Aurélie Pols Blog at Web Analytics Demystified

Nous l’avions promis il y a déjà bien longtemps, trop longtemps!
Depuis, beaucoup d’eau a coulé sous les ponts: la plupart des intervenants dans ce projet ont déménagés, la plupart sont devenus parents et la plupart ont tout simplement évolués vers un nouvel horizon professionnel. Ceci finalement pour expliquer pourquoi nous avons pris du temps.

Nous sommes aujourd’hui heureux de pouvoir partager avec vous GRATUITEMENT la Bible des Indicateurs Clés de Performance, ou The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators, dans sa version traduite en français par Julien Coquet, sous la supervision de René Dechamps Otamendi et d’Aurélie Pols.

Les Web Analytics ont évolués, prenant une place de plus en plus prépondérante au sein de ce canal hautement mesurable qu’est l’Internet.
Les outils deviennent de plus en plus accessibles, les débats sur le respect de la vie privée s’enflamment et les étudiants ainsi que les professionnels se pressent à la porte pour pouvoir enfin mettre la main sur les données et aider les entreprises ainsi que les ONG à optimiser leurs investissements en ligne.

Notre vocation au sein de Web Analytics Demystified Inc. a toujours été d’éduquer les marchés où nous sommes actifs en matière de mesure du canal digital. En lançant d’abord en anglais le forum dédié aux Web Analytics sur Yahoo!, les Web Analytics Wednesdays, les offres d’emplois disponibles au sein du secteur et plus récemment le Analysis Exchange ainsi que la distribution des ouvrages de références d’Eric T. Peterson gratuitement, nous espérons respecter cette vocation.

Mais le monde ne se compose pas uniquement d’anglophones et si vous lisez ce billet, vous être bien placés pour le savoir!

Nous sommes enchantés de lire que les Mercredi des Web Analytics, ou les “Rendez-vous des Web Analytics”, rencontrent un si beau succès et ne ratez surtout pas l’occasion de vous rendre à Lille le 18 mars prochain pour un plateau exceptionnel d’intervenants de classe internationale!
Dès lors, nous emboitons le pas sur les excellentes initiatives de Julien Coquet, Michael Notte, Nicolas Malo, Stéphane Hamel et Jacques Warren afin de vous proposer aujourd’hui la Bible des Indicateurs Clés de Performance en français.

Afin de vous procurer cet ouvrage de référence complet de 111 pages, rendez-vous sur la section de notre site qui propose du contenu gratuit: http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/content/books.asp#email et insérez votre adresse email. Vous recevrez un email de confirmation avec les liens pour le téléchargement. Le lien à cliquer pour la version française est “French”

En outre, je voudrais profiter de ce billet pour appeler les étudiants désireux d’acquérir de l’expérience et de contribuer un petit peu de leur temps à la mesure à s’inscrire à notre dernière initiative, le Analysis Exchange.
Le but de cette initiative est d’aider les ONG et les organismes à but non lucratif à tirer profit de la mesure du canal digital.
Il s’agit d’un effort planétaire permettant d’augmenter de manière substantielle le nombre de personnes faisant des Web Analytics en accord avec les meilleures pratiques. En reliant des grandes causes avec des mentors expérimentés et des étudiants motivés, cette plateforme est une nouvelle façon d’enseigner et de partager ce qui se fait de mieux en matière de mesure numérique.
Ces causes ont ainsi accès gratuitement à un réseau mondial de ressources web analytics alors que les mentors contribuent à la croissance de notre industrie et que les étudiants acquièrent de l’expérience afin de définir les recommandations et les actions concrètes qui permettront à ces associations d’optimiser leurs efforts en ligne.

Le Analysis Exchange est actuellement disponible en anglais et sera certainement traduit dans d’autres langue en fonction de l’intérêt porté par la communauté. Nous sommes actuellement occupés à déployer la version alpha, donc en test avec entre autre, la télévision publique américaine (PBS) et Amnesty International. N’hésitez pas à me contacter si vous avez des questions ou des commentaires!

Amicalement vôtre,
Aurélie Pols qui n’a plus écrit de billet en français depuis bien longtemps!

Posted Friday, February 5th, 2010 | No responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

I read the out-law blog post late last night as it was retweeted by @eivindsavio in Norway from @pierrefar in the UK. To be honest, I didn’t think much of it as I had just reviewed Vivane Reding’s EU Telecoms Reform and had blogged about it a couple of hours prior to that after thorough review. After all, I had been writing about the possible threats of both HADOPI in France but also PHORM in the UK, wondering why Mrs. Reding was taking a stance against PHORM while keeping quiet about HADOPI.

It turns out I was wrong as she was fighting one battle at a time, which makes total sense when you need to find unanimous consent of 27 member states.

So basically, what are we talking about?

Back in November 2007, the Commission adopted proposals for the reform of the EU telecoms rules. It took some time for all parties to come to an agreement as it finally fell on November 5th 2009, after much debate. As mentioned, I blogged about the outcome but chose to mainly discuss it from the standpoint of banning HADOPI’s “three-strikes law”. The reason why I chose to do this is because this “three-strikes policy” is an infringement of the basic principals of democracy, as presumption of innocence and the right to privacy is not respected.

