ad:tech New York, IMC Stockholm and SES Chicago

Low priority post! It’s Christmas and I have been at world's end another 3 times – attending ad:tech New York, IMC Stockholm and SES Chicago - and in two days, I will be back in Budapest for Holidays (more or less + - 10 working days)... No rest for the wicked heh? ;-) But first, the Bulls play the Celtics tonight. (and that is not Red Bulls)

I moderated the Social Media Panel in Stockholm, but I also had the wonderful opportunity to sit in on the Web Analytics Panel.

Fulton Yancy, Visual Sciences
Dennis R. Mortensen, IndexTools
Sean Burton, Foviance

Vicky Brock, Highland Business Research

Steve Jackson, Satama

 

Happy holidays

Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Dennis

Indentify increased organic search traffic opportunities in a drooping tail (speaking at SMX)

I attended my 5th Emetrics (in Stockholm last week) this year, probably making Aurélie and I the most ‘educated’ people in the industry :-) ...and Jim! - medals? :-) he he

But beyond that – I was invited to speak at SMX Stockholm at the session:

Harnessing Web Analytics Tools
Web analytics tools take raw data and transform it into a wealth of information that allows you to gain an in-depth understanding of how searchers are finding you and interacting with your web site. These tools also help you fine tune and experiment with alternative search marketing approaches, helping you maximize the effectiveness of your efforts.

Moderated by my good friend, Rand Fishkin, from SEOmoz.

Speakers:
Dennis R. Mortensen, COO, IndexTools
Jan Rencke, CEO & Founder, Destination Stockholm
Richard Zwicky, CEO, Enquisite
Patrick Price, CEO & Founder, Idealizer AG

I zoomed in on the wording “alternative search marketing approaches” and had an opportunity to bring up one of my pet subjects – the drooping tail.

Believing in the long tail concept – a plethora of opportunities arise, such as the ability to spot a drooping tail.. and taking advantage of this phenomenon to increase organic search traffic. Learn how to do this using a Web Analytics tool!

View Upload your own

Well... Back to ad:tech New York! :-)
Cheers.

Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit - Washington DC – 2007

I attended the Emetrics (Marketing Optimization Summit) in Washington DC earlier this week. And as always, with this mandatory event, everybody was there and every single minute was used ~ SUPER EVENT! .. It felt like I spoke to every single vendor, practitioner, industry analyst and blogger in the analytics (marketing optimization) industry, over the course of three days.

The following Web Analytics vendors participated as exhibitors:

• Omniture (OMTR)
• IndexTools
• Visual Sciences (VSCN)
• Webtrends
• Google Analytics
• Unica

You can catch a few comments from the show here:

• Emetrics Summit Presentations on Second Life
• Back from eMetrics Dec '07
• Emetrics Washington 2007: Consumer segmentation, personas and ...
• Emetrics: Blog Promotion and Measurement
• eMetrics Wrap-up: Am IA Psychic Marketer?
• eMetrics: Rethink SEM/PPC Analysis by Avinash Kaushik
• Live From eMetrics
• From Emetrics Summit: Google Analytics Revamps, Microsoft to Compete
• Exciting Announcements at eMetrics Today
  

...See you back home in Stockholm for the next Emetrics - Jim, Matthew and co.. :-)
Cheers

ad:tech London 2007 web analytics roundup

This is the third consecutive year ad:tech London is playing out – to great entertainment for all of us. I will spare you the grand review of the show where all of the major Web Analytics and other Online Optimization vendors where present – with a European flavour! we “missed” CoreMetrics and Webtrends though and NO Google Analytics, what’s up with that Brian? :-)


ad:tech London Web Analytics Vendors:

• Omniture (OMTR)
• IndexTools
• Visual Sciences (VSCN)
• Nedstat
• Site Intelligence
• Unica Affinium NetInsight (represented by SCL)
• Stats Plugger (still keen to figure out how they plan to survive in the age of GA?)

Did I forget anybody? – but to conclude, this WAS by far the best ad:tech London show so far and I am happy that I had the opportunity to meet up with a bunch of our grand UK partners (and competitors).

N.B.
And do check out this ad:tech London roundup comment by Lisa.

Web Analytics Wednesday – Stockholm (Sep. 2007)

As we all anticipated; Lars Johansson (with a little help from us sponsors) put together a stellar web analytics Wednesday last night. And if possible even better that the last web analytics Wednesday - Stockholm (Mar. 2007). Great show Lars!

