The Uptimizers – your new Belgian expert in Web Analytics & Optimization!

Beginning of last year, I decided it was time for a career change. I moved from the automotive industry to the banking sector, switching from IT to marketing. I learned to use new tools such as WebTrekk. But most important, I had the opportunity to develop my Web analytics skills and experience in a multichannel environment, working with great people.

In a year, I helped Deutsche Bank Belgium to successfully build solid foundations of its Web analytics framework and culture with the strong support from management. It has been fantastic time and – based on the feedback I received - I believe I did more than a decent job :-). There is still a lot to do and develop but I will hand over this challenge to someone else.

I decided to take another route, to seize the opportunity to concretize a project that has been growing over the years. I’m now moving from the employee side to the “entrepreneur” side. Together with another partner, we will develop our own company called the Uptimizers.

Coming speaking engagements: WA Camp Lille and X Change Europe

I know my blog has been quite for a while – probably too long some may say – and that many readers certainly expect to see me posting on some more ‘interesting’ topics than “speaking engagement”.  Be reassured – I will be posting back very soon, resuming the “Web analytics in practice” series.

The main intent behind this post is to talk about two great coming Web analytics events – two European ones (and a bit of self-promotion too, I admit :-)). So if like me, you have not the chance to fly to the States to attend San-Franscisco’s eMetrics summit (that starts today), you may be interested in the following ones.


Web Analytics Camp 2012, Lille (France)

The first one will be the Web Analytics Camp in Lille, France. The 3rd edition of this event will take place in the Eurometropole on the 21st of March. Not only it is 100% free but most important – its content and format are absolutely great!  The idea is to promote discussion and knowledge or experience sharing: short presentation (10 min per speaker) on a specific topic and then 15 min of discussion with the audience. Speakers are practitioners or consultants, no sales “blabla” allowed – only practical content.

Web Analytics in practice: your online analytics strategy – how to get started?

[This post is the third post of the Web analytics in practice series - practical posts on various topics based on my own daily experience – as a practitioner. It aims at providing tips, advices and examples that – I hope – may inspire and help you – whether you are a beginner or more experienced Web analyst]

In my view, the role of a Web analytics expert goes beyond than just implementing tags, reporting and analysing data. It is also his/her responsibility to develop the online analytics culture. In order to succeed in this perilous quest, he/she needs to have a strategy!

Ok it’s easier said than done. Everybody would agree that “all we need is a strategy” but practically, how do I define such strategy? Well, I don’t have the pretention to teach in a post how to create your strategy but at least, I would like to share with you some hints on how you can get started. Ready? So, let’s start first with the key aspects you should consider.

The critical factors for success
In Web analytics, the focus is too often on the technology, the tools and the data. “What?! There is something else?” you might think.  Of course there is! If you want to make Web analytics a successful practices (you know delivering insights, driving actions, adding business value and all), you must address the following factors:

• Management & governance: Who does really care about Web analytics? Who’s managing it?  Just the analyst? A project manager? Top management level? Does anyone know where it is going? Governance is essential as it will unlock access to budget and resources, it will make changes in the organization (i.e. breaking silos) possible.

Web Analytics in practice: Using segmentation to drive insights and actions!

[This post is the second post of the Web analytics in practice series - practical posts on various topics based on my own daily experience – as a practitioner. It aims at providing tips, advices and examples that – I hope – may inspire and help you – whether you are a beginner or more experienced Web analyst]

If you really want to do true analytics then segmentation is essential. I like to think that if you are just looking at aggregated data, you are only doing reporting. If you want to do analysis, segmentation is the way to do as it leads to valuable insights that, in turn, will drive business actions.

While there are several “common” ways in segmenting online data – true segmentation requires putting in the effort to have a good understanding of your business (what does matter, key goals...) and to find your own meaningful segments. Such exercise will help you sharpen your business expertise - always a good thing.

In this post, I propose a step-by-step simple example (based on my own experience) to illustrate how to apply “standard” and context-related segments, to drive insights and the resulting actions.

The case: analysing the performance of a key landing page
(Disclaimer: for confidentiality purpose, actual figures and results have been modified but I have kept the general order of magnitude and the resulting learnings are true ones)

Web Analytics in practice: Campaign tracking & offline advertising

[This post is the first post of a new series about Web analytics in practice. The idea is to write very practical posts on various topics based on my own daily experience – as a practitioner. It aims at providing simple tips, advices and examples that – I hope – may inspire and help you – whether you are a beginner or more experienced Web analyst]

We all know how to track online campaigns (banner, SEA, affiliates, social media...) – it has become quite a common practice (if not, you should better get started now!). It is really basic stuff.

However campaign tracking should not be limited to the online world. What about the offline activities that may drive traffic to the online channels? In this post I would like to cover two common offline sources that typically (should) bring traffic to your online properties: friendly  URL’s and Quick Response (QR) codes commonly used in offline ads.

Print ad's & short URL’s
It is very common to use short or dedicated URL’s in print ads (magazine, billboard, brochures...) that are (supposed to be) easy to type such as www.toyota.de/yaris or www.deutschebank.be/effecten (the latest was used in print ads in newspapers and displays). These short URL’s redirect you to specific online content (that often has a much “longer” not-so-friendly URLs).

But how effective are these URL’s?  Are they worth the space they use on the advertising space? Are people really typing these?  Everyone can start arguing – giving his own opinion but the only way to answer the question is of course to MEASURE IT.