Now, this post also talks about the “cookie affair” as the EU Telecoms Reform states “Internet users will be better informed about cookies and about what happens to their personal data, and they will find it easier to exercise control over their personal information in practice.” Vague!

My recommendation was and still is to adapt privacy policies in order to clearly explain to visitors what cookies are used for and why they are there, while also including an opt-out link as found for example in Yahoo! Web Analytics’ privacy policy.

Now, Mr. Struan Robertson’s article on out-law, of which he is the editor, but also on Techradar are almost the same articles word for word. So this is information coming from the same person, just on two different websites. He mentions that Europe’s cookie law was found at the tail end of an 18-page Council press release, together with some other stuff the Council has been working on. Fair enough.

Indeed, page 17, just after the protection of workers from chemical risks within the Social Policy section mentions under the Telecommunications Policy section the creation of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) as well as the adoption of a directive amending legislation in force on universal service ePrivacy and consumer protection.

More specifically it amends the Directive 2002/22/EC on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services, Directive 2002/58/EC concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 on cooperation between national authorities responsible for the enforcement of consumer protection laws.

And this is where we come to the root of it – please bare with me – as paragraph 66 states:

“Third parties may wish to store information on the equipment of a user, or gain access to information already stored, for a number of purposes, ranging from the legitimate (such as certain types of cookies) to those involving unwarranted intrusion into the private sphere (such as spyware or viruses). It is therefore of paramount importance that users be provided with clear and comprehensive information when engaging in any activity which could result in such storage or gaining of access. The methods of providing information and offering the right to refuse should be as user-friendly as possible. Exceptions to the obligation to provide information and offer the right to refuse should be limited to those situations where the technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user. Where it is technically possible and effective, in accordance with the relevant provisions of Directive 95/46/EC, the user’s consent to processing may be expressed by using the appropriate settings of a browser or other application. The enforcement of these requirements should be made more effective by way of enhanced powers granted to the relevant national authorities. ”

Again, this remains vague and for the life of me, I don’t read prior consent here but an obligation of information in an as much as possible friendly way. So again, I’m not imagining pop-ups or white pages asking for consent to collect information about the surfing behavior but just a clear privacy policy with an opt-out link like Yahoo! Web Analytics proposes.

Also, it’s not as if this was hushed in any way as it’s exactly what the EU Telecom Reform is all about! Additionally, it’s interesting to note that if indeed we were talking about pop-ups &/or white pages asking for consent of measurement, this would need to be enforced. If this goes into effect, BEREC should move really fast!

But Mr. Robertson’s second article also mentions amendment to article 5(3), which surprisingly I’ve only managed to find in a second reading of the article and not as an official document. So it would be nice if he could point to his actual sources, just for the sake of clarity, as any good legal expert usually does as for me, the official document is still this one (hint: check out 5.3)!

Now, does all this really come as a surprise? I think not as already back in April of this year, Viviane Reding clearly stated that directives would be amended and more specifically Directive 2002/58/EC. But it hasn’t yet, has it?

Storm in a Teacup

And that’s all that this actually is in my opinion: A storm in a (very British) teacup. Nothing new here! Well, except for the second phase of an infringement proceeding over the UK to provide its citizens with the full protection of EU rules on privacy and personal data protection when using electronic communications dated October 29th of this year send out by? you’ve guessed it! Mrs Reding …

Last but not least, I would like to mention that Mrs. Reding’s DG Information Society & Media has been using Google Analytics for some time now. I should know as I helped them implement it and raised the privacy issues during the project!

What’s however interesting is that, as of today, I still haven’t found the possibility of opting-out from Google Analytics, but that’s another debate.

Enforcement? Unlikely

I don’t think that prior consent for the use of cookies will be enforced in Europe and I believe it’s just a misinterpretation intended to get attention…

Once again, I welcome comments and thoughts as I’m totally open for discussion in order to make sure that the Europe I was raised in and choose to live in upholds to my standards of a righteous society.

Posted Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 | 14 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

The agreement reached on November 5th about the EU Telecoms Reform announces that it bans the “three strikes and you’re out” policy, also dubbed HADOPI in France, which was supposed to fight against Internet piracy and illegal download by a three strike procedure.
The EU Reform “paves the way for stronger consumer rights, an open internet, a single European telecoms market and high-speed internet connections for all citizens”.
Finding an agreement amongst the 27 member states is not an easy task and as the reform, proposed by the Commission since 2007, strengthens competition and consumer rights on Europe’s telecoms markets, facilitating high-speed broadband access and establishing a Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) to complete the single market for the telecoms sector, it does actually little or remains rather vague when it comes to European’s citizen privacy. The European reform still needs to be voted upon by the Parliament and Council by end of November before it’s entered into force in early 2010 and then transposed into national legislation in the EU 27 member states by May 2011, at the latest. Yes, Europe is a slow process!

Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner, however welcomes the agreement: “This internet freedom provision is unprecedented across the globe and a strong signal that the EU takes fundamental rights very seriously, in particular when it comes to the Information Society. … The reform will substantially enhance consumer rights and consumer choice in Europe’s telecoms markets, and add new guarantees to ensure the openness and neutrality of the internet.”

