The WAA's International Director, Neil Mason, has set up a team of web analytics professionals (mainly in the EMEA ...   more »

Just received an email from John Marshall (founder of ClickTracks) who has now set up a training consultancy on a ...   more »

I appreciate that people may be thinking I’m neglecting my readers by not posting on this blog.  However, lots ...   more »

Well I remember seeing a post a few months back when someone was talking about the likelihood of Avinash going into consultancy... They did this rather comical graph of things like - man getting use of the right side of his brain to understand women (impossible!?), the human race successfully populating the titan moon (1000,000,000:1) and Avinash going it alone (1:1)...

Wonder what the odds were on Eric going into consultancy....

Well, we all wish you well..

Avinash has listed the top ten blogs for web analysts to read - Occam's Razor is number one (and quite rightly so).  For those that don't know (and I had to ask Avinash at the post eMetrics London dinner what Occam's Razor is) it is the theory of

"The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or "shaving off," those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. "

Wikipedia

However, I would like to say two congratulations.  The first to my fellow European and my new friend (poor woman was subjected to my presentation on web analytics and financial services at the end of two days of presentations) - Aurelie Pols.  She's moved up a notch in the top blogs.

Welcome to Anil Batra who has snatched the number ten spot. 

If anyone is wondering why I am not on that list.  It is because I've only being blogging a couple of months and have spent a lot more time updating my website on web analytics and management information. Nevertheless, I will be blogging more often from now on.

Top Ten Blogs:

1. Occam’s Razorby Avinash Kaushik
2. Web Metrics Guru by Marshall Sponder
3. Google Analytics Blog by Jeff Gills
4. Web Analytics World by Manoj Jasra
5. Eric T. Peterson’s Analytics Weblog by Eric Peterson
6. Increasing your website’s conversion rate by Robbin Steif
7. Unofficial Google Analytics Blog by Michael Harrison
8. Lies, Damned Lies…by Ian Thomas
9. WebAnalytics.be Blog by Aurélie Pols
10. Web Analysis, Behavioral Targeting and Advertising by Anil Batra

I've updated the settings so that you can now leave comments on your favourite blogs.  If you have a comment or a follow up question then please ask it there (as others may be thinking the same thing as you).  I'll regularly look at peoples' comments and post my replies to the blog.  If you want to ask me something outside the blog then my email address is miles at milesbennett dot co dot uk.

Please note that when leaving a comment there is a username and password field.  You do not have to enter anything. 

Comments are moderated.

Miles

eConsultancy has just sent over one of their regular emails which a very interesting article about the British preference for using natural search rather than paid for search.

eConsultancy article.

What they are saying is that the 43% of internet users surveyed know the difference between paid for an organic and that "nine out of ten British customers prefer natural search results, and many lack trust in paid search".

More interestingly the article also tells us that - 58% would immediately go to a competitors site if the search results displayed something negative (now the article doesn't specify what "negative" means but, assuming it could be anything from spelling mistakes to google-bombing).  The remaining 42% would abandon the search altogether.

"Seven out of ten British consumers will not click through to a company's website if search results contain negative comments about them. This must mean that McDonalds' site gets very few UK visitors."

Interestingly, this echos something that Mr Search (Mike Grehan) was talking about a couple of years ago when I met him at a RedEye seminar.  Companies should spend a lot less on paid for search and concentrate on deploying a SEO programme.

Looking at it from a financial services point of view.  We are an industry where customers buy products like loans and credit cards frequently (much driven by rate-tarts) but, rarely change their current account or mortgage because they like the perceived relationship/security with their bank.   I'll try and find some solid research on this in the coming weeks and either write an article for milesBENNETT website or post it up here.

I'm probably one of the last people to blog on a fantastic two days (I'm sure my mum is thinking, analytics a fun thing, I keep trying to convince her it is). 

Some fantastic presentations -

Neil Mason (always an entertaining presenter and a good mate- talked about using customer data to build a more personal site and thus a more effective sales engine),

Avinash (his presentation style showed he was passionate about his subject - talking about competitor analysis for gaining a competitive edge),

Sam from Chinwag (the benefits of effective email marketing measurement),

Geraldine Tosh (my friend talking about how analytics have helped her company ipoints, make an effective presence online),

Matt Banks (how Lloyds TSB is using touch clarity for segmented targeting),

Dan O'Sullivan (another friend of mine and like me his first emetrics and first presentation) - he had the hard job of presenting in the big auditorium whereas I got the easy classroom style.

