It has been sixteen months since I made the leap to start two businesses. It was not a sudden decision, but something I had in mind for a much longer time. Sixteen months ago I finally had all the right pieces for the puzzle.

This story is about having the right reason, passion, focus, timing, business partners, and a little bit of luck.

Reason

I believe that the key to success is neither a desire for wealth, nor wanting to get away from an annoying boss. Wealth is sometimes a result, but if it’s your goal then the road there will be much more boring, and you’ll focus on the horizon rather than the speed bumps straight ahead of you. Heck, you might crash.

If you just don’t want a boss, forget about it. You always have a boss. Be it your customer, or be it your shareholders. There’s always a boss, trust me.

If you just want to be rich you’ll be focused on solving your own “problem” (not having enough money) rather than the problems of others, and it’s solving real world problems that leads to success and wealth.

I decided to start a company (actually, two companies) because I wanted to be part of something new, something that will solve problems. I also wanted to leverage the experience I had gained in life, and build a company the way I believe it should be built.

I believed (and still do) that it should be possible to combine profitability, a fun and healthy work environment, good employee benefits, charitable work, and a business culture that rewards reaching common goals. Never forget that most companies are what the employees bring to the table. No people, no business. That’s true even for product companies. Less so, yes, but still true.

To sustain in the long term, you have to stay focused. If you don’t feel strongly about what you do, chances are you’ll get distracted and change focus along the way.

Passion

I don’t think you’ll be set up to succeed unless you focus on a line of business that truly interests you. It’s a plus if you’d work with it for free if nobody would pay you. Why? Because when you start something new you have to be prepared to work for nothing, or little, in the beginning. At a minimum it means getting less money. Financially, I still would have been better off being employed. It would have been a lot more comfortable too.

Think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Do you need the icing on the cake, or is the cake enough to fill you up? Maybe you can sacrifice the icing to get to do what you really would like to do? If you’re a die-hard entrepreneur you’ll sacrifice the entire cake, but often sacrificing just the icing is enough.

I have made sacrifices to get to live the dream of being part of something new, and I have no regrets. I get to work with something I believe in, and something that qualifies as a hobby of mine. It’s worth it. Maybe it’s worth it to own less stuff if you get to do what you love? Think about it.

Cooperation

It’s not only important that you do things for the right reasons, it’s also important that you work with the right people. You shouldn’t always work with whoever is tossing the most money your way, because it may be better to opt for the better match with less money.

After all, you’ll likely have to live with your decision for a long time. A business partner/co-owner who understands you, gets along with you, and shares your goals will make your life a lot easier. It’ll also be more likely that you’ll succeed.

I didn’t want a business partner with a lot of cash but no passion. I advice you to look at the big picture. Maybe someone’s experience, knowledge, and skills are worth more than capital.

I discussed with several parties before settling on whom to found the companies with. You need to engage both brain and heart in your decision.

Lesson

What’s the best business school around? Life. It really is, and I’ll tell you why.

My parents have told me that I never nagged to get anything as a child. It’s true, I rarely even politely asked for anything. Instead I decided whether getting something was important, and if so how to get it. Don’t get me wrong, I got stuff. But that was my parents’ call, not mine.

Speaking of parents, the most intense, and soul-searching, experience I’ve had came from spending time with my father as his life was coming to an end due to cancer. I learned more about life, myself, and prioritization during a couple of weeks than I ever had before. I learned how to step up, how to let go, and what willpower can do.

My Dad lasted more than half a year despite doctors believing he had only a couple of weeks left. He fought. We all have our battles to fight in life. I learned so much during that time that I could write several chapters, if not an entire book, just on that topic.

Illnesses are not necessarily all bad. Yes, we all want to avoid them, and I’m no different. However, my Dad’s illness made me a stronger and wiser person, and my own struggles with health from time to time have made me a better leader. In fact, my businesses were largely born during a troubling hospital visit. You have to look ahead, and you have to take something bad and make it good. After all, what’s the alternative?

Age and education are not necessarily things that make you a better business leader. However, I have tried to work on most of the sides of business. I’ve worked for sales, marketing, customer service, and in other departments. I’ve worked as an employee. I’ve been a buyer, and I have been a seller. I have worked as a consultant. I can tell you one thing, if you have not worked, at some point, in the role of your potential clients, the risk is that you won’t fully understand their needs and behavior.