Well at least, it’s clear that French President Nicolas Sarkozy got a big NO/NON/NEE/NEIN on his “three-strikes-laws” also called HADOPI and previously mentioned as the reform clearly states that “any measures taken by Member States regarding access to or use of services and applications through telecoms networks must respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens, as they are guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and in general principals of EU law… In particular, they must respect the presumption of innocence and the right to privacy.”
This is even more explicitly detailed in Annex 1 and Commissioner Reding confirms on the mater of illegal download of copyrighted content that: “… we need to find new, more modern and more effective ways in Europe to protect intellectual property and artistic creation”.

Well, I at least for once am reassured as the basis of our democracy is assured through the presumption of innocence. Regarding copyright evolution, the battle is not over yet but one might start by reading Jessica Leaman’s Real Copyright Reform from the University of Michigan Law School before anyone else in the world starts having secret Internet copyright talks.

Getting closer to web analytics as I get this question so often about a European standpoint, nothing really new here as the 5th article of the reform deals with Consumer Protection but mainly in the light of personal data breaches and spam, where “… Operators must respond to the responsibility that comes with processing and storing this information. Therefore, the new rules introduce mandatory notifications for personal data breaches…” and this probably mainly applies to ISPs.

Cookies are also mentioned, even though very vaguely, in the context of rules regarding privacy and data protection, which should be strengthened. As such, “internet users will apparently be better informed about cookies and about what happens to their personal data, and they will find it easier to exercise control over their personal information in practice”.
How this could be done and enforced remains to be debated. However, in the light of our sector’s evolution and the recent efforts by most web analytics tools to include an opt-out possibility of measurement, websites owners are well advised to adapt their privacy policies in order to make sure they adequately inform their visitors about what they are tracking and how. As an example, Yahoo! Web Analytics’ privacy policy allows for a simple copy-pasting of a paragraph explaining how data is being tracked and how visitors can opt-out of the tracking. As said, they are not the only tool out there to provide such an option but one has to note that it’s the website owner’s responsibility to actually update their privacy policy and include such a link.

Note that EU member countries have an obligation to transpose European legislation into their national legislation within a limited time, usually 18 months. This does however not mean that national legislation doesn’t go further than the one stated by the EU. An overview of Primary Data Protection laws can be found here. Germany’s Federal Parliament and Council for example passed amendments on the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG for Bundesdatenschutzgesetz) over the summer and any company seriously using Intranet data on a personal level, under German law, is well advised to make sure they have informed their employees about what they are monitoring and why, as Deutsche Bahn AG sourly found out, settling for 1.1 million €.

The discussion is not over yet as the European Commission is still undergoing a consultation on Personal Data Protection, which is due by the end of the year. For now, let’s just make sure those privacy policies on our client’s websites are up to date, shall we?

I welcome any thoughts on the subject, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line or comment below.

Posted Monday, November 9th, 2009 | One responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

It almost sounds surreal when you think about it: “roast beefs” embracing “frogs’” technology (not pun intended at all, I respect both countries, this is to underline how historically those two wonderful countries have perceived each other) but with the evolution of our industry – Omniture’s acquisition by Adobe and the tireless advancement of free tools such as Google Analytics – one should take note that some European web analytics players are showing viable alternatives.

They’ve been batting and winning, those French, and more specifically AT Internet.

Now, I’m not one to push a vendor over another. After all, when I proclaimed vendor independence some years back, people thought I was crazy!
However, some months ago, when analyzing market penetrations of web analytics tools in Europe’s 27 countries, they already stood out of the crowd, with an almost lock on their home market.
The French have historically been battling with smaller players coming from the audience measurement side – “mesure d’audience”, as they say -, which is still a commonly accepted perspective, and together with an even older historical legacy, the Minitel, web analytics seemed to have had difficulty to really take traction in this country famous for it’s cuisine.

Web Analytics Wednesdays – les mercredis des Web Analytics – organised by Julien Coquet and Nicolas Malo, with over 100 attendees October 14th last and with the launch of Jacques Warren’s book in French regarding Web Analytics- #1 in terms of sales on Amazon.fr in the categories of electronic commerce and management  – co-authored by Nicolas Malo, it looks like the French are really getting their act together. A network of French, Canadian and Belgian bloggers also supported the launch of the book in order to get traction on the market.

And, with the launch of NX or AT Digital Workspace NX as dubbed by them and reviewed by Stéphane Hamel here, my suspicions are confirmed that AT is here to stay and has some interesting features that other vendors might take note of, none least of which server monitoring to make sure that if your conversion rates are suffering, it’s not because your website is slow or basically down! Sounds familiar?
AT is today taking it’s offering seriously beyond French borders, and according to other American contenders on the European market, do a pretty good job at defending their solution during vendor selections.

Now, AT is not the only European vendor out there as mature solutions are also emerging such as in Germany with Webtrekk, offering raw data and real time segmentation, getting traction on a market where privacy is of some importance, possibly hindering penetrations of free tools. And with a multitude of books available in German about Web Analytics, authored by prominent writers such as Marco Hassler, Frank Reese, Udo Möller and Michael Kröhn as well as Timo Aden, Germany is well prepared to adequately serve it’s market and hopefully go beyond as well.