Ofcourse, there were the golden nuggest of information coming from Jim himself and the suppliers aswell.  I got introduced to IndexTools and their COO Dennis Mortensen - seems like they have a really good re-seller package.  Was always pleased to see my friends from WebSideStory (Simon Gibbard) and the SAS boys (Jono, Mal, Simon).

The dinner and drinks on the first night were really entertaining - apart from the 1am finish and the 4am start because I was so nervous and tweeking my presentation to the last minute.  Oh, incidentally to those fabulous people who managed to last till 4.30 to come hear me talk about financial services - Ton, Reinholt, Dan, Peeter, Aurelie, Jerome, Andre and Maurizio.  There were a few others but they didn't leave cards so can't mention them on here (but thank-you for attending anyway) - I'll post my presentation in PDF format on the milesBENNETT website so you can get the finalised version.  I'll also put the Skinkers video on the site so you can view it in full (I stopped after the financial services element).

Thank-you again to Avinash and John Marshall (CEO of Clicktracks) for a fantastic evening meal and great conversation afterwards.  I'm sorry I wasn't able to stay up till 4am like Jim but, there is always a next time......

Hurol Inan, the Australian web analyst has expanded his business and rebranded - "Significant growth in our consulting business required a new identity to reflect our growth and expanding range of services."

Whilst his existing website is still operational and you can still get his two books - "Search Analytics" and "Measuring the Success of your Website" - the new website is at http://www.bienalto.com/

Good Luck, Hurol

Miles

Jason Burby has just written an excellent article on how one person's journey to educate web analytics to the masses resulted in the discovery of incentive/reward based education - via the clever use of a lava lamp.

Lava Lamp: A Web Analytics Silver Bullet

Kristen Findley, web analytics manager at Ameriprise Financial, rewards those that preach the gospel about measurement.  Now I'm all for highlighting the benefits and necessity to senior managers and I do agree that doing things in a fun way does tend to make things stick in people's minds.

However, what I've found is that management buy in is "what a fantastic idea! Why haven't we thought or done this before?"  The they work out the fine print - who is going to pay for the install - who's budget will pay for this going forward because you've always invariably missed one budget allocation meeting or other.  Then other questions get asked - who gets the information, who runs the reports, who does the a/b testing and who takes overall responsibility.

Now, this may seem a bit of a depressing post but I want to highlight a few things which, in Financial Services, hinder managment information mix improvements.  Similarly, I have heard of situations where brand and marketing teams question the reasoning behind web site measurement and why they weren't consulted.  They then went out of their way to prevent any use of the data - e.g. "lets change the colour of the apply button and see what click-thru rate improvments we see" are received with the replies "we must adhere to brand guidelines!"

Hopefully one day people will get wise and see that there is a differentiation between adhereing to brand guidelines and website improvements.  On the day there will also be a massive change in management theory which will allow the free flow of information to aid business decisioning and people will be less concerned about their own little empires.

Right off to order a usb lava lamp - thanks Kristen.... 

Do you remember when we had to earn our pocket money?  I remember being able to go to the newsagents at the end of the road back in the North East of England and get ten packets of stickers for my football album for a quid (£1).  I'm told now that the going rate for cleaning a car is a fiver ontop of standard pocket money.

However, the kids are always wanting to buy things online so therefore they need a debit/credit card so you are invariably hearing the words "DAD!" or "MUM!".  So the banks have come out with giftcards which have a credit balance on them and the children can then use this to buy their latest album on iTunes or book from Amazon. 

However, what is most concerning (reported in both the Financial Times and The Times last week) is that children don't seem to have an understanding of how money works.  They believe that credit cards and overdrafts are "free" money and do not need to be paid back.  Perhaps this is indicative of our culture today with a huge rise in the number of voluntary arrangements to help those striken by debt. 

How do we educate our children?  These children are growing up quickly and within the next five to ten years banks will have a bigger problem if the culture of "debt" is not replaced with a culture (in part at least) of saving for a rainy day.

Miles

One of the greatest fears of any ecommerce department in financial services is fraud.  I'm sure we've all seen emails coming from companies who we have no relationship saying log on and check your account - I've had several from Bank of America recently.

The usual process is that the "fake" site uses the targeted bank's actual domain e.g. www.bankofengland.com but the underlying href points to a dummy site e.g. www.iwanttostealyourmoney.com.  Those people in the early days who were not that internet savvy fell victim to such attacks.  Now thanks to good education and constant warning messages from the banks - these emails, whilst annoy and damaging to the brand, are not as much of a problem as before.