The main event of the evening was the Presentation “web Analytics is easy” by Eric Peterson – this including his RAMP pitch (which you should go look up on his site – it makes a lot of sense)

AND I of course enjoyed sitting in the Panel with these smart folks:

• Ian Tickle, Webtrends
• Dennis R. Mortensen, IndexTools
• Jonas Damgaard, Omniture
• Eric Peterson, Web Analytics Demystified Inc.
• Steve Jackson, Satama
  

Where we had a great debate and some really interesting questions, such as working wither either engagement metrics or buzz metrics. And the first people to ask questions were given books from Avinash, Eric .. and I brought 10 Web Analytics Shootout 2007 reports.

Other great comments from the event:

• World Tour Day Two: Stockholm, Sweden. (Eric Peterson)
• Web analytics Tuesday in Finland and Sweden proves that web analytics is hard (Steve Jackson)

Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2007 (Web Analytics viewpoint)

Thinking about Web Analytics or Increasing Publisher revenue, SES San Jose is by far the best Search Engine Strategies show out there – period! The commercial part is working and there is a clear monetary return from the event, but the real life networking (in contrast to online social networking) is simply phenomenal. You end up working 18 hour days though!

The following Web Analytics vendors participated as exhibitors:

• Omniture (OMTR)
• IndexTools
• Visual Sciences (VSCN)
• Google Analytics
• ClickTracks
• Unica

Where was Webtrends and CoreMetrics? ... hmmm. However; the size of the Google Analytics booth tripled in width and height; so from a m3 point of view - everything equalled out :-)

And YES; those 18 hour days includes the following three fantastic (must attend) networking events:

• Google Dance
• Search Bash
• Vintage tub & bath event

It is always super to see friends and contacts here.. a quick hello (from the top of my head) to:

• Avinash Kaushik (Google Analytics) - thank you for a wonderful breakfast at Google Monday morning - and I surrender - the food IS great! (...and thank you for the drive out to Allan's event)
• Brian J. Clifton (Google Analytics) - thank you for another GA sponsored dinner on Thursday :-) ...and insight into your web analytics book to come.
• Bret Crosby (Google Analytics) - YES I know :-)
• Timo Aden (Google Analytics) - blog link exchange. Coming right up my friend.
• Peter Biro (ClickTracks and co.) - cheers and thanks for the Boston invite.
• John Squire (CoreMetrics) - you win on that lunch debate! ;-)
• John Marshall (MarketMotive) - very nice meeting you and your wife; made the whole thing a tad less geeky (even though you then returned with a 1 click only presentation) :-)
• Akin Arikan (Unica) - good to see you; ..and thumbs up on your presentation on Brand measurement.
• Stephanie Yang (Offermatica) - thank you very much - giving me thorough insight into your newest offering.
• Jamie Smith and co. (Engine Ready) - somehow funny that you as one of our biggest partners ended up at the same hotel and same floor as me. Fooled by Randomness.. heh.
• Allan R. Dick, Jr. (Vintage Tub & Bath) - thank you for a wonderful evening out with “top of the pop” in Search!
• Shari Thurow (Omni Marketing Interactive) - thank you the update and best wishes in getting back into shape with that foot.
• Andy Atkins-Kruger (Web Certain)
• Anne Kennedy (beyond ink) - Remember to PING me, so we can set up that extra day in Chicago. I would love for your team to get detailed insight into IndexTools
• Patrick C. Price (Idealizer)- great to see you again and again and again - you were everywhere :-)
• Sebastien Doyen (LinkyAgency) - great to see you again and good luck with your NEW venture. You of course know where to go when the need for Enterprise Analytics comes, right? :-)
• Johan Stein (Alchemist Media) - great to meet up at last! – let me know if you need any help (input) on your conversion research v2
• Michael Stebbins (MarketMotive) - great meeting you and Congratulations on your new company!!
• Matt Bailey (SiteLogic) - Great chat on the bus (and YES, I hate you for having access to the Iphone.. he he)
• Anton Konikoff (Acronym Media) - As always; very nice meeting up Anton, even though you are ever so busy!
• Tim Ash (SiteTuners) - Great to heat about the book. Remember to ping me when you get there.
• Mikkel deMib - Det er jo et eller andet sted lidt imponerende hvor mange events vi ender med at vaere til med hianden rundt omkring.. Hygge.
• Jon Myers (Latitude) - Great catching up with you mate... and thank you for the Heineken’s :-)
• Dixon Jones (Receptional) - Loved the T-shirt. Brave though! :-)
• Bryan Eisenberg (Future Now) - great seeing you there. Sorry that I missed your session about converting visitors into byers.
• Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz) - The Wizard of Moz :-) – sorry about missing your session, but the Web Analytics one was up. But great to see you again.
• Jonathan Mendez - Great having dinner with you – and had you waited around, you could have joined the “Avinash bus”..