I have, like Steve Jobs, and many others, dropped out of university. I’m not proud of it, but I’m not ashamed of it either. I do not like leaving things unfinished, but things happen for a reason. My reason for dropping out was love. In Canada. Due to travels, and distance, I lost the momentum in my studies. Now, these days it may be easier to study from a distance than it was back then.

When I dropped out, I got a job to pay for my bills. I only planned to stay for six months at that job, and had formally just taken a break from my studies. That plan backfired when some people at the company apparently saw potential in me and gave me a new role. Then a new role after some time. Then yet another role. I ended up working in many different positions before leaving the company.

Remember how I told you I didn’t ask for stuff as a kid? Well, I didn’t ask for those jobs either, but it so turned out that those jobs became sort of a paid business education. It all works out somehow. That’s what my Dad told me when he was sick. I guess he’s right.

In closing I have to say that there is an element of chance in life too. Chance can give you opportunities, difficulties, and illness. It’ll likely give you all of them at some point. It’s how you deal with them that can make a difference.

I’m not finished yet. I can, and will, still get better at what I do.

I will still make mistakes, and I will still learn.

I’m not perfect, nobody is. But I’m working at getting better. It’s called continuous improvement.

Now it’s time for you go look for strength, inspiration, and knowledge in the places you least expect to find it.

I wish you a wonderful journey!

1. Getting blinded by your own knowledge and preferences
If your conversion optimization efforts are largely based on what you like and how you behave, then you are more likely to fail. Not everyone is like you; there are at least three other temperaments to consider.

According to renowned psychologist David Keirsey, everyone falls into one of sixteen temperaments. The temperament of the buyer influences what will convince them to buy a specific product, and what will make them buy it specifically from your company or website.

Which temperament are you trying to sell to? To learn about how to sell to people who may be different from you, read the work about temperaments done by Keirsey and the interpretations made by firms like Future Now, Inc.

My own consultancy firm, inUse Insights, has also done similar work, grouping visitors into four types that are illustrated by different birds: owl, penguin, swallow and peacock. The lesson here is that you should learn as much as possible about your audience, and don’t fall into the trap that they are just like you. Besides that, you know a lot more about your company, product or service than your visitors, and you may therefore make the mistake of assuming that your visitors know more than they do. Don’t get blinded by best practices, either; they are not always silver bullets. Your audience and context may differ.

2. Optimizing for the wrong visitors
The assumption that all visitors to your website are there to convert is wrong. When analyzing why visitors are dropping out without converting, you need to know what they came there to do in the first place.

Some visitors end up on your website by chance, some because you cater to their interests or needs, and others because of a mistake. You will rarely convert those who came to visit your site by accident. If you combine a survey (attitudinal data) with your Web analytics tool (behavioral data), you’ll be able to ask for the intention of your visits upon entry and analyze their success rate.

It’s not unusual to find out that the group you have a reasonable chance at converting constitutes 10 percent or less of your visitors. With that new knowledge, you can focus your conversion analysis on the segment that came to your website to convert but never did. Work hard to make that group convert, and forget about the rest — for now.

3. Focusing on only one metric or goal
Testing and conversion optimization is often based around the idea of increasing the rate for a specific metric, a specific goal. Nothing wrong with that, but you may forget to check how your efforts are impacting other goals and metrics.

Maybe you are increasing one goal at the expense of others? Maybe your conversion rate has gone up, but your average order value, margin or return on ad spend has decreased? Always make sure to look at the big picture. If you’re just looking at — and optimizing for — one metric, there’s a risk that you’re fooling yourself.

4. Making testing a goal in itself
I’ve come across organizations that have set goals on how many A/B or multivariate tests they should run in a set period of time. That’s a bad idea.

Think about what incentives do to people, particularly if there is a reward involved. If the goal entitling an employee to a bonus is the number of tests executed, be prepared for lowperforming tests and maybe even ones that decrease rather than increase your conversion rate.

A good goal is not addressed as the number of tests run. Instead, focus on the monetary goal you want to reach, or actions that you want your visitors to take, and run as many tests as you can based on hypotheses and traffic volume. Your goal should be to increase something (purchases, downloads, etc.) or decrease something (visits to the contact page from visitors who have read the FAQ, etc.), not to run a certain number of tests. If you focus on the number of tests, chances are that you will be too eager to test that you forget about building a solid hypothesis, and run tests that don’t have enough traffic to complete within a reasonable amount of time.