Until now,

The scammers have devised another way of extracting money from the unaware.  Reported in The Times today (A&L is a target of a new phishing line).  The fake website is asking you to deposit £500 when opening a new online account and as a result the bank will give you £200.  Now at first glance that may seem a fantastic offer but, have you ever tried getting any money out of a bank?  Refund of bank charges etc.  So is it really likely that a bank - who do not make £200 of profit on a new bank account - will give that money to someone to open an account when it will take many months even years to recoup those figures..

What is your "Management Information Mix"?

Are you looking at your ebanking channel in its discreetness or are you taking into account the whole picture.  Many financial institutions have an executive dashboard / flash showing performance against target (and in some cases this can be incredibly detailed down to the contribution to the bottom line).

However, are you also including transactional information, footfall in the branches (how many people walk into the branches and segmenting those that go to discuss accounts, buy products or just go to the counter.

The same is happening in web analytics.  How many come to the site?  How many are existing customers?  What is the propensity of customers who visit your site - are they mostly browsers, buyers, servicers? 

So look at the managment information mix and use in as many places as possible the same (to avoid any discrepancies in the data).  Measure against target, against other channels and develop an understanding of the inter-relationship  between the figures and the channels.

Most importantly - tailor the report for your audiences.  Executives are interested in conversion rates, sales, cross-sales and contribution to profit!

I have recently written an article and posted it on my website.  It is about how management information and web analytics are essential in terms of brand, customer service, bottom line contributions and customer engagement.

Web Analytics in Financial Services

All the best

Miles

milesBENNETT

Just wanted to say thank-you to all those that attended the event.  As a panelist I found it very interesting to hear what other professionals had to say and was my first (and not last -  ;-) ) experience of being interviewed.  Looking forward to seeing the full article (not too sure about how those press photos are going to turn out!).

Topics covered included implementation of web analytics, getting the buy-in from senior management and how the reports are used, dashboards, web 2.0, training and evangilising on the ecommerce channel.

Jim Sterne - fresh from his latest RedEye seminar (poor guy, had to put up with me all day long - I'm sure he'll recover though).  Mike Grehan (aka Mr Search - see his new company Search Visible) provided interesting insights into the changes in the search arena.  Dan O'Sullivan - my counter-part at Boden - interesting to see how similar problems in report production and analysis are experienced in two very different sectors. Geraldine Tosh from online points company - ipoints.co.uk, Danny Meadows-Klue from Digital Strategy Consulting and ofcourse the features editor of New Media Age -Nic Howell.

Looking forward to catching up with you all very soon.

Many thanks

Miles

No business that sells products can survive without the following process:

Now in financial services the stage between application and delivery can range from one week (in the case of American Express) to several weeks.  The reason is largely due to poor back-end processes and money laundering requirements.  

Some banks may believe that generating a huge volume of applications will generate an acceptable number of conversions; and that the resulting drop off is part of the process.  However, in the age of instant expectations and little patience for poor customer service,  banks with un-customer friendly processes could be doing more than losing sales.  Such brand damage could eventually be critical or even fatal.

The solution is to have a short application process (the Mint credit card application is only five pages long with only a few questions).  Customers will want to know whether they have been accepted as soon as they complete the required information. 

Anti-money laundering regulations can be adhered to by comparing customer data against the electoral roll and online credit file from providers like Experian.  So in a world where customers are getting more and more impatient for products and services (don't you get annoyed when you expect a delivery and then it is delayed) - seems to me like a change is in the air for financial services.

I am currently researching the use of management information and web analytics in ecommerce departments across all of the financial services sector.  If you would like to be interviewed, say your two cents worth, provide insight (whether anonymous or not) or just like to register an interest to see the outcome of the research.  Then please get in touch

miles @ milesbennett.co.uk

Welcome to my first blog post EVER!.

I am currently working on producing a website which will hopefully be used by co-web analysts for sharing ideas and information.  If you want to add articles, ideas, theories then please email me on blog@milesbennett.co.uk.

As my website says - I am a freelance web analytics / management information consultant working mainly with retail financial services firms.  I have used many of the major analytic tools out there on the market and specialise in being able to collate multiple datasources and produce actionable insights.

A little background on friends within the industry.  Bertie Stevenson who was invaluable in helping me get a foothold in the industry as was Jim Sterne.  If you haven't managed to catch Jim at one of his seminars then get in touch with RedEye and hopefully you'll be able to see him in London in February.  There are many others - Mark Wood from WebSideStory, Erik Peterson (famous for more than his Yahoo Group), Avinash Kaushik and more.

I have recently been invited to speak at eMetrics in London and also participate as a panelist at "Digital Cream" from eConsultancy.  Thanks to Jim Sterne and Ashley Friedlein.  

All the best

Miles