... I am MOST sure I forgot twice as many as I listed above and that I remember the instant I upload this.. Sorry about that, no offense intended! :-)

There was “only” some three session on Web Analytics – I know this is no Emetrics, BUT I think that is a bit thin as every single SEM and SEO company that I know heavily depend on Analytics. Find the session and blog posts about them below:



SES San Jose 2007 Web Analytics Sessions:

Web Analytics & Measuring Success

• Session: Web Analytics & Measuring Success (Online Marketing Blog)
• Web Analytics and Measuring Success (SEO Roundtable)
• SES:SJ - Web Analytics & Measuring Success Overview (E-marketing performance)

Analyzing the Analytics Players

• SES San Jose - Analyzing the Web Site Analytics Players (Bizresearch)
• Web Analytics Vendor Tools Comparison (And One Challenge) (Occam’s Razor)

Meet the Web Analytics Players

• no one blogged about this?
  

See you all next year! For sure.. :-)

Digital Marketing Event 2007 (DME) – Amsterdam

I just returned from another trip to Amsterdam, this time participating and exhibiting at the event: Digital Marketing Event 2007 (DME) - and I must say that I am once again stunned by the level of local knowledge!

I was speaking both days on the subject:

“Web Reporting vs. Web Analysis - Getting to understand that reporting on any metric at pure face value within a very limited context is unsound and should not be confused with actionable insight from analysis”.

But more about this in another post.

Tv4b interviewed me as well. It’s actually more like an infomercial when I see it again.. ha ha. But do go have a look :-)

Link: http://www.tv4b.com/index.php?page=watch&f_videoid=253
Length: 4.07 min.

N.B.
I think the VIDEO is only live and streamable for a week - so do let me know if it does not work anymore!

Webanalytics Congres in Zeist (The Netherlands)

I attended the Webanalytics Congres in Zeist (The Netherlands) last Thursday and must say that I am absolutely stunned to see this many practitioners attending the event. The Networking was equally great, getting the chance to say hi to:

• Steven Kraal - Leads2Business
• Aurélie Pols and René Dechamps (what happened to Siegert?) - OX2
• Fulton Yancy - Visual Sciences
• Eric Peterson - WebAnalyticsDemystified
• Eelco van Kuik - Conversion Company
• Joris Verwater - Compare Group
• Neil Morgan and my new Danish friend - Omniture
• Minouk Fieggen - Kieskeurig
• Frans Appels - Netprofiler
• ...and all those I forgot :-)

And I do not even live there. GREAT event!

What happend to NedStat? - I tried to find a “representative” the whole day without luck? - Are they out of business? :-)

Wolter Tjeenk Willink from Traffic Builders – I tried to find you?, but I assume I will see you at DME.

Check out these really really good posts about the event from:

• Aurélie Pols (OX2): WebAnalytics Congres Netherlands.
• Eric Peterson (WebAnalyticsDemystified): Web analytics in Holland.

I will be attending the Digital Marketing Event in Amsterdam these days - so I guess I will see you again tomorrow.. :-)

Emetrics San Francisco 2007

I returned safely yesterday, from a great Emetrics San Francisco summit! – No need for me to give you an update; as I am most sure we meet there already :-)
However; you can find some comments from my fellow bloggers here (NB: highly inflated with GA2 posts, but that is only fair, as it is a cool launch):

• Google Analytics Is Re-Launched: Do These Five Things First In V2
• Web Analytics Demystified, Incorporated
• All the news that is fit to Blog
• Emetrics Summit - San Francisco - Pre Day 1
• Emetrics Summit - Day 1 - a long, long day
• Jim Sterne's talk at Emetrics Summit
• Emetrics Summit Wrap up
• eMetrics, web analysts and social behavior
• From the floor of eMetrics
• new google analytics visualizations
• OX2’s involvement following Jim Sterne’s presentation at Emetrics London & San Francisco
• Eric Peterson launches his Company & Aurélie joins his Board of Advisors
• Google Launches Google Analytics V2 at Emetrics San Francisco
• Who’s laughing at Google Analytics now?
• Google Analytics V2: more details
• Four Gurus For You!
• eMetrics Summit

I think a meet every single person who matters in the Web Analytics industry (including most of the above) – and that alone justifies going there. I did a Video Interview with BlastPR and I will surely update this post if I get my hands on it.