5. Coming to the conclusion that nothing works
Have you run tests and not seen any improvement? Rather than conceding that there is no way to make a difference and simply giving up, it is more likely that you overlooked something. There may be something further you could do to collect more relevant data.

Has your Web analytics tool been implemented properly? Have you integrated attitudinal and behavioral data in your analysis? Have you done usability testing? Have you used a tool such as ClickTale that shows behaviors that are not necessarily linked to what you can actually do on the website? One way to quickly get new ideas is to ask your non-tech Web-savvy friends to perform a task on your website without your guidance.

Conversion optimization is for everyone
Keep in mind that conversion optimization is not just for e-commerce. It’s for everyone. It does not matter whether you’re selling a product, a service, information or an idea. We all have specific actions in mind that we want website visitors to take. Conversion optimization is about making a larger share of visitors do those actions. It could be about making a donation, becoming a member, changing an opinion about something, or many other actions.

As long as it’s measurable, it’s a candidate for conversion optimization.

What are you going to talk about?

I will share techniques and insider tips on how to work with web analytics to understand your audience better. It will help you increase your conversion rate.

I will show you how several non-profit organizations do it, for example Operation Smile and Doctors Without Borders.

Is your presentation only for non-profits, or who should listen to it?

Any organization wanting to boost online efforts can learn something from the presentation. Non-profits are under a continuous pressure to increase online conversion with limited resources, so I believe they make a perfect example of how you can be smart without using expensive technology. It’s all about people and process.

This will be your second time speaking at eMetrics Stockholm, what do you like best about the conference?

The engaged and enthusiastic people that I meet there. The attendees at the conference come from different industries, so I find it really inspiring to mingle and discuss web analytics with them.

What’s the first thing anyone new to web analytics (non-profit or not) should do?

Define your business objectives, goals and needs. Then look at how they can be applied to your website.

Start analyzing and optimizing!

Bryan, you’re the author of Always Be Testing, Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results, Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank and Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing. Are you currently writing on any book, or are you focusing on spreading knowledge through presenting all over the world?

We are working on numerous ways to share our knowledge across the globe including speaking, mentoring, teaching through MarketMotive and yes, we are working on a revised version of Always Be Testing that will spend more time looking at the organizational issues holding companies back from successfully having a data-driven optimization culture.

What can we expect from your keynote at IMC Stockholm in September?

I always believe every presentation must inform and entertain. So expect something that gives you insight into how customer behavior is changing and what, as organizations, we can do to be prepared to keep up with them.

It was fun to help out with IMC New York, and co-locating it with your Future Now courses, back in 2008. What do you expect from IMC in 2011, and how (if in any regard) do you think Stockholm will differ from other locations where you have spoken?

It was fun working together to bring our content together to attendees back in my home town of NYC. This time I look forward to exploring a city I just got to know a little bit after my first visit last year. I found the people quite knowledgeable and open to learning about advanced optimization topics, and I look forward to sharing this new presentation there.

If you want to hear more from Bryan Eisenberg, listen to the podcast I made with him (and a few others) about testing.

Tell those who, unlike me, don’t know you a little about yourself.

It could be a long story! I started nearly 25 years ago as a software developer, analyst, system administrator and DBA for a research project—with access to the Internet. When the web came out, I had the chance to install a server so we could document our research, and I naturally looked at log files—just like any other IT system.

Be it in my days at the Montreal Stock Exchange, at Softimage, a break-through 3D animation software company, at Bombardier Recreational Products manufacturing, or Desjardins financial & insurance services, and many others, I gained experience listening to business requirements and striving to come up with original, yet optimal and realistic, solutions.

To strengthen my skills I completed an eBusiness MBA, and on top of my role as Director of Strategic Services at Cardinal Path I also teach a graduate-level course on digital analytics from a managerial perspective, have been tutoring the UBC web analytics program for years, do R&D on both the technical and conceptual aspects of web analytics: WASP (now owned by iPerceptions), gaAddons, the Online Analytics Maturity Model (OAMM for short)… I served on the Web Analytics Association board of directors, I’m quite active in the web analytics community on Twitter, Google+ and locally.

