I was recently in talks with a set of publishers about a set of specific Revenue Opportunities, where one of the most evident (and honest) dialogues was about how to quantify the potential revenue increase. I believe it is possible to replace sophisticated revenue models with simple monthly eCPM values, to calculate believable publisher revenue opportunities.

My point is this, some verticals, such as News Media, are not rational in nature, and as such, we cannot fairly expect our rational models to be instant true. I still believe that we (the industry) can and will succeed in increasing performance, and the above notion, is thus nothing more than a cautionary note-to-self on assuring anything I do, take that into consideration. If not directly built into a model, we should certainly accept a margin of perhaps not inaccuracy, but conceivably a performance decrease from what was to expect.

As I was traversing a set of data from Nielsen today, and with the recent indication of the New York Times metered solution in mind, I came to think about the worth of an online non-subscribed news reader per month. I wanted a sound bite, I could use when debating the topic of pay walls, with other folks in the Analytics and news media industry. Find below, a value indication, but be a bit lighthearted about it (this is no research conclusion – and it is probably a bit unfair to multiply Nielsen and Jeff Jarvis numbers out of context), nevertheless, here we go.

It is not uncommon to see News Media Publishers drive un-segmented page views as one of their primary Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) – And one of the biggest page view drivers for online News Media today are the common use of Galleries. I would argue that those additional page views, however massive they are, don’t deliver the same value to the advertiser, as compared to the core product (the news article) – and ultimately isn’t really what the user/reader wants.

It seems fair to debate whether or not search engines and other content aggregators extract too much the webs value, leaving less for the content creators (originators) – if this is true, one should introduce tactics such as Search Engine de-Optimization to destress the dependency!

Measuring and reporting on the impact of a Microsite without taking into consideration how it uniquely differs from the expected and somewhat associated parent website is an error! This white paper points to a number of analysis items which will facilitate the right mindset for Microsite analysis and reporting – if this type of thinking is not applied, you will at best provide flawed reporting to your customers and at worst suggest actions that will negatively impact the Microsite.

I did a Presentation and Talk in Boston not long along (Internet Retailer conference in June), about how e-commerce (store) owners could easily take advantage of their analytics package. It ended up being two simple and very actionable ideas (tricks), which I believe most folks should be able to take advantage of. BUT I just made the effort (it is summer after all) in uploading the actual presentation to slideshare; a presentation which you can find embedded.

I’ve create a setup where we use Web Analytics Metric Alerts to illuminate a set of organic Search Phrase Opportunities. There is a whole industry dedicated to keyword research and insight, which I think is just splendid. Alerts is not to replace any of that, this is more to show you how a simple thing like alerts can create a lot of value inside your organization; which is interesting, if you don’t necessarily have a full-time analyst work your data day and night.

Optimizing for better online conversion is, for the most part, something we do by examining our content and its layout, such as landing pages and immediate pages in our funnels – and hopefully applying some sort of testing methodology. This is a standard practice I most certainly agree upon, but I also believe that one needs to look outside this, sometimes, closed loop of pages. I suggest that you try using a Page Revenue Participation metric for your next Optimization routine.

There is a set of honest elements that you need to incorporate on your “Thank You” pages, which reassures the visitor about anything important in regards to their current situation and furthermore reassures the visitor that everything is in order. BUT post-transaction optimization is a task of moving beyond these obvious chores and take the visitor among a new planned path which is beyond the acceptance of Site Exit being an acceptable result!