Behind Screen #3

The NYTimes has an article today discussing how content providers are plowing ahead with big plans for mobile devices.  The very smart folks at ESPN are at the forefront of this industry, as they've figured out how to deliver the right content, at the right time, to their customers.  They see the mobile "screen" as a critical delivery tool:

“People talk about it being the third screen,” says John Zehr, senior vice president for digital video and mobile products at ESPN. “I talk about it being the first screen because it’s the closest to you.”

The article notes that they are leveraging data derived from one screen (computer) to better understand what types of content to push to another screen (mobile):

"For its part, ESPN is not holding back. It already tracks what computer users read on its Web site to determine what like-minded sports fans want to view on their phones, and is pursuing a patent to protect the technologies underlying its multiscreen effort."

And reading on, it's clear that they aren't just looking to match up the right content to the right group of viewers.  They are also working hard to deliver highly relevant, visitor-specific content to their visitors:

"The goal is to monitor individuals’ interests on the Web site and then
use the information to match cellphone content to their tastes. If
someone is watching a football game on ESPN.com
and has to hit the road, Mr. Zehr says, chances are that they would
like the game to appear on their cellphone 20 minutes later."

Now that's targeting.



Some nuggets of data from the article:

• 9+M people visit the ESPN cellphone web sites each month
• 64% of 18-24 year-olds watch TV with their cellphones almost always nearby
• 44% of all cellphone owners use data services
• >75% of 18-26 year-old cellphone owners use data services
  
  

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Flash Tracking (and good music too!)

The creative folks over at Coke continue to innovate with their web properties. They are very heavy into Flash, and as usual, have some very fun marketing programs in place (check out the Virtual Thirst campaign which has been using MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and Second Life to reach out...wow!).

They have a music player featuring "fresh new music" with some great tunes. The Flash-based player (which undocks from the site so you can continue listening if you leave their site) is instrumented to send analytics data for various activities (start, pause, next song, song rating, etc.). Very smart use of analytics.

Disclosure: Coke uses WebTrends for analytics...but I haven't been a part of their implementation...I just stumbled on their site while looking for something else!

Filed in: analytics, web+analytics, flash

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Open Web Analytics

I just came across this wiki, and blog, documenting "Open Web Analytics". The site bills itself as the "open source web analytics framework". The content is a bit fresh (read: some of it is clearly in development), but it looks like there could be some good useful stuff in the works.

Is anyone using this tool?

Filed in: analytics, web+analytics

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Non-Profit Year 2 - New and Improved Analytics too

Last week we put the finishing touches on our updated online "store" for parents to buy school supplies for their child(ren) through Schoolhouse Supplies. This year we added 5 more Portland Elementary schools to the program. We made a few important modifications to our site to accommodate the additional schools, plus we're now offering a method for parents to donate directly to Schoolhouse Supplies if they'd like.

As I've noted previously, we are taking advantage of some great technology to pull this together. We're using .NET on the front-end, with credit cards processed directly through API's setup by AuctionPay, then each order is stored (as a closed opportunity, with account and contact records added) in Salesforce.com. Of course, Analytics and Marketing Warehouse data brought to you by WebTrends. All of these tools are provided free to our non-profit...many thanks to these companies!

We also made a few analytics changes this year. We updated our collection of WebTrends data to include:

• Capturing form information
• Capturing button selections to give us a better feel for usage of some of the features
• We changed around our tracking of scenario steps for more streamlined reporting in the WebTrends Warehouse
  
• Capturing the Salesforce Contact ID value we create for each customer when we add the customer into Salesforce, and collecting it

That last item is particularly slick. After a successful credit card authorization, we insert records into Salesforce, then query back out the new Contact ID and place it in a meta variable for our WebTrends javascript to pick up on the confirmation page. Now we can easily pull our WebTrends Marketing Warehouse data and Salesforce data together for some slick reporting. Cool!

More to come on this as the orders start coming in!

(side note - many thanks to Nate, Anu, Mike and Jeff for their volunteer hours on this!)

Filed in: analytics, salesforce.com, nonprofit, web+analytics

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Converted

Nothing to do with analytics...I bought a Mac (MacBook) this weekend. I've never used a Mac before. What a great experience. I turned it on, answered a couple of questions and I was connected and on my way. The kids love it...and I do as well.

I'm trying to figure out if I should get a .mac account, or just use Yahoo or Google for everything. Anyone have any preferences?

Filed in: mac

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Attention Metric from Compete

Compete has just launched a new Attention metric, defined as "The total time spent on a site as a percentage of the total time spent online by all U.S. internet users". They now have daily updates, measuring the "velocity" of change in attention as well. It's an interesting view of overall traffic, and the tools provided by Compete are pretty cool.

The WAA has a research committee focused on measuring "new media", providing useful methodology and best practices that is also worth checking out if you're interested in more specifics on this topic.

Filed in: analytics, web+analytics

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Video Advertising

Picked up this info from MarketingVOX. This is pretty cool advertising built into a video. Check out this Kohl's ad, and look for the rectangle overlays on the video. Clicking on one of them pulls up the product you're viewing on the Kohl's site.

Think of all of the placement advertising possibilities!

The analytics behind the scenes are interesting as well. MSN looks to be tracking whether you mouseover the product (the rectangle). Nothing is sent to Kohl's, so they must be relying on MSN for in-video analytics for now. When you click on an item and visit Kohl's directly, the referrer is the MSN video site, but they don't look to be sending the specifics about the ad placement (for example, the same item shows up in different scenes...I'm sure the folks at Kohl's want to know which scene had the highest conversion).

Cool stuff. Congrats to Kohl's and MSN for putting this together.

Filed in: advertising, analytics, web+analytics

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