While the French call web analytics more often than not mesure d’audience, the Germans usually dub it Web Performance or Web Controlling, pushing it closer to the financial perspective of digital communication measurement and ROI.

The Dutch of course, have been out there for quite a while with claimed European leader Nedstat on the vendor’s side and one of the most qualitative event dedicated to web analytics, running I think now in it’s 4th year.

Looking more to the east and up North, one should also take note of Finish vendor Snoobi as well as Eastern European based Gemius traffic, which is winning a couple of deals all over Eastern Europe and noticeably in Turkey and Poland, which is after all the 6th biggest Internet population on the European continent after the usual suspects: Germany, the UK, France, Spain and Italy.
While the two latter countries are still battling with competition from tools such as Nielsen’s Netratings – which can’t really be found anywhere else on the continent – one has to note that Spain was lagging behind when it came to web analytics literature in Castilian Spanish. Sergio Maldonado now amends this through the release of “Analitica Web, Medir para Triunfar”.

In the more traditional Shakespearean language, I couldn’t finish this post without mentioning Steven Jackson’s excellent “The Cult of Web Analytics“, which looks at how web analytics is ideally set-up within companies and in my humble opinion a must read for anyone serious about how to implement a long term web analytics strategy. And on the free tools side, Europeans have also substantially contributed to our sector’s literature with Dennis R. Mortensen’s “Yahoo! Web Analytics” book as well as Brian Clifton’s “Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics“.

This is what I’ve listed so far as my little European based Web Analytics library. I’d love to hear your thoughts about any other European authored books about our industry that I might have forgotten to mention in Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Polish, … ? Or any European based vendors that are also pushing on our beloved continent as well as specific terminology related to your market. Don’t hesitate to drop me a line or comment below.

London hosts today a Web Analytics Wednesday on Tuesday at the usual Bluu Morgate, where AT Internet’s NX will be showcased and it’s not too late to participate. I’m sure it will be great event & enjoy!

Posted Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | 17 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

It always daunts me to see major events unfolding when I’m traveling. The Berlin wall fell on 11/9/89 when I was on a school-trip in Texel (north of the Netherlands). This year, on September 14th, while I was flying over the pond, the French finally came out with a long awaited report about how GDP is a flawed measure of “happiness”.

Yes, yes, many things happen in between but honestly, this is a major one for me and I’ll try to explain why.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, while leading the EU’s French presidency for it’s 6 months period, announced in 2008, he wanted to appoint a commission to determine alternative measures of well-being for society.
This comment made me think a lot about the only country I know off that actually does try to measure “happiness” of it’s people and that is Bhutan, through the notion of Gross National Happiness (GNH), a term coined first by Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck back in 1972.
I had forgotten Sarkozy’s call to revisit GDP when The Economist reminded me of the completion of the report and the presentation of it’s findings: Measuring what matters.
Head by Joseph Stiglitz, surrounded by 25 prominent social scientists (amongst which one of my teachers in Macro economics) and five with Nobel prizes in economics, the 292-page report is a call to abandon “GDP Fetichism”.

Why is this important?
With the increase in environmental accidents, economists already raised the issue of externalities and how these could affect GDP positively while actually harming society overall. The Erika disaster back in December 1999 off the coast of Brittany made the French heavily aware of GDP measurement flaws, just like the Americans found out 10 years before that, on the shores of Alaska following the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Accountability for such externalities have also been the basis for the Carbon trading initiatives, that I had discussed back in 2006 (Setting Pollution benchmarks), but unfortunately, it seems that as the price for carbon trading is still so low, it’s still cheaper to pollute than to invest in green energy: A collapsing carbon market makes mega-pollution cheap!
My hope for a better world had withered away with time as I didn’t see the price of polluting actually going up – February 2009 was an all time low with 8,20 €/tons, down from an all time high at 32,80 € in April 2006. Let’s hope the Copenhagen discussions about climate change will bring fresh winds of change.

Of course, externalities is just one axis of why GDP is a flawed measure. It always daunts me when I read about the industrial age, the mills in the North of the UK, the robber barons in the U.S. and all that preceded to come to indeed a wealthier society but at which expense? so many lives were spilled…
Within the current debate about climate change and how this is affecting our lives and will certainly affect more dramatically the lives of the generations to come, it’s getting more and more important to rediscuss how data is being collected, which KPIs are being defined to make decisions that are based upon them and this on a global scale.

And the French being the French, they also see the evolution of society in a different light than their American counterparts.
Wasn’t it Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America who brilliantly noted that while the American society is based upon personal vertical evolution within society, aka the American Dream, the French revolution had brought along a more horizontal view of distribution of wealth amongst the population at a given time.
Note that the initial draft of the United State’s Declaration of Independence stated “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as three aspects listed under the undeniable rights of man. Interestingly enough, this is often mistaken by an alternative version, which would be “Life, Liberty and Property”.
The initial tripartite motto is comparable to the French “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” but where Fraterny might oppose the US translated premise of Property.

The backbones of our economic thinking and values are thus, I would argue, radically opposed in this sense and the way social security is set-up in Europe for example, compared to the U.S., is a partial result of diversity of opinion about how a society should view evolution and well being of it’s citizens.

