The simple technique is one of the most effective passes in soccer because a player being closely guarded moves at speed into open space without having to dribble the ball through the defense. After penetrating the defense, the player then receives the ball back and often has a goal scoring opportunity. As I’ve mentioned before, wide open markets created by accelerating user adoption of mobile channels have created significant opportunities for businesses to beat their competition.

Businesses closely marked by competitors can leverage analytics and optimization just like the second offensive player in a give-and-go. While competitors can copy (guard) your current mobile initiatives, it’s very difficult to replicate business optimizations or anticipate the market opportunities such actions will create. By implementing data-driven optimizations, business can sprint past competitors into strategically open spaces.

By leveraging this rapid develop-iterate-innovate approach for mobile initiatives, businesses can take advantage of the expanding mobile market and create an environment favorable to innovation at the same time. Just as a pass to a player moving into open space creates more opportunities than a pass to a stationary player; focusing momentum of an organization that’s already moving can create opportunities not available from a standstill. As an example, one of Omniture’s early efforts in the mobile space was to provide tools for marketers on the move. To provide timely business insight, Omniture released a number of resources for monitoring effectiveness of online efforts. In addition to standard scheduled reports and alerts, these mobile tools enabled marketers to quickly assess the success of optimization efforts:

Mobile Optimized SiteCatalyst Dashboards
iPhone App [direct link to app in iTunes App Store]
BlackBerry App [direct link to app in Blackberry App World]
Android App [direct link to app in Android Market Place]
Mobile Site

Matt Langie touched on the customer value of timely access to analytics in this blog post a year ago. As you can see from the graphs below, these initiatives are bearing real fruit and exposing optimization opportunities. Omniture can now iterate on these initial efforts to accelerate success while adding significant value to customer analytic efforts.

In summary, using a mobile give-and-go strategy will get your business to the right place at the right time; because in today’s fast-evolving mobile ecosystem, if you’re standing still, you’ll probably get yanked to the ground by the hair.

Yep, apps are big business, which makes it all the more surprising that more marketers aren’t actively optimizing their apps through the use of software like Omniture’s Test&Target. You heard me right: You can use Test&Target to optimize iPhone apps with all the great functionality you’ve come to expect, like A/B and multivariate testing, dynamic content targeting, and user segmentation. Omniture Digital offers in-application optimization services for our customers, and it’s exciting to see this new service take off. Here are some of the biggest areas of opportunities that our clients are looking to improve:

Registration and lead generation: Many apps offer an option to register for enhanced services, and I’ve seen these processes run the gamut of superb to awful. Just as on the web, the way you present a registration process can make a huge impact on your conversion rate. Areas to focus on are the number of fields required, the order in which you ask questions, and even the offer you’re presenting to your customers. Test&Target can serve two or more registration flows to your users to measure which one performs better.

In-application e-commerce: Some of the biggest gains Omniture Digital has made for our customers comes from making improvements to a standard web checkout process. An in-app checkout process is even more critical, as you have only a few seconds before a user will abandon if the process is not super simple. Test&Target allows you to refine and measure your e-commerce flow, without having to release a new version of the application.

Content targeting: For content applications (such as news or blog apps), content targeting can be a powerful tool for keeping your users inside your app longer and coming back more often. Test&Target can target content based on preferences stated by your app’s users, or simply by keeping track of past interests. And don’t forget the power of geo-targeting.

In-app upsells: Now that Apple has OK’d in-app purchases and instant app upgrades, it’s time to pay attention to how you’re messaging these options to your users. Why pass up a chance to test out an improved offer or call to action? A dynamic A/B or multivariate test can do the trick here.

Product recommendations: For e-commerce applications, product recommendations can be a huge driver of app usage and sales. If your app ties into your product catalog (and even better, into your SiteCatalyst data), then you are in a position to help your customers discover more products in the few seconds that they’ll be spending with you.

I’m really just scratching the surface here. I’m looking forward to the day when I can pick up an iPhone application and know that the entire experience from start to finish has been optimized by the votes of a million thumbs just like mine.

• 83% of major brands have a Facebook page (see Sears and Gap) and many are using Facebook pages to communicate current and upcoming holiday specials.
• For the first time, brands are using Twitter to disseminate coupons and communicate specials (see Sephora and Toys RUs). Twitter wasn’t on any retailer’s radar screen 12 months ago.
• Brands are using iPhone applications to facilitate easier mobile shopping and gift finding (Walmart and Target are good examples).

As Omniture helps customers better understand how social media, mobile, video and other channels are affecting the purchase cycle, our customers are doing a better job of allocating their marketing budgets and resources. In other words, they are doing a lot more to drive conversion and sales than just giving money to Google.

Which brings me to a topic we didn’t have time to discuss on today’s segment: the game is changing. If you look at online marketing in terms of “innings,” we are currently in the top of the third inning. The first inning was dominated by Yahoo! The second inning went to Google. And while Google will be important in the third inning, I don’t believe it will be dominated by a single vendor. I think this third inning will field multiple significant players, including Facebook, Twitter, the iPhone and, of course, Adobe.

As you’ll notice from the chart, mobile web usage on Droid devices during the launch period was 8X higher than usage generated on G1 devices during its launch last year. Also interesting is the apparent lift to all Android usage sparked by the Droid launch and general Android buzz. Here are two reasons why should you care:

(1) The usage gap between the G1 and Droid launches can’t be entirely explained by higher Droid sales, indicating users across all Android handsets are increasing their mobile web usage. Increased web usage on Android (and mobile in general) provides higher returns for businesses investing in optimized mobile web experiences.

(2) Increases in Android market share makes investing in Android apps more appealing. Businesses waiting for a tipping point in critical mass before porting their iPhone apps to other platforms like Android should closely watch these trends.