You’re going to talk about your Online Analytics Maturity Model. What compelled you to create it, and why should organizations use it?

It was a coincidence based on two things: first, there was a debate amongst my peers about whether web analytics was hard or not—a topic that surfaced again in the last couple of days! Second, I was completing my MBA and was looking for a good topic. At first, the University asked me if I could create a course on web analytics, but I asked to spend more time and looked into why so many organizations are failing at web analytics while some of them really become analytical competitors, as Tom Davenport would put it. I did interviews, leveraged my own experience as a practitioner and consultant, looked at other disciplines such as marketing, finance, business analysis, business intelligence, etc. It turned into a much better course and a proposal for the OAMM.

Models are no magic, they are imperfect and evolve over time, and that’s OK. That being said, OAMM is an incredible opportunity to take a step back and think about your, and your organizations’, strengths and weaknesses. Lots of people would like to use it as a benchmark, but I recommend doing an introspection before looking at others. Engage your managers and business stakeholders in the process, and use it as a change management tool and a great way to spark discussions!

Who should listen to your presentation?

I would be tempted to say “everyone”! From junior analysts, to senior executives, the concepts exposed in the OAMM will help web analysts better understand how they are contributing to the overall business, and executives will get a better grasp on why the web analyst role is really one of change agent.

What role does eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit play in the field of web analytics and testing?

eMetrics is the must attend event for anyone in the field. eMetrics is our de-facto industry event, and the official event of the WAA where practitioners, consultants, vendors and anyone gravitating around our field get together. I first attended in 2007 and I’ve since been every year, speaking over 15 times in San Francisco, Washington, Toronto, London, Paris and for the first time, Stockholm!

At eMetrics I met people who inspired and helped me in my crazy projects: Jim Sterne, Avinash Kaushik, and Bryan Eisenberg. I met people who I’m now closely involved with at Cardinal Path: John Hossack, Alex Langshur, and Justin Cutroni. I met some of the 700+ students I tutored at UBC over the years, and I met clients and prospects. In fact, I’ve met so many people that I should stop here!

You have spoken at eMetrics in many locations, and been a key driver for eMetrics Toronto. What do you hope to get out of eMetrics Stockholm?

The challenges we face in our web analytics practices are pretty much universal. Sharing my work in Stockholm is a great opportunity to continue to gather feedback from the field that will contribute and encourage me to continue working on this long and tedious project. Of course, in the same vein as the previous question, I’ll get to meet people I’ve only met virtually and renew with old acquaintance: yourself, Brian Clifton, Steve Jackson, and many others.

So, once and for all, is web analytics hard or easy, and should we talk about marketing optimization or business optimization?

Building a cathedral during the middle ages was hard, landing on the moon was hard and complex, resolving the economic crisis is pretty darn hard… Running a business is hard. As analysts who are supposed to measure and optimize; analyze a complex business environment and processes, we’re not very credible if we keep running around complaining our job is hard! Go ahead, ask anyone at your workplace if their job is hard—any disciplines—from the guy sweeping the floor at night up to senior executives. Guess the answer! (Hint: if they don’t say it’s hard.. they should be fired!)

Yes, indeed, web analytics is hard when we don’t address and keep a balance between the six critical process areas exposed in the OAMM! So, is web analytics easy? Maybe not, and that’s why our field is so interesting! Stop complaining and do something about it today! Register for eMetrics Stockholm!

Marketing optimization or business optimization? I believe our job as analysts is to understand a business context, get the facts— the data, understand the process, and come up with the most optimal and realistic recommendations (and yes, creativity plays a role in here too!) That begins with our ability to understand our own job and the process of doing analytics. Next, you’ll certainly agree marketing is a process..

Voilà! I prefer to think in terms of business optimization just as much as I think of analytics rather than the more narrowly focused “web analytics.”

Believe me, the future is bright for analytics and business optimization!

I’ve been a big fan of the work of Paras Chopra and crew since they took their first baby steps with Visual Website Optimizer. Today, thousands of people across the world use the product. I should have done it earlier, but finally I’ve taken the time to interview Paras.

First of all, congratulations to making such a great tool in such short time. Your work has impressed me since the early days of Visual Website Optimizer. How many customers do you have now?

We do not reveal the exact number of customers, although we do reveal the total number of accounts that have been created so far (both trial and paid). The figure exceeds 10,000 now.

