Staying Relevant Through In-the-Moment Digital Intelligence · website, social space or mobile device, requires a fundamentally new approach. ... customer data set to provide insight

FROM INSIGHT TO ACTION

Staying Relevant Through In-the-Moment Digital Intelligence

DIGITALMEASUREMENT

WHITE PAPER

JAN 2013 © 2013 WEBTRENDS, INC. WWW.WEBTRENDS.COM.

CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION

FROM INSIGHT TO ACTION

Staying Relevant Through In-the-Moment Digital Intelligence

CONVERTING ONLINE VISITORS

“IN-THE-MOMENT”

What if it were possible to respond to a visitor’s preferences and behaviors while on your site, and impact the result before they leave?

No waiting for their next visit, no lost opportunity or time delay.

As-it-happens digital intelligence enables immediate intervention to drive customer conversion.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

TREND

Delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time is the goal of all digital marketers, and the key to creating successful programs and campaigns. The expansion of marketing channels has opened new opportunities to engage with customers across web, social and mobile. However, these new channels combined with advances in technologies have placed the power of engagement in the hands of customers, who are expecting online interactions to be highly relevant to them.

PROBLEM

The ability for marketers to keep pace with and respond to visitor and customer engagement across channels has become extremely challenging. Traditional methods of digital data collection and analytics, while still very valuable, only enable marketers to respond after the fact and with a limited set of customer intelligence. This presents the risk of losing the visitor or customer to another site or brand. When engagement and conversion comes down to seconds, and you may only get that one chance, brands must have the solutions and tools to respond immediately with content and offers that are highly relevant to the customer.

SOLUTION

Traditional historical and real-time analytics are valuable in providing insights that enable after-the-fact decision making, and have been very successful

MIN SEC MILLISEC

WEBTRENDS STREAMS® WHITE PAPER. © 2013 Webtrends, Inc. 2

in informing future tactics around customer acquisition, conversion and ongoing engagement. However, a new approach is needed that enables as-it-happens visitor response, combining what you already know about a customer from prior visits with what they are doing right now.

Responding to customers in the moment is not an analytics or reporting challenge, but one that requires new technologies to enable immediate interventions while customers are still on your site. To be highly relevant, these interventions must be fueled by rich visitor-level digital intelligence that is pushed into the marketing ecosystem to drive immediate action. The availability and richness of the data, along with the ability to consume that data, delivers on the 1:1 relevance of the new digital age.

STAYING RELEVANT: MAKING BETTER DECISIONS THROUGH DIGITAL INTELLIGENCECommunicating the right message to the right audience at the right time has resulted in continuous innovation in marketing techniques. Underlying analytics enable marketers to improve the effectiveness of programs and drive customer conversion.

However, realizing the full value of digital marketing efforts is challenging. The introduction of social and mobile channels, and the fast pace of information access and sharing on a global level, have compressed the relevance of marketing campaigns and offers from days to hours to minutes, and now even to seconds. This increased speed, combined with rising customer expectations for personalized content and the increased levels of consumer empowerment in brand engagement, makes the digital marketer’s job even more challenging.

Innovation and technology are once again at the forefront of the conversation about these marketers’ dilemmas, enabling deeper analysis and improved responsiveness to events and customer behaviors online. However, being able to take action immediately, and responding with relevant content as customers interact on the website, social space or mobile device, requires a fundamentally new approach.

Analytics solutions provide extreme value from the insights they provide marketers to make better decisions. But in this new world of marketing, reporting is not enough.

Marketers need digital intelligence to directly fuel their marketing systems. This is not a reporting problem, or an analytics problem. This is about driving action.


FROM INSIGHT TO ACTION – CATEGORIZING ONLINE BEHAVIORSDemands on marketing are increasing with the emergence of new digital touch points, driven primarily by customer expectations. The depth of insight into what customers are doing online have increased significantly, and the ability to access those insights to improve their online experience is evolving at the same rate.

