eMetrics London 2012 – Day 2 Thoughts

Tag Management Systems

Panel = 3 TMS users + 1 vendor. Tag Management Systems – in my opinion the next big thing for web measurement setup (i.e. 2013), but also for the web development industry in general – deploy the necessary tracking code and program widgets across your site(s). Essentially, they are the CMS for your page tags. However, Jim made a very pertinent point on how these new vendors are positioning themselves:

“Why would IT willingly remove themselves from control of such a valuable part
of website functionality? i.e. pass over to a marketer” – Jim Sterne

I actually think this is bad positioning by the TMS industry – Marketing should not be the drivers, or the target audience, for a Tag Management System. After all, we are still talking about the deployment of code, and that is very much an IT role. Also, the ability to ring fence page tags and simplify the edit process is very attractive to an IT manager.

Reasons given for using a TMS:

  • Speed of code deployment
  • Flexibility to switch in or out vendors tags i.e. adding new widgets, change from WebTrends to Omniture etc…
  • Interestingly, the panel could not quantify the cost:benefit of using a TMS.
    Typical comments – “its difficult to quantify”, “it makes life much easier but I can’t quantify the ROI of doing it”. In my view, it has to become a no-brainer if adoption is to grow. That will hopefully happen now that Google has joined this industry with their free Google Tag Manager (see eConsultancy’s post on this)

Privacy Discussion

Q&A with Vicky Brock (questioning) and Dave Evans (answering) from the ICO – the UK data privacy authority.

  • ICO – received var 500 complaints so far (after approx. 18 months) about website privacy in the UK. Thats a lot for them, but in the grand scheme of things that sounds quite low to me.
  • No non-compliance fines issued by the ICO to date. Its considered the last resort. ICO would much rather help you become compliant than punish you – assuming any non-compliance is not a horrendous abuse of privacy.
  • There is a 30 page guidelines document from the ICO on best practice (BC: this now pretty good!)
  • The FUTURE (from the ICO): There is a European legislative “move” towards explicit consent i.e. no longer implied consent allowed. Time-scale = next few years. Nothing is fast at the European level!

Other observations from eMetrics (in no particular order)

  • Virgin Media make £4 billion revenue per year, 20% online. That’s a big number…! (Richard Phillips)
  • Request from Andre Morys speaking about Conversion Optimisation – Understand what customers want form their web experience.
    • For example, please, please, please change how you display a contact form when a visitor uses a mobile device i.e. make it much simpler & shorter.
    • Don’t analyse in a silo.

My comment: Working in a silo is one of the biggest challenges for the web measurement industry. The issue with working across teams is that you need a senior level “sponsor” to co-ordinate and drive this throughout an organisation. A present, such buy-in (beyond, “yeah just go and do it”) is very rare. Related post from me: Why Web Analytics Users Are Falling Behind The Industry.

  • The number people complaining about the cost of Omniture products was up this year (it goes up every year!)
  • I am aware of the Queen of Search, but now I have discovered the Queen of Segmentation. Great insights from an expert practitioner.
  • “Old school” – defined as Business Intelligence and Analytical CRM (Richard Phillips)
  • Word of the day = Fiduciary – a new one for me. Thanks to Vicky Brock.

OK, I have run out of bullets now…

Also read my colleague’s @JohnWedderburn live notes form the day http://bit.ly/U0s4wl

Looking for a keynote speaker, or wish to hire Brian…?

If you are an organisation wishing to hire me and my team, please view the Contact page. I am based in Sweden and advise organisations in Europe as well as North America.

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1 Comment

  1. John

    Thank you Brian for this summary, as WE don’t have the possibility to go there,it’s good that someone propagate some key points and findings. Thanks again. John

    Reply

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