The metric of GDP was invented in 1942 in the U.S., during the Second World War, following the data available at the time and highly influenced by it’s surrounding context.
Those of us who are in the business of doing Web Analytics – have walked the road as a wise entrepreneur would say – know how highly influenced the choice of a metric or KPI can be (read politically if you want). And those of us who think of themselves as Web Analytics ninjas, listening to the wise voice of Indian humility, also know that no metric or KPI should be set in stone.
So this idea of revisiting the very foundation of decision making in our globalized world might not be such a bad thing after all if we were decided to continuously strive towards the pursuit of truth and happiness. For all involved.

Or as the Commission puts it:
“What we measure affects what we do; and if our measurements are flawed, decisions may be distorted. Choices between promoting GDP and protecting the environment may be false choices, once environmental degradation is appropriately included in our measurement of economic performance. So too, we often draw inferences about what are good policies by looking at what policies have promoted economic growth; but if our metrics of performance was flawed, so too may be the inferences that we draw.”
Section 3. of the Executive summary

Christine Lagarde calls this the happiness Commission, la Commission du Bonheur in French.

Here you’ll find the synthesis of the report in English (14 pages, a good night’s read!)

The Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress itself in English.

Some recommendations from the report:

1. When evaluating material well-being, look at income and consumption rather than production;
2. Emphasize the household perspective;
3. Consider income and consumption jointly with wealth;
4. Give more prominence to the distribution of income, consumption and wealth;
5. Broaden income measures to non-market activities;
6. Quality of life depends on people’s objective conditions and capabilities. Steps should be taken to improve measures of people’s health, education, personal activities and environmental conditions. In particular, substantial effort should be devoted to developing and implementing robust, reliable measures of social connections, political voice, and insecurity that can be shown to predict life satisfaction;
7. Quality-of-life indicators in all the dimensions covered should assess inequalities in a comprehensive way
8. Surveys should be designed to assess the links between various quality- of-life domains for each person, and this information should be used when designing policies in various fields;
9. Statistical offices should provide the information needed to aggregate across quality-of-life dimensions, allowing the construction of different indexes;
10. Measures of both objective and subjective well-being provide key information about people’s quality of life. Statistical offices should incorporate questions to capture people’s life evaluations, hedonic experiences and priorities in their own survey;
11. Sustainability assessment requires a well-identified dashboard of indicators. The distinctive feature of the components of this dashboard should be that they are interpretable as variations of some underlying “stocks”. A monetary index of sustainability has its place in such a dashboard but, under the current state of the art, it should remain essentially focused on economic aspects of sustainability;
12. The environmental aspects of sustainability deserve a separate follow- up based on a well-chosen set of physical indicators. In particular there is a need for a clear indicator of our proximity to dangerous levels of environmental damage (such as associated with climate change or the depletion of fishing stocks.).

The Commission hopes that this Report will provide the impetus not only for this broader discussion, but for on-going research into the development of better metrics that will enable us to assess better economic performance and social progress.

Something hopefully to ponder about, independent of any acquisitions or changing in life expectancy of the page tag.
So, would do you think? Can KPIs induce tyranny and what are the factors that prevent them from evolving?

Posted Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 | 5 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

On the Eurostar for a Web Analytics Wednesday event in London, I was reviewing Econsultancy’s excellent Online Measurement and Strategy Report, getting back to it, after a couple of days of reflection.
Tomorrow, I’ll be talking in Germany at Sapient about Web Agencies’ Web Analytics business models, which I’m really looking forward to as well. These types of networking events are ideal for discussions about our sector, surrounded by smart peers & drinkies!

Reading some great perspectives about the report both from Web Analytics guru, Avinash Kaushik, and sector God Father, Jim Sterne, I missed comments about other findings that I humbly thought would be interest.

Avinash tweeted, quite understandably, about it in the following terms: “The only report U need on online measurement & #wa http://tr.im/nW8B D/L sample report. Why good? Pragmatic, 100% sourced fm customers, no BS”.
Google Analytics is on the rise, assuring its position in the Web Analytics space, as the report confirms. But like any leader, contestation is on the rise as well as recently following a French post, discussion has amplified about how GA attributes conversation.
Additionally, the report does not mention Yahoo! Web Analytics (former IndexTools), the other great free tool out there on the market, but does point to “one limitation is the inability to tie up analytics with data at an individual customer level. Google faces a problem on this front because it already has to contend with criticism that it has too much data, and this is a problem that worries businesses as well as consumers.”
The double sides of a coin: we want more individual level data to really drill-down and try to make our data sources less conflicting vs. worry about Google having all this personal data. Let’s see how Y!WA stacks up to that assumption. In the mean time, you can also check out some good writing by Dennis Mortensen

Talking about tools, what actually first struck me was the reason why 31% of respondents don’t use GA: “it isn’t sophisticated enough for their requirements”. Even though I can imagine this to be true for some companies more sophisticated in the practice of doing Web Analytics, I also have a hunch this stems from disinformation coming from competing vendors! Call it a female intuition if you want but fact remains, if this is the case, such practice doesn’t resonate to me as being a sound long-term strategy!