Online behaviors and data can be categorized in terms of their relationship to what is happening RIGHT NOW, as this chart shows:

YEARS

HISTORICAL

REAL-TIME

AS-IT-HAPPENS

MONTHS

DAYSHOURS

SECONDS

1. HISTORICAL

For years, marketers have leveraged a deep and rich historical customer data set to provide insight into website performance and to optimize its design and effectiveness. This has been the foundation of digital marketing optimization for almost 20 years and continues to be the primary intelligence used to make marketing decisions. This has traditionally come from powerful online data collection and is generally current up to the last day.

Marketers and analysts have accessed this comprehensive view of visitor-level information to segment and target customers to drive email programs, optimize websites, and improve retention and demand generation programs.


Advanced customer segmentation and targeting are made possible using this visitor-level information. However, the intelligence is often more than 24 hours old.

Two typical use cases in key industries illustrate how companies use historical insights to improve marketing:

• Inonlineretail,afashionretailerleverageshistoricaldatatoidentifyitsbestcustomersandtheirpurchasepreferences,understandwhatdemographicsegmentsreturnthemostvaluetothecompany,oridentifytrendsinpurchasebehaviortohelpdrivemarketingprograms.Itisthisdetailedinformationaboutvisitorsthatfuelsemailretargetingforretailersandmanydirectmarketingeffortstodrivecustomerstowebsitesorstores.

• Inonlinemedia,apublisheruseshistoricaldatatounderstanddemographicsegmentsandregionalpreferencesofvisitors,andwhicharticlestheyarereadinginvarioussectionsofthesiteinordertoselladspacetoretailersmoreeffectively.Themoretargetedandspecifictheinformationisaboutvisitors’behaviors,themoreattractivethemediaopportunityistoadvertisers.Ultimately,morerevenueismade.

HISTORICAL:In the realm of traditional analytics tools, this data category is focused on analysis, reporting and segmentation. It focuses on data that is often more than 24 hours old.


2. REAL-TIME

The ability to collect and consume campaign data more quickly was a significant step forward in enabling the marketer to optimize marketing campaigns within hours of a launch. Real-time analytics has evolved to deliver this type of reporting around behaviors that are minutes or hours old. It also enabled campaign testing the same day and provided a method for quickly measuring performance against a target or goal.

Compared to the analytics of historical data, which is typically up to the previous day, having data available within minutes or hours is a big improvement. It enables the marketer to make adjustments the same day, and often within a few hours of the launch of a program.

However, a common misconception with real-time analytics is that it provides the same insights as in historical data, only quicker. In fact, real-time analytics and its applications are much different.

Due to the technical limitations of capturing real-time data, real-time analytics typically delivers a reduced amount of information.

Want to know the granular details that historical data provides – such as gender, geographic information, and detailed visitor-level data? Not in today’s real-time environment. Real-time analytics is mostly limited to summary level data, and lacks the depth of information such as visitor profiles and attributes available within the richer historical dataset. As a result, decisions using real-time analytics data won’t have segmented or rich visitor level information. Instead, it must rely on higher-level summary data, limiting its effectiveness in some areas of marketing.

REAL–TIME:In the realm of real-time analytics tools, this data category is focused on reporting and insights around intraday reporting needs, including campaigns and events.


The insights here are also not immediate enough to allow marketers to respond to a customer during a live site visit. In other words, real-time analytics doesn’t give marketers the tools to interact with customers and provide the absolute most relevant content for them in the moment. Instead, marketers must still rely on remarketing or optimizing the customer’s return visit.

From a practical perspective, receiving data in real-time offers distinct advantages compared to historical analytics for marketers, as illustrated in two use cases:

• Anonlineretailerlaunchesamarketingpromotionorrunsasitedesigntestearlyinthemorning,andthenoptimizesthatpromotionthesamedaywithmeaningfuldataatasummarylevel.Samedayoptimizationwouldnotbepossiblewithhistoricalanalyticsalone,duetothetimelatencyofdata.

• Alargemediacompanyleveragesreal-timedatatotrackthemostpopulararticlesontheirsite,andtheninstructstheplacementofmediaadvertisingassociatedwiththosearticlestoincreaseadrevenue.