Notes from ad:tech San Francisco

Finishing up and closing down after some successful days at ad:tech San Francisco – and with this event being one of the biggest shows in the interactive world and the SF event is doubtless one of the premier locations for the ad:tech guys – it did not disappoint. However; the sessions seemed a bit “thin” on content and quality – perhaps because I compare it to Emetrics speakers, who are usually very deep and highly qualified. BUT there was one session which I think had a very valuable question:

“How to attribute conversions to campaigns?”

Most Analytics Vendors and Analysts works with a concept of either:

• Direct Source Attribution
• Original Source Attribution

Where you will see that most SEM (Search Engine Marketing) companies use an “Intelligent” attribution model, whereas if the visit comes from a paid campaign, the direct source is used and if the visit is organic they will trace it back to the original paid campaign source if any. This is of course all cool if you are in the SEM business – BUT in all fairness, this is not correct and attributes far too much value to your PPC campaign efforts. There have been a lot of research done, reliable as well, which clearly indicates that the key points of influence is not necessarily the searched for keyword only – but a mixture of touch points before the final clickthrough from Banners to Blogs to ...

But how to attribute then?

I think that is a post by itself :-) – so let me hit submit and get started on my journey back to Europe. Yes! It is a Journey getting from SF to Budapest. Cheers.

Comments from Search Engine Strategies New York 2007

Just finishing up and closing down after four great days at Search Engine Strategies – New York ... Waiting to go to the Airport in Newark (how did I end up there?).

I think my one (actually two) takeaways from this show would be that:

• Use of Analytics to perform in a very competitive Affiliate Marketing market is crucial!
• Use of affiliated advertising on a web property should not begin before after hitting the 1000 unique visitors a day

I could not agree more and I am happy to see this confirmed by a super affiliate like Jeremy Schoemaker a.k.a “ShoeMoney” – especially his strong emphasis on the use of Analytics – which also verify the need of a blog like this; with a subject: “Dennis R. Mortensen's blog about how to increase publisher revenue through analytics!” :-)

Bryan Eisenberg’s did his always exciting Webmaster Radio Blog Buzz show, live at SES. I participated with this group of sharp analytics focused people that Bryan introduced as the "guru's of the space":

• Avinash Kaushik
• Gary Angel
• Marshall Sponder
• Dennis R. Mortensen
  

DOWNLOAD/PLAY: Blog Buzz SES NY (MP3)

Duration: 10.28 min. File size: 10MB

...And I am thrilled that I got to tell Gary Angel that there indeed is people (ME to begin with) that read his bright posts in detail – however long and advanced they are. They are a perfect fit for my one hour commute. :-)

Equally nice to meet up with Marshall Sponder in person, after reading I do not know how many hundreds of his posts.

Back to Budapest and off to Emetrics in Düsseldorf.

My comments to Emetrics London 2007

I attended Emetrics in London last week (..and just returned to the office) - and must say that this was definitely worthwhile. I think the biggest take-away from this show was the presentation by Vincent Kermorgant from Nokia, titled: “Implementing Web Analytics the Nokia way”.



What I liked about this presentation, was that it did not focus on the web analytics tool at all, it focussed entirely on the process of deploying and maintaining web analytics within a larger corporation. BUT there are a lot of good ideas that can be used at any level. Find Vincent’s whitepaper here: Implementing Web Analytics the Nokia Way: a Customer’s Methodology (PDF). If you do not have the time to read it, you will still be a lot wiser, just skimming the above picture. It is really good to see that focus turned towards processes and FAR away from features.

Friends and Contacts from the show:
As always; VERY nice meeting you Avinash – sorry for not being able to make it to the Dinner. I was happy to get the opportunity to meet up with the smart people from ox2 (Rene Dechamps and Siegert Dierickx) and I will see you guys (.. and Aurélie) again in San Francisco shortly. Jesper Lindhardt, congrats on the NEW Omniture business cards :-)... And Simon Gibbard shifted to VisualSciences, good to see you and congrats on your new business cards as well.. Sorry for bashing “you” on Price on the vendor panel. He he. Greg Kelton, Congrats on the GM role for Optimost!!

Finally... for those of you attending the US event - see you at Emetrics San Francisco in May.

Comments from Search Engine Strategies - Munich 2007

I just returned from SES in Munich; and from an Exhibitor point of view – it was not that bad! :-)

I was sitting in on Rand Fishkin’s presentation yesterday and beyond the usual fantastic show, he gave one memorable quote about how you could “easily” manage your online reputation - agreeing that SERP results is a major part in that.

TIP: Use Social Network Profile pages to control your online reputation.

