Top 10 Resource Sites for Online Marketing Research

By: Matthew Kelleher | June 10th, 2009

There are thousands of sites, blogs and resources out there for any online marketer looking to improve their knowledge of the industry and keep on top of new developments and ideas. However it can be difficult to know where to start. Below are my top 10 best newsletters, blogs and websites for information and inspiration on email and web analytics.

Number One: Larry Chase – WDFM

www.wdfm.com
At number one, enjoyed by almost everyone at RedEye (and a speaker who is frustratingly expensive to get to the UK to do a RedEye Seminar!!) is Larry Chase and The Web Digest for Marketers. The ‘WDFM’ runs a huge online resource centre, collated from his many years of email newsletter broadcasts and blogging. Larry’s focus towards email and his ability to list the ‘top 10 things you MUST do’ make this our favourite. That and the fact he once called me a “stand up guy…”.

Number Two: The eMarketer Daily

www.emarketer.com
All of you would, I expect, have come across The eMarketer Daily in your browsing travels! Personally, I always check these emails for stats and information that may be useful now or in the future. Daily they have analysis and case studies that demand you open the emails. But the reality is this is just the teaser for a paid-for service in which the reports retail at $695.

Number Three: Marketing Sherpa

www.marketingsherpa.com
Also in the ‘not all for free’ space is Marketing Sherpa. This is pretty much an essential site for online marketers but, like many sources of information, very US centric.

Number Four: Avinash Kaushik – Occams Razor

www.kaushik.net/avinash
Avinash Kaushik and his blog Occams Razor, is a previous number one of RedEye’s, but since Avinash has taken the Google shilling it has become difficult to take his comments as necessarily objective. However, as always, his blogs are full of gems and insights that are a must for any web analyst or online marketer.

Number Five: Bryan Eisenberg – Future Now

www.grokdotcom.com
Also with his forte in the analytics space is Bryan Eisenberg and his marketing optimisation blog, Future Now. Rather than coming across as a practitioner, this source approaches the space from more of a business perspective than a technical one.

Number Six: Retail Mail

www.retailemailblog.com
Firmly in the world of email, this is a great blog. Clearly, this is all about retail, but some good case studies often pop up on here and the learnings often transcend sector boundaries. Lucky retail!

Number Seven: Return Path – Water Cooler

www.returnpath.net/blog
Another area-specific gem is the Return Path Email Marketing Water Cooler. For those of you who know Return Path, you will fully understand this is deliverability and reputation focused, but so what! Far from being a dry subject, something to kick ESPs about, deliverability is the study of consumer centric email marketing. Articles vary from the basic to the advanced, but it is a must read for all email marketers.

Number Eight: Econsultancy Blog

econsultancy.com/blog
As I have mentioned above, so many of these entries are firmly US-centric. For the UK marketer, the pre-eminent service is Econsultancy, and their email information service. The guys at Econsultancy have built a great service for UK email marketers, from supplier directories to the blog to the topic alerts. More power..!

Number Nine: The Conversion Chronicles

www.conversionchronicles.com
Often forgotten, but definitely worth a mention The Conversion Chronicles comes in at number nine. This site is fully laden with analytics, conversion focused ideas and case studies.

Number Ten: Immeria

blog.immeria.net
And finally a site that does not usually get much recognition. As a web analytics focused blog from the creator of WASP (the free tool for spotting tags), Immeria will keep you updated on news and events from the analytics industry.

And if you can keep up with the output from these 10 sources on a daily basis then you clearly don’t have enough to do! Enjoy researching!!