I read in an interview that you said to focus on market first, not idea. Could you elaborate on how you have done that?

As an individual, I had no background in web analytics and optimization. I hadn’t worked in this capacity at any previous employer. So when I chose to start my own company, I made a list of all markets that had an open opportunity. A/B testing is the market I thought needed disruption. So, in essence, I didn’t begin with A/B testing as an idea, but rather as a market, which needed a better tool.

From writing first line of code, how long did it take you to get a commercial version of Visual Website Optimizer on the market?

The beta, with just a couple of features, took about two months of writing code on weekends and on evenings—after I got back from my day job. From beta to final paid plans, it took about five months (50% of it was part-time, and 50% full-time, work).

I believe you where the first to introduce a simple WYSIWYG editor for creating tests, though I could be wrong. Since then alternatives like Optimizely and Reedge have popped up. Why should someone who’s selecting a testing tool today choose Visual Website Optimizer?

There are some alternatives available in the market today, and it is good because they recognize the concept of visual A/B testing that we made popular. So, in a way, this validates our product. However, since WYSIWYG editors will become common in all testing solutions out there, it won’t be the only differentiation. We differentiate ourselves in four ways:

1) Customer support. The engineers who actually work on the product provide our support. So, it is top-notch, and always to-the-point. Our customers love the support we provide, and we know many of our customers by name now. That is the level of closeness we have with our customers.

2) Focus on educating the market. Without knowing what to test, an A/B testing tool is worthless. So, it is our job to come up with tools, articles, and case studies that help our customers design the right kind of variations in a test. That’s how they successfully increase conversions and sales. We want to tell them what to test so that they maximize the chance of a successful result.

3) Ease of use. In the last year, we have brought many interesting features: heat maps, segmentation, revenue tracking, etc. However, with all these powerful features we haven’t sacrificed our basic philosophy of usability and ease of use. In fact, we keep getting better at it. Only last month, we did a complete revamp of VWO user interface and made it even easier to use.

4) Going beyond testing towards targeting and analytics. We won’t just stop at testing. There are many interesting products and modules that we are currently working on, that will provide immense value in addition to testing. These modules and products will be integrated with VWO.

Your company, Wingify, is not just about Visual Website Optimizer—what share of development hours do you put into other products?

Currently, all of our focus is on VWO, however, we are starting to build other relevant products and features. Our company vision of helping businesses make more money online is broad enough to make great tools in many other relevant industries.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced with Wingify and/or Visual Website Optimizer? How did you overcome it?

The biggest challenge is press noticing your company. Since we are bootstrapped (no VC/angel funding), and are not in a hot industry like daily deals or social gaming, getting press notice us is always a big challenge. We try to prove ourselves worthy of coverage by citing all the success our customers have seen and how we are able to confidently compete with big solutions out there (like Google and Omniture).

Another big challenge is hiring. Our standards are very high, and we hire only the best software engineers, meaning that interviews and evaluation can take a lot of time. Right now we are a team of 6 people, but want to grow to 10–12 people within next two months.

Finally, what tip would you like to give to other entrepreneurs?

As you mentioned, I am a big believer in the market-based approach to choosing startup ideas. I summarize most of my viewpoints in a blog post that I wrote, but the key point is that having competition is good. This tells you that people are paying for this. Many times entrepreneurs choose to do completely new things, which may be good from an innovation point of view, but customers are usually lazy and if they cannot quickly understand your offering and relate it to their previous experiences, you are going to need a lot of time convincing them.

Dennis is the guy in the white shirt, Don Draper style.

In 2007, you were one of the key people interviewed about web analytics in Europe for a long podcast, and in 2010 you were asked some follow-up questions. How does 2011 compare to 2007 and 2010 so far?

In retrospect, I believe it would be fair to say that the technological focus back in 2007 was on custom reporting and segmentation on large volumes of data, and the organizational insights that could be derived from it.

By 2010 it became clear that insights without action was of little meaning and focus shifted slightly towards the hiring of Analysts and forcing action any way possible. However, I think it would be fair to say that most organizations are moving towards this goal, but some are yet to execute in full on this promise.