3. AS-IT-HAPPENS

Whether your goal is to encourage a product purchase, an ad click or a service subscription, marketers know it’s about understanding the customer’s need and responding instantly with an experience that’s relevant.

The emergence of mobile and social channels, and a desire to drive more direct messaging with visitors at the right time, requires new approaches and technology.

The opportunities associated with delivering targeted messaging and responding to visitor behavior as it happens enables deeper engagement and, ultimately, higher conversions.

As-it-happens capabilities deliver immediate and rich visitor behaviors, pushed into the marketing ecosystem to fuel immediate marketing actions.

Harnessing the intelligence about your customer’s behavior while the customer is still on your site is the key to delivering the most relevant experiences. This is simple to talk about, but much harder to put into practice due to the technical limitations of providing in- the-moment digital intelligence to immediately adjust content or offers.

To create greater engagement with their customers, marketers need richer and more relevant digital intelligence.


Harnessing as-it-happens behaviors to fuel immediate marketing actions are beyond the realm of standard analytics and reporting.

In fact, as-it-happens may not be considered analytics at all, but rather a form of Digital Intelligence that changes the game for marketers. It provides intelligence into visitor movement to, from and within a site, modifying messaging, content and offers to make their immediate experience more relevant, and to drive conversion.

The best time to convert a customer is while they are on your site. This means being able to respond to customer events and behavior without a time delay. As-it-happens data is pushed to the marketer as activity happens and then into the marketing systems to drive the next action.

AS–IT–HAPPENS:As-it-happens digital intelligence enables immediate intervention to drive customer conversion.

the best time to convert a customer is while

they are on your site.


TAKING IMMEDIATE, MEANINGFUL ACTION Historically, marketers have only been able to respond to visitor behavior and events by optimizing and improving their next visit. While real-time analytics enables more timely insights, it is not always possible to impact the current visit. Additionally, it lacks the depth of information about the visitor that allows the marketer to take immediate meaningful action. This is important, because there is a risk that the visitor may leave the site and not come back, perhaps purchasing a particular item or reading a certain article on other sites.

What if it were possible to respond while the visitor was on your site and impact the result before they leave? It’s the same as a highly knowledgeable salesperson in a store who monitors what the customer is browsing for, viewing or reading, and then intervening to help that customer find exactly what they need—leading to a purchase during that visit. As-it-happens data intelligence enables this type of intervention to drive customer conversion. It is truly revolutionary compared to the after-the-fact reporting approaches of historical and real-time analytics.

In both historical and real-time analytics, the consumer of data is a human, typically via a report or dashboard. To take immediate action, the consumer of data cannot be a human, but rather a marketing application. Being able to react instantly requires an approach of pushing intelligence into content management systems, dynamic ad-serving engines and the marketing ecosystem as a whole. Customers are moving quickly and if the system is not able to push digital intelligence into the ecosystem efficiently, valuable opportunities will be missed.

A few examples where these immediate interventions would be valuable include:

• Anonlineretaileroronlinemediaoutletcouldenablecontentcuratorstochangethefeaturedproductsandarticlesontheflybasedoninterestorpreference.As-it-happensdatawouldprovideimmediateinsightintotheimpactsthatthosechangesmade.Pricingandpositiononnewitemscanbechangedwithimmediatefeedbacktotestelasticity,akeyvalueforlaunchingnewproductsandcontent.

DATA INTELLIGENCE

ENABLES REAL-TIME

INTERVENTION TO

DRIVE CUSTOMER

CONVERSION.


• Anonlinemediacompanywouldbeabletotakeadvantageofhistoricalbehaviorscombinedwithin-sessionvisitorinformationaboutthecontentbeingviewed.Thisrichinformationcouldbeservedintoanadnetworkortotheirownadvertisingprogramtoincreasethelikelihoodofconversion,resultinginhigheradvertisingrevenue.

• Atravelsitewouldbeabletoleveragebothhistoricalandas-it-happensinformationtoprovideoffersandrecommendationstotheirvisitorsbasedontheirpasttriphistoryandcurrentsearchprofile.Providingrelevanttraveloffersthatareconsistentwithpastpurchasehistoryastheyaresearchingormovingtothenextpagedramaticallyincreasesthelikelihoodofconversion.