I also couldn’t avoid noting Omniture’s progression with 42% of market share according to the responding companies! Let’s just hope that with all the people Omniture’s been training through Europe, they will actually also let other supply-side actors, besides themselves, support their clients. Let’s say that this process could need some tweaking imho.

Just like the pillars of a company are its stakeholders, customers & staff; for Web Analytics, I see vendors, consultants & end clients. And it’s in this later part where I find the Econsultancy report fascinating as it distinguishes answers from the client-side with those from the supply-side, giving a voice to this fragmented army of web agencies, self-employed consultants & specialist web analytics consultancies.
Because let’s face it, these non vendors supply-side actors more often than not “recommend a tool for their clients to use” or “make a decision on behalf of their clients”. And for some, like Web Agencies, the relationship with the client reaches far beyond Web Analytics even if, some time ago, before the commoditization of its practice, WA could be seen as a differentiating factor. It’s not anymore about selling licenses and with margins below 40%, lets be honest, it’s bad for this type of KPI!

It’s a difficult balancing act doing Web Analytics within a web agency. Eternally swinging with vendors between love – to sell their solution – & hate because technical roadmaps aren’t always discussed & shared and competition on services is increasing.
Competing also against Media Agencies, who hold another side of the crystal ball with their campaigns i.e. traffic acquisition and I’ll refer to Eric’s post about attribution as issues are far from being resolved in this space!
I’ve witnessed it often: discussions about access to a client’s Google AdWords account to tie the data to the GA account, explaining to some young trainee how to add the correct tags to the landing URLs.  URL, you want me to spell it for you?

Unfortunately, this lack of incentive for collaboration, which is totally understandable on all mentioned sides, doesn’t do much for data transparency & sharing in order to make sure we all work towards the client’s goal, making money today and in the future and uncover those blessed insights. Sharing remains the key in order to align those processes and make sure all actors work towards this common goal. Unfortunately, not all clients are savvy enough to understand their pivotal role in this dance of (expensive) service providers!

It also looks like the equilibrium between budget allocations between technology & human resources is slowly but surely reverting from an over investment in tools (would I dare to write that?) that should magically point towards insights. Just like Word should be able to magically write by itself a great trilogy such as Millenium
Ok, we’re not at Avinash’s 10/90 rule yet but what I basically concluded from the report is that those who get it, get it. Those who don’t, aren’t going to take the risk in these times to make the leap of faith. For now.

The market has thankfully evolved towards a commoditization of web analytics services. It’s not anymore about how to tag this new Flash website or Ajax application, a lot of very smart people can help with that today, partially thanks to the GAAC – Google Analytics Authorized Consultant – network imho.
However, resources remain scarce and for that, supply-side companies still have a role to play, if they can make it work for them, business model wise.

And that’s where my great fears lie for the moment. I’m afraid all those great, but fragmented consultants, are going to get stuck in this tinny Web Analytics field that could bring so much to a companies’ reflection and dialogue with its clients, stakeholders & staff. And that’s what I want to discuss with the smart guys from Sapient tomorrow in Germany

I’ll finish by sharing my favourite quote from the report “Knowledge – there’s almost too much information out there, every time I learn something new it all just gets bigger – which is exciting as well as frustrating.” And agreeing with Avinash recommended reading for anyone serious about the industry!

I’m off to Moorgate. Be well & prosper!

Posted Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | One responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

With a turn-up of 43,77%, participation in the European Parliamentary elections remains disappointing.
I’m not all that surprised as for me, being Dutch while living in Brussels, Belgium and moving soon to Madrid, I found it hard to vote for Belgian representatives of the EU.
Following political debates within different countries, it confused me more than ever as parties on an EU level don’t align much imho. It’s a difficult task, as French socialists don’t compare to the Dutch ones for example, let alone our Eastern European friends! It just shows how different & specific the countries that make up the EU are.
So, are these differences showstoppers? I believe not and looking at where we came from since the creation of the Council of Europe on May 5th 1949, huge progress has been made.

Working, living & breathing Web Analytics on a daily basis for a long time, I still get the question about whether Europe is lagging behind.

NO, no and no. We’re not behind when it comes to Web Analytics!
Europe has it’s own set of challenges: multiple currencies on top of the Euro; multiple languages, I’m in Belgium: we’ve got 3 official ones!; different cultures and ways of doing business.
We’re basically juggling with global brands that want to assure their penetration on the old continent and local companies who are battling to assure global supremacy – well, not all – while taking advantage of what Schengen delivered us from back in ’92.

So, if you’re in Web Analytics, or would like to be, and you’re in Europe, don’t think the grass is greener on the other side of the pond! There is some great stuff going on right here & right now, closer to you than you might think.
A powerful community is building up on a European level with Spain recently merging it’s WA members (AEWA) with the WAA, amongst others. Events are taking place all over Europe debating fascinating topics such as: WA implementation, your company’s social media strategy, the automotive sector, WA for the public sector, WA’s business model for web agencies and complementarity between SEO & WA. Who said Europe was lagging behind?

