of reports, and providing ongoing support to a potentially global audience.
Measuring RIA Applications: What, How and Why?
Michael Scherotter Microsoft
As Rich Interactive Application frameworks like AJAX, Adobe Flash and Flex, Microsoft Silverlight, and Google Gears enable new experiences, we need to start thinking about what events and actions we should be instrumenting and measuring to adequately understand user engagement on these platforms. In this huddle join Michael Scherotter, Media Experience Evangelist at Microsoft, to discuss what to measure, how we integrate analytics into the design/development workflow, and what we can do with the resulting data.
Standardizing Protocols for Measuring Offline and Out-of-Browser Experiences
Michael Scherotter Microsoft
As new offline and out-of-browser applications become more prevalent, the web analytics community is starting to see the limitations of JavaScript page tags as an effective measurement tool. Frameworks like Adobe Air, Microsoft Silverlight, Google Gears, and mobile platforms provide rich online/offline and out-of-browser experiences that may not exist on web pages but do have full web service communications stacks. This challenge give the analytics industry an opportunity to come together to develop standard, open protocols for these platforms that does not rely on JavaScript page tags. In this huddle Michael Scherotter, Media Experience Evangelist at Microsoft, will lead a conversation to discuss ideas for a standardized analytics service protocol so that measurement, event collection, and batch data transfer can be implemented in a consistent, secure way.
Measuring Social Media using Web Analytics Tools
Adam Greco SalesForce.com
Social media is hot and companies and brands around the world seem to be rushing headfirst into Twitter, FaceBook, and YouTube with almost reckless abandon. But X Change attendees know that if something is worth doing it's also worth measuring. Join Adam Greco, the man who designed Omniture's Twitter integration and now at SalesForce.com, to discuss how web analytics tools are being used to measure social media today and how that measurement is likely to evolve in the future. And trust us, this is the huddle your boss wants you to attend at X Change!
Testing, Testing, Testing : Building Consensus and Evaluating Results
Matthew Wright HP
The dirty little secret of A/B and multivariate testing is how much work there is before and after the actual test. Especially in a large corporation, getting key stakeholders on board, determining metrics for success, and setting clear expectations can be more work than the actual design and execution. Join Matthew Wright, Manager, HP.com Analytics at HP and discuss testing strategies that work (and a few that don't) based on his experience with a HP-wide home page redesign.
One Tag to Run Them All: The Universal Tagging Model
Matthew Wright HP
The JavaScript page tag and tag-based technologies are proliferating like rabbits within modern sites—multiple analytics solutions, survey, testing, advertising, email, the list goes on and on. The situation is rapidly getting out of control and as a response smart practitioners are increasingly turning to the idea of a "Universal Tag" or tag-management system. Join Matthew Wright, Manager, HP.com Analytics at HP and hear discuss universal tagging strategies and hear how Matt has used this strategy to dramatically simplify HP's Omniture implementation.
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