Checking for “Dennis R. Mortensen” – you will find:

• LinkedIN (Profile Page)
• SEOmoz (Profile Page)
• Ecademy (Profile Page)
• Blogger (Profile Page)
• eMarketing (Profile Page)

Discounting my own blog and a Webmasterworld comment – there is nothing but profile pages on the first page of the SERP. Amazing; perhaps I should sign up for a couple other social networks and get “control” over the last couple of results and own the first page :-) – A super tip Rand. Thanks. As always Rand was pouring out his love for Action Tracking Action Tracking (a.k.a. Conversion Tracking) – and I absolutely think he is true. That it simply the first thing you have to get in control of, in any online venture! - find Rand’s post about SES Munich here: ses-munich-linkbait-truffles-more-insomnia.

Friends and Contacts from the show:
It was a pleasure to meet up with: Steve Johnston at lunch - still pitching his brilliant business card with NO information, but his name – you guessed it, he is in SEO. Sara Andersson (we need more blond good looking Swedish girls in the SEM industry – and what was up with the moderator at your session?? :-). And I would like to Welcome Timo Aden to the blogosphere – and that said from a newbie like me – by the way, will you be at Emetrics Germany?. Markus Reif, Patrick Ludolph, Andreas Vogt, Mark Kofahl. Udayan, I do hope I will be able to meet up with you at New York SES – do let me know when you are there. Sebastien Doyen – PLEASE, with sugar on top; I need those 10 minutes to pitch to your team that Omniture is but the same as IndexTools, just in a green interface. I of course forgot to thanks Matthew Finlay for a great German show, but it was indeed from a exhibitor point of view worth going there, I of course have the same high expectations to Emetrics now (as Matthew runs as well). Oliver and Felix and the nice people from Webtrends – I still think we are a cooler tool.. ha ha. And it was of course great to meet up with Michael Buchheit from ISA again!

Roger over! :-)

Discount Coupon: Search Engine Strategies, New York 2007

If you are thinking of attending SES NY in April, I am happy to say that you can get a 20% discount on the full conference or 1-day pass. Thanks to JoAnn and Elaine at IncisiveMedia... And do let me know if you are going.

Cheers..

Take a look at the coupon (click for a larger view)

Web Analytics Wednesday Stockholm

Lars Johansson put together a super Web Analytics Wednesday event last night! The main events of the evening, beyond some really pleasant networking, was two presentations by Practitioners and the Vendor Panel:

  

• Practitioner Case Study: Jannike Tillå, Aftonbladet (reporting KPI’s on a hourly basis – I am impressed)
• Practitioner Case Study: Massimo Pascotto, Scandinavian Airlines
• Vendor panel, moderated by Lars Johansson & Mattias Malmnäs

I (IndexTools) participated in the Vendor Panel together with Google , Omniture , Webtrends , and WebSideStory and one of the surprising questions and debates was about accuracy in Web Analytics tools. Surprising, because this is a debate that was somehow closed over the last few years. All vendors on the Panel use pretty much the same data collection methodology - and yes, WebTrends' patent-pending first-party cookie solution is no different ;-). Brian from Google (as part of the audience this evening) – added a few truths about why we just have to accept that there is no such thing as 100% accuracy. This included the fact that:

• A) Not all visitors accepts 3rd party cookies
• B) Not all visitors accepts 1st party cookies
• C) Some visitors use both their “WORK” computer and their “HOME” computer and are "counted" as two.
• D) ...

If you want to do dig a bit deeper into this subject; go read Avinash’s super post about Data Quality Sucks, Let’s Just Get Over It – and the one advice you should take from that post is, if you ask me:

- Assume a level of comfort with your data

And of course – it’s always nice to meet up with Brian, Sara, Matthew, Ian (Thank you for the WebTrends powered “Belgisch bier” .. and of course the opportunity to say hi to the smart people from Pricerunner.com.

Search Engine Strategies London 2007 (+Bonus Interview)

I recently returned from Search Engine Strategies (SES) in London. And I think most people would agree that an event / forum like this is successful if you return with ONE advice/input on how to optimize and improve your business. I of course, as an exhibitor, was there for the leads! :-)

Two of our really smart partners demib.com and SEOmoz.org were both part of the advanced track panel: “Organic Listings Forum” – where the following simple but powerful advice where presented and debated:

SEO Advice: “If one are to start a new web project – do NOT register a new domain, instead Google your industry keywords and start looking from 'page 5' for old mismanaged domains. Acquiring such a domain will give you a very valuable head start in your SEO efforts."


NB:
I had the pleasure of being able to add my comments on the Analytics industry in general - at the last London SES. So here goes a 5 min Interview With Dennis R. Mortensen (me!)