In 2011 the current buzzword in analytics seems to be real time. I certainly agree that data needs to be current and as up to the minute as the organization need it, but I am not sure this is truly the next step in analytics. If you ask me, I would suggest that we are moving in the directions of proper decision support systems that provide truly actionable recommendations on what to do right now—accompanied by the future value of such actions.

You were the head of IndexTools in 2007, and later a Director at Yahoo!, who acquired IndexTools and renamed in Yahoo! Web Analytics. This year, however, you are doing something new. Please tell us more about your new venture, and why it seemed like a logical step for you to take.

Given my attitude from above about the future value of data being in actionable recommendations towards the point of automation, it seemed very natural for me to seek out the media industry with an offering of proper decision support systems.
The team spent the last good year on our data modeling efforts and our predictive analytics systems and launched our initial product, Front Page Content Recommendation Platform, early 2011.

We created a model where we can predict the future performance of any given piece of content on the front page, and taking advantage of that information, we provide direct recommendations on what content to push on the front page, exactly where it is supposed to be, and for how long it is expected to stay put.

This is a decision process already in place and editors are taking hundreds, if not thousands, of front page content placement decisions everyday already—we simply want them to be empowered. Think about it, how do you actually decide if the “News of the World” story goes into the hero position? And if not in the hero position, where? And finally, for how long does it stay there?

What we provide is by any definition a revolutionary decision support system for editors. It is unmatched by any solution in the market.

You’ve worked for organizations of various sizes, and you’ve done more than one exit. What’s the most exciting aspect about business for you? Do you prefer coming “out of nowhere”, being bootstrapped and having to prove something, over working for a large organization that has much stronger financial muscles?

Personally, I love the pure joy of our team having produced a product that our customers want and actively use every day, and potentially a product they truly cannot live without! There is certainly “entrepreneurial bliss” in seeing a company being created from nothing but an idea enabled by science and raw engineering.

We are well capitalized this time around from both our previous successes, but also from our recent financial backers. Pairing that with our historical data and analytics credentials, I think we have all the muscles we need!

When you left Yahoo! I couldn’t help but think about the moment when the leaders in hit TV series Mad Men left to start Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. It felt refreshing when they left the big, fancy, office and started working out of a small hotel room. How did you feel when you got the first office, and your first core team, for Visual Revenue?

I like that picture Lars. Thanks! I truly admire anybody who is willing to leave the safety of a corporate job and become part of a founding team. In the case of Visual Revenue it was not an office out of a hotel room, but out of a shared room in my Manhattan apartment building. That first period is romantic, and a difficult emotion to capture in any other way than describing it as jumping into the deep end of the pool!

Visual Revenue’s current view is not too shabby.

All you need to do is leave a comment to this blog post, and if I have any invite left I’ll make sure to give you one. I will send it to the e-mail address that you provide.

Note! Spotify is not available on all markets. These invites are for USA.

What the invite gives you, for free:

“With an invite, enjoy on-demand, buffer-free access to over 15 million songs on your computer and great social features. Manage your own music files through Spotify, and sync with your cellphone or iPod. Features occasional advertising.”

Five reasons why Spotify rocks

1. Instant access to millions of songs. No downloading required, and the sound quality is high. It’s 100% legal too.

2. You may add songs you own, and you can sync with other devices.

3. Connect to Last.fm and Facebook. See your friends, and the playlists they share.

4. Share songs to Facebook, Twitter, Messenger, and directly to other Spotify users.

5. You may even purchase songs if you want to own them, though with perfect streaming it’s difficult to see the need for it.

If you at some point opt for a subscription, you can even take songs with you on the go, or store them and play them offline.

Me? I’m hooked. I have a paid subscription already.

So what are you waiting for? Leave me a comment and I’ll send you an invite if you’re one of the first 100 to ask for one. You could be getting an invite now!

The invite will come from “twolittleducks.”

I will hand out invites in the order you’ve commented. Please +1, like, tweet, etc. to spread the word to your friends. They deserve an invite too! After all, Spotify becomes even more fun if you have someone to share playlists with.

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What are you going to talk about?

Jim Sterne: Social media metrics are the mechanistic tabulation of online activity in a realm that is more social than it is media. Not only are we trying to capture numbers about human interactions, we then have to present those numbers to other people in a meaningful way. Both of sides of this equation requires a great deal of human understanding.