Great events are lining up for the next couple of weeks all over Europe with over 300 attendees gathering in & on:

• 17/6: Copenhagen, Denmark where Steve Jackson from TrainersHouse will be speaking about the Cult of Analytics, based on experiences with companies like MTV, Vodaphone & Finish Nokia;
• 17/6: London, UK where yours truly will be initiating the debate about Your Social Media Strategy;
• 17/6: Lille, France right between Brussels & Paris! where, thanks to Nicolas Mallo, Toyota’s Michael Notte will join Julien Coquet for what I’m sure will be some super interesting discussions, before cocktails ;
• 18/6: Düsseldorf, Germany where yours truly will discuss at Sapient about the Web Analytics business model for Web Agencies, just after Peter Pletsch talks about his experience at meinestadt.de;
• 24/6: Lausanne, Switzerland where Jean-Marc Vandenabeele & Emmanuel Breton will share their views upon interaction and complimentarily between SEO & Web Analytics;
• 24/6: Glasgow, UK closes this list of European events for June.

So, stop wining about US supremacy! Go out and make sure you catch one of these events before the summer. Share your thoughts, questions, hopes, doubts, aspirations, and show that Europe certainly has a great part to play.
Like we say in Belgium: L’Union fait la force! Unity gives us strength.

Posted Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 | 5 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

I just can’t believe that the European Commission would actually be influenced by electoral outcomes to take a stance on something as crucial as privacy. European Parliamentary Elections are scheduled for June 4-7th.

So, what’s the story?
Recent events have shown that EU Telecoms Commissioner, Viviane Reding, not to be opposed to the French HADOPI law. But she DID open an infringement proceeding against the UK government about the use of a behavioural advertising technology known as “Phorm” by internet service providers. My friend, Steve Jackson, already blogged about his privacy concerns around BT’s use of Phorm last summer.

What is HADOPI? will you ask. Good question!
The French HADOPI law stands for “Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et de la Protection des droits sur l’Internet”. The idea is that people illegally downloading  copyrighted content through the Internet will be sanctioned. On claim or denunciation, HADOPI follows a 3-strike procedure:

1. A warning email is sent to the connection owner, defined by the IP address, inviting him to install a filter on his own connection. The ISP allowing for this connection should monitor activity.
2. The second step is put into motion 6 months after the first: the same warning is sent by certified mail. On failure to comply or accusation of repeated offenses by the copyright holders, their representatives, the ISP or the HADOPI, in the year following the reception of the certified letter, the third step of the procedure starts.
3. The ISP is required to suspend the internet service for the internet connection, object of the claim, for 2 months to 1 year. The connection owner is blacklisted and third party ISPs are prevented from providing internet connections. This doesn’t interrupt billing. Eventual charges involved by the service termination are at the connection owner expense.

No recourse to a judicial court is possible for the first 2 steps of the procedure, and the last step is not stoppable by judicial recourse. So basically, the charge of the proof is on the connection owner!

First, I wonder how technically this is going to be monitored with dynamic IPs and all. Minor detail say the French authorities.
I won’t even start about the saga that this law brought upon itself since April 2008 in France and in Europe. Let’s say that’s just French spicing on top of how this text was bullied into French law and then lobbied heavily by Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy at a European level.
I’m not surprised either to read that the project of this law spun from a task force led by Denis Oliviennes, CEO of the main French record seller Fnac, who’s business model is dependent upon copyright enforcement.
I sadly smile when I read that Mrs. Albanel thinks the Internet should grow up and the illegal downloading is part of some childhood disease. She should go back to Economics 1O1!

Indeed, access to information, through the Internet connections is profoundly changing the way we are living & consuming. Some sectors – music industry, newspapers, etc. – will be disturbed by this evolution more than others, independent of the number of “patches” you’d want to grant them to allow them to survive in these difficult times.
We’ve heard a lot about government bailouts of banks. As a law abiding & tax paying citizen, I’m not thrilled that public money was pumped into those institutions but I understand that our financial system needs to be stable.
What I do condemn is short sightedness in the likes of Mr. Sarkozy who, on top of HADOPI, also decided to support French newspapers by giving them substantial grants. He should join Mrs. Albanel in an Economics 1O1 class, IMHO!

Hence, I just can’t shake this feeling that between those responsible for legislation and ongoing technological evolution, the gap is growing. Those responsible for legislation, creation & enforcement, have great difficulties understanding what all this Internet thing is about. Hence, public money is being put in wrong places and they are legislating on topics they are ill advised about!
As technology evolves, the need for national & European safeguards is growing.
Amongst my most urgent topics, I want Europe to take a clear stance on privacy.
Privacy is going to be one of the major topics of our century and without clear guidelines, without clear understanding of technical capabilities today and in the future, our legislative body will continue to be influenced by the most prominent lobby groups.

The fact that the European Commission sees a potential problem with Phorm in the UK but totally fails  to see any possible infringement of personal protection with HADOPI in France is totally beyond me.
Belgian legislation is clear, until now, in the sense that those responsible are not the consumers viewing the content but the content providers. They are the ones infringing the law, not the other way around!
If the European Commission does not rethink it’s stance on the French HADOPI law, risk exists that this law will be applicable to other member states in due time!

So my question today is: between Phorm & HADOPI, where’s the difference? How come the first is possibly condemned while the later seems to live safely within it’s borders, possibly being implemented as soon as possible?