THE FOUR R’S OF DATA RELEVANCEUnderstanding the difference between historical, real-time and as-it-happens will provide the marketer with a better understanding of the problems they each solve. Each category provides immense value and marketers should understand which applies to the problems they are trying to solve.

The four R’s of data relevance helps explain the key differences between each of the categories:

1. DATA RECENCY How current is the data from the time of the event and how important is it to know what is happening immediately?

2. DATA RETENTION How far back does the data set go and how critical is it to know what the history of the data provides?

3. DATA RICHNESS How much information about the visitor profile is available and how does this help the decision-making process?

4. DATA REALIZATION How will the data be used or consumed? Will it be used to develop reports, populate dashboards or drive marketing programs? Will it be consumed through APIs, or extracted for use in a data warehouse?


This chart illustrates how historical, real-time and as-it-happens data compare using the Four R’s of data relevance.

FOUR “R’S” OF DATA RELEVANCE

HISTORICAL REAL-TIME AS-IT-HAPPENS

DATA RECENCY

Days

Hours/Minutes

Seconds

DATA RETENTION

Years

Campaigns

In-session

DATA RICHNESS

DeepVisitorLevel

SummaryLevel

Abilitytoenrichwithexternaldata

AbilitytoaugmentwithHistoricalData

AbilitytoaugmentwithReal-timeData

DATA REALIZATION

DeliveryModel PULL PULL PUSH

DataMining

AdvancedDataAnalysis

BusinessPerformance

VisitorSegmentation

VisitorTargeting

CampaignOptimization

CampaignTesting

EditorialOptimization

AdNetworks

ContentOptimization

SocialEngagement

In-sessionsegmentation

In-sessiontargeting

InstantDataAugmentation


FROM THIS CHART:

• Theusecasesforhistoricaldataleverageitsdeepdatasetandvisitorlevelinformation.Itistheanalyticsandreportingenginethatdrivessegmentation,targetingandthemajorityofmarketingdecisionsandretargeting.

• Usecasesforreal-timedataarespecifictocampaignreporting,andenablethemarketertotestandoptimizethesamedayasdeployment.

• Usecasesforas-it-happensdatadrivesimmediateactionbydeliveringdigitalintelligenceintothemarketingecosystemaboutwhatishappeningrightnowinordertocreateahighlypersonalexperience

CONCLUSIONImproving digital marketing effectiveness requires a deep understanding of your customers, and being able to immediately respond to their needs and trends in a way that is relevant to them. Analytics solutions have evolved over time to provide the marketer with deep visitor information and insights to enable success.

However, the solutions needed to provide the immediate and knowledgeable interventions required to deliver highly relevant and personal experiences will not come through standard analytics and reporting technology. These technologies are valuable in providing insights and informing business decisions, but cannot provide the digital intelligence for in-the-moment responses.

The required solution must deliver in-the-moment visitor behaviors, pushed into the marketing ecosystem to fuel immediate marketing actions. This digital intelligence will combine historical, real-time and as-it-happens data in a way that has never been done before.

This is the beginning of a new trend in digital marketing. Webtrends’ technology innovations will dramatically change the speed, relevance and effectiveness of online marketing to help its customers completely redefine the future of consumer engagement and the digital experience.


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ABOUT WEBTRENDS INC.Inspiration drives us. Digital intelligence guides us. Innovation remains our goal as we help brands re-imagine digital marketing.

Webtrends dramatically improves digital marketing results for many of the world’s most admired and innovative companies. Our solutions have set a gold standard for innovation, performance and value since we helped establish the web analytics industry in 1993.

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© 2013 Webtrends, Inc.

JAN 2013 WEBTRENDS STREAMS® WHITE PAPER. © 2013 Webtrends, Inc.

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Staying Relevant Through In-the-Moment Digital Intelligence · website, social space or mobile device, requires a fundamentally new approach. ... customer data set to provide insight