If you are a SiteCatalyst customer and you want to gauge the impact of the Droid launch (or Android in general) on your business, just go to SiteCatalyst > Mobile > Devices and search for the devices you wish to report.

Shameless plug: If you’re a SiteCatalyst customer, here’s a link to the SiteCatalyst for Android App which has been available for over a year (direct link to app in Android Market Place—url only works on Android devices).

In my previous article, I discussed how organizations sometimes focus too much on having the right “tools” and not enough on the people behind the tools. It’s a common problem among companies striving to become more proficient in web analytics. It may appear as though just having the right tools in place will magically lift an organization to data-driven greatness. However, just like in sports, having the right equipment is only part of the formula for success. For example, a well-tuned, technologically-advanced race car is useless on the NASCAR circuit without a skilled driver, crew chief, and pit crew to get it across the finish line.

One part of the “people investment” is making sure that your organization has enough people covering the various positions on the web analytics playing field (see Part I). The second part of the “people investment” is to ensure people receive adequate training to excel in their roles. Just having people standing on the bases and outfield positions does not mean they are ready to play ball. Hopefully, each individual knows what to do when the ball comes to them and has been trained to perform their role effectively.

Good to great - through training

In a Fortune article “Secrets of Greatness“, Geoffrey Colvin revealed how natural talent was irrelevant to great success. From Tiger Woods to Warren Buffet, research showed the secret to their success came down to hard work and practice - not some unfair natural gifts. The article pointed out that if Michael Jordan were just born with superhuman basketball skills, he wouldn’t have been cut from his high school team.  Just like high-profile athletes, the people filling the various web analytics positions need to go through hours of training to develop, maintain, and hone their skills in order to be effective in their roles and get the most out of the provided tools. Kurt Schlegel at META Group stated, “While web analytics technologies can be quite easy to use, the extent of their potential benefits is still not well-understood. . . Detailed training opportunities are essential for getting the most business benefit from these solutions.”

Fostering the user adoption of web analytics tools can be a critical success factor in creating a data-driven organization. As more people share and leverage the tools, a company can derive more business value from its web analytics investment. Persistent training plays a key role in driving user adoption. Paul Strupp at Sun Microsystems stated that “training is not a zero-sum game”, and found that its value to the company significantly outweighed its costs. One important way to encourage user adoption is to provide adequate training opportunities at all levels within your organization.

The web analytics training pyramid

All great athletes start by learning the basics and then continue training to further hone their skills. The training triangle below shows how different individuals within your organization will need different training approaches. At the top of this pyramid, you focus on advancing the expertise of the company’s core team of web analysts and technical staff. This select group of individuals will require more formal training options such as Omniture certification courses. At the next level, you leverage the formal training and expertise of the core team to facilitate internal one-on-one training for executives and internal workshops for other key users. At the bottom of the pyramid, the large community of end users will leverage more self-service options - both internally produced options as well as on-demand videos available from Omniture.

It takes a village

In a recent conversation with a web analyst at a major insurance company, the topic of web governance came up and how “it takes a village” to establish a data-driven culture. An internal web analytics community (i.e., village) can advance tool usage and adoption throughout the company.

Paul Strupp shared how persistent internal training helped to nurture a web analytics community at Sun Microsystems. Sun’s web analytics email discussion list grew from ten people to more than one hundred people. Approximately half of the questions are now answered by community members outside of Strupp’s core team. In addition, the sophistication of the questions has evolved from “Page views or visits?” to “Why does my marketing campaign show high software downloads but low offline lead pipeline value?” Strupp identified one key benefit of developing a web analytics “village” is that “it puts the analytical capability closer to the business rather than in a remote ‘reporting’ group.” Enabling the people on the “front lines” to analyze their part of the business and take action makes great business sense.

In my next blog post, I’ll be looking at the “rules” of the village or in other words how to establish and maintain corporate standards.

However, before we dive into the measurement, you’ll need a basic (and I do mean basic) understanding of how Test&Target works.  If you’re already a Test&Target customer or you’re familiar with what it does and how it works, skip down to the What’s Important section.

Test&Target

For the official version of what Test&Target actually is/does, check out the Omniture site, but here’s my over-simplistic version.

Test&Target is an A/B testing, multivariate testing, and content targeting tool that allows you to try out different versions of content/creative/offers on your site.  You can also see which segments of your audience respond to the different versions, then target the top performing versions to the segments that responded.  You can manage each step along the way, or put in your different versions of content and put it on auto-pilot.

Each campaign that you run can have one or more experiences you want your audience to see.  These experiences can be on one page or span multiple pages on your site.  They can be targeted to a fixed percentage of your audience, a specific segment of your audience, the entire audience, or some combination of the above.

When your pages load, a request is made to Omniture.  Omniture determines which version of content (if any) to show to that visitor based on the way your campaign is set up.  Then the content (or offer in Test&Target lingo) is returned to the page.

What’s Important

Omniture is not a retail shop (shocking I know), our revenue is driven by subscription contracts.  For Test&Target, those contracts are for Mbox Requests.  Mboxes (marketing boxes) are the areas of the site where Test&Target will place the alternate content.  Obviously we want to measure the number of Mbox Requests, but those are transactional and while the data itself is interesting, there’s nothing inherently fascinating about the measurement method.

Active Campaigns, however, is state-based and much more interesting in terms of how we measure it.  An Active Campaign is a campaign that is live and running right now on a Customer’s website. 

More Active Campaigns means tests are running, offers are being served, visitors are getting relevant content, and customers are seeing value from the product (all good things).  Fewer Active Campaigns means the opposite.  If