Author archive for Garry Lee
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Behavioural email – Instant or targeted on behaviour
When is the best time to send a behavioural email?
Behavioural email is a hot topic nowadays; plenty of people want to add it as a key part of an overall conversion strategy. Of late the thing that seems to be generating the most column inches is around the best time to send these emails. So as someone that’s been doing behavioural email for longer than most I thought I’d throw my opinion out there. Read more »
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Evolution of behavioural email
I’ve been asked to write a piece for a magazine about the future of behavioural email and as any good historian knows, before you start writing about the future you need to understand the past. So I thought I’d write down a few lines about how behavioural email has evolved over the last 10 years (it really has been around that long).
The first genuine example I can find of behavioural email (that’s email driven off behavioural information not simple transaction confirmation emails) was William Hill in 2001 with a registered and not deposited email targeting users that were warm (registered but had not deposited any money). Read more »
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Brand Loyalty – Does it still exist in an online dominated world?
I was sitting on a panel recently for a MRS Seminar about multi channel marketing when someone asked a very interesting question – “Do you think the concept of brand loyalty is dead in an online dominated world?”
All the panel was very quick to jump in and defend brand loyalty, but I think this was partly not to upset our marketing dominated audience! When we actually spent a little longer talking it through, the general consensus seemed to be that although there is a still a place for brand loyalty, it’s earned and lost in very new ways. Read more »
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Bounce rates? Are we getting too caught up in calculation rather than application?
I’ve just finished reading an excellent little article about bounce rates (http://bit.ly/2msnIV). The guys from padicode show how to hack Google Analytics so you can record page visits greater than 10 seconds enabling you to create your own ‘bounce rate’ based on page visits lasting less than 10 seconds.
For those that don’t know this is the method of choice from the guru himself Avinash Kaushik. Avinash’s theory is outlined in his first book (Web Analytics An Hour A Day) and I believe it’s as good an example as any on what the calculation should be. Read more »
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What is a well defined web analytics strategy?
I’ve just read the latest blog from Eric Peterson about a recent Forrester report on the use of free web analytics. If you haven’t read it, the nature of Eric’s words are that he doesn’t believe the claim that 70% of companies report having a ‘well-defined analytic strategy’. In the midst of various responses, including those of Bryan Eisenberg it became clear the issue was not the 70% claim, but what is a well defined web analytics strategy. Read more »
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The future of media reporting. Part 3 – integrated search understanding
In the first part of discussing media reporting we talked about how ‘last click wins’ was coming to an end and more complex and intelligent models would be used in the future. In this post I’ll focus on the effect this will have on one particular channel that is renowned for both the success it has in acquisition and the mystery behind its true value – search.
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The biggest threat to web analytics is its lack of resource
Where have all the people gone?
Consolidation? Google? Client apathy? Recession? I’ve heard many responses to the question about what are the biggest threats to the web analytics industry, but I think for those of us that have been involved for a long period of time (for my sins I have just passed the ten year marker) we would probably say it’s the lack of resource and in particular the lack of experienced or trained resource. Don’t just take my work for it; whilst having high tea last year with the guru himself Jim Sterne (it’s a glamorous life I lead) we discussed this very topic and Jim said himself that resource and for that matter quality resource is one of the biggest challenges we face in the coming years. Read more »
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The future of media reporting. Part 2 – customer communication
In the first part of discussing media reporting we talked about how ‘last click wins’ was coming to an end and more complex and intelligent models would be used in the future. I’d like now to focus on moving past reporting and actually using the data to provide action and benefit, namely through communication with the customer or prospect.
Simple question – if you capture how a user arrives at your site would you not want to use that information to tailor communications with them?
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The future of media reporting. Part 1 – the death of last click wins
Last click wins; but who else does?
Who is the winner of last click wins? Certainly not the client – how can a model that pays no respect to the complex media planning job clients do make them the winner? A Last Click Wins model simply says, let’s forget how you generated interest and built the brand, we just want to attribute sales to the lowest common denominator. And this, more often than not, is a brand term on Google because a user types the name into Google and clicks the top sponsored link.
How about good pro-active agencies? I think not. The only people I see benefiting from ‘the last click wins’ are the less pro-active agencies that continue working as they always have without maximising the multitude of different channels available online.