Mrs. Reding, your latest speech about Internet of the Future: What Policies to make it happen? mentions that “the Internet of tomorrow must preserve openness. It must also be based on the right governance principles“.
You talk of security and mention privacy but too vaguely: “In this domain, the technological and scientific experts have to work hand in hand with the policy makers“. As far as I know, you are a policy maker and I thank you for your excellent work on the EU Roaming Regulation .Would you also be so kind as to review your position on HADOPI, please? Maybe after the elections, if it’s not too late…

Posted Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | 8 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

René asked me if I wanted to join his company. I said yes, on one condition: that I could set-up a Web Analytics team. He frowned. A Web what?

That was in 2003 and the start of OX2, which turned out to be one of the leading independent Web Analytics consulting services agencies on the European market. We sold OX2 to the LBi Group, n° 1 Independent Interactive Agency in Europe, in 2008.

Eric asked me another question some years later. This blog post should explain why.

WebTrends’ Log Analyzer first landed on my European desk (Brussels based, Belgium) in 1999. I felt excited as I’d started my career -for amongst others Swiss Life- as a business analyst, used to answering the most challenging questions coming from the commercial &/or marketing departments but frustrated by the lack of available data.

The DotCom era and it’s promises would finally allow me to unleash my analytical creativity! I got hooked & despite encouraging video presentations by Jason Burby, I felt alone while trying to get the most out of this magical data crunching wonderful discipline called Web Analytics.

My French speaking mum always told me I got into the business because my favorite word while growing up in the Netherlands was “Pourquoi?”. This translates into Why in English and my feminine intuition tells me Jim Sterne might agree

Nonetheless, while finding refuge during the DotCom shake-out at the Deutsche Bank, I pledged that no one in Europe should ever feel that way! I met frowning René at a Master in Ebusiness. He’s very perseverant. So much so that we ended up building a company together, OX2, getting married and having a son, Luca.

Through OX2 and my blog, I found a voice and vehicle to share my thoughts. I still remember the time when most people in Europe wondered why I was actually bothering with this thing called Web Analytics! And I will certainly never forget the positive as well as the negative comments we received when I stated our independent position when it came to vendors. After all, it was & still is about what you get out of the tool, not the tool itself!

To be quite frank, I used Google Analytics’ release in November 2005 as an excuse to ramp up to such independence. Google once again helped pave the way & comforted us in our beliefs when Brett Crosby announced the release of their Website Optimizer while we had been building an A/B & MVT tool, imbedded into one of OX2’s content management systems, over the summer.

Stars were continuing to align when the great Avinash Kaushik also picked up on my incessant abuse of the written word to include it in his world top 10 of blogs on Web Analytics. I can still precisely recall my first acquaintance with Avinash, at the eMetrics in London back in 2006. His performance and comments remain unforgettable

Eric, then with pony tail, bluffed me even more with his VisualSciences demo a couple of months later at the eMetrics summit in Washington DC. Following that unique & thrilling experience and after some email exchanges, this fortunate and mind boggling encounter was followed by a call which included the invitation to join Web Analytics Demystified’s Board of Advisors.

A relationship of trust and mutual respect has been building up ever since between Eric and me. I thoroughly enjoy is no nonsense approach to Web Analytics, his openness of mind and is curiosity. He’s one of the rare people that keep on surprising me!

He allowed me to keep up with all that was going on in the field of Web Analytics while I was running around like a headless chicken, heading my WA team first at OX2, then at LBi. Interest for Web Analytics was picking up all over Europe!

Not taking it easy during that last year, where, keeping the promise I’d made to myself about sharing the love for Web Analytics (that’s a shameless plug for Brian Clifton), I also reached out to the LBi group’s network, ranging from Sweden to New York while answering questions fusing from Amsterdam to Milan.

I armed my Web Analytics European DreamTeam (WAEDT) very early on with the first GAAC certification in Europe, a WebTrends Insight Network label (shared then only with our future colleagues at LBi UK). I also turned out to be the first IndexTools (now Yahoo! Web Analytics) Certified Analyst and attended the Omniture certification. Lately, we’d been enjoying working with Unica for a couple of clients. Clients such as Toyota Motor Europe, ING, NATO, Schering Plough, Bayer Schering, the Belgian Social Security, Philips, Deutsche Bank, Danfoss … for which I had the pleasure to work through all these years.

During the last year, I also gave birth to my son, Luca, but unfortunately lost my blogging voice and basically my license to think…

Today, the integration of OX2 within LBi is over and done with. My Belgian/Dutch/Spanish son, Luca (yes, that’s an Italian name), is teething and starting to walk. I took a month off. It’s now time for me to move on to new challenges.

I’m thrilled & delighted to start up the European presence for Web Analytics Demystified Inc., working alongside Eric to help advanced clients in Web Analytics with their strategic roadmap in order to assure real value from their investment. It will allow me to express my opinion about the industry after too many months of silence. I strongly believe that our times yearn for Data Driven Decision Making: responsibility, accountability, transparency & ROI. Building on a “Competing on Analytics” strategic vision, companies should embrace data transparency and optimal (human) resources allocation in order to foster innovation through experimentation.

Europe, prepare to have Web Analytics demystified!

Posted Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 | 5 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email