Brian Clifton: A couple of areas this time: “What GA can and cannot do”, and “Measuring Success in Social Media” (with Google Analytics). I am also interested in discussing the issues raised by the new EU Privacy law that came into effect on May 25th. This has a huge impact on how website owners handle visitor privacy, yet many are either unaware or confused with the poorly worded guidance issued so far by the privacy bodies of the EU member states.

Steve Jackson: What I’ve learned over the past 2–3 years and about how my role has changed since 2000. In the early days it was about improving the campaign funnel from acquisition to sales. Now it’s about learning about the whole customer life cycle and the variety of touchpoints (social, search, display, e-mail, SMS, MMS) in order to predict what the best channel is to attract the most loyal customers. I am now either developing or utilizing RF & RFM models on a daily basis across customer data as well as applying predictive analysis to plan marketing activities. It’s not about any single tool (like web analytics) anymore, it’s about being able to adapt and integrate a wide variety of tools and present information that works for the business.

Who should listen to your presentation?

Jim Sterne: Anybody who is engaged in social media for business and everybody who is trying to quantify the results of their social media marketing efforts.

Brian Clifton: Clearly my focus is on Google Analytics, though my methodologies for social media tracking are applicable to any web analytics tool. Historically, there have always been two types of people involved in web measurement—implementers (webmasters, developers) and end-users (marketers, PR professionals, content creators). What I attempt to do is bridge that gap by getting end-users to provide the direction for the implementors, i.e. work with them so each can make informed decisions. Not as easy as it sounds. Essentially, I am saying both types should come along and listen in!

Steve Jackson: Anyone who is struggling to make sense of multi channel and wants to answer the question “where is my marketing effective and why?” 

What role does eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit play in the field of web analytics and testing?

Jim Sterne: While social media lets us all engage from all over the world, meeting face to face is the heart and soul of human interaction. For many years, the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit has been the gathering place of people interested in improving their online marketing—and now all of their marketing—through measurement. It’s the marketing analytics watering hole of record.

Brian Clifton: The key for any conference series in this field, is education. People, including myself, want to learn and grow their knowledge. From best practice tips and tricks, to learning by other people’s mistakes (showing mistakes as a learning aid, something that is often underrated by speakers, perhaps for fear of looking dumb—but it shouldn’t be). For new people to the web measurement industry, it’s often about being able to understand and set their own expectations. For example, what does a tool cost, how long does it take to install, what training do I need, when can I start getting insights, can I do this by myself or do I need a team? So it’s all about the learning..

Steve Jackson: For me it is the only event I regularly learn from in the industry. New ideas are presented here. New perspectives from strong practitioners who understand what they’re talking about. I have yet to see a presenter at the eMetrics flap over or avoid a question, there is always some form of answer, and if it’s not right there from the podium it is discussed in depth from the networking. Other events in my mind don’t hold the same form of prestige from a speaking perspective. From a learning perspective I would say the summit has a major influence worldwide on what is adopted and what goes by the wayside in terms of analytics and testing. 

Register now!

(the discount code INUSEINSIGHTS011 will get you a 15% discount)

The agenda for eMetrics Stockholm has been released and you can get the super early bird rate until July 15.

Read about pricing or register. You can buy a combined ticket if you want to attend more than one conference.

Expect presentations from the following people on this year’s agenda:

• Jim Sterne
• Brian Clifton
• Steve Jackson
• Jiri Brazda
• Mia Jung
• Predrag Nikolic
• and many more

You’ll also find case studies from Hurtigruten, FINN.no, SoundCloud, Yle.fi, Hi3G, Operation Smile, Doctors Without Borders, Web Guide Partner, and more.

eMetrics Stockholm is held entirely in English and is focused around web analytics, testing, marketing optimization, and continuous digital improvements. Its target audience consists of web analysts, CMOs, marketing managers, sales managers, CEOs, etc.

I’ve spoken at eMetrics Stockholm 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. There will be a presentation by my company inUse Insights this year as well, but it’ll be held by Antoaneta Nikolaeva (Web Analyst, inUse Insights) instead. inUse Insights has done some great work for several organizations. It’ll be great!

I’m also Chair of the advisory board, gold sponsor, and blog partner.

You can watch a video from previous eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits below.

>> Buy your ticket now to get the lowest price possible! <<

(the discount code INUSEINSIGHTS011 will get you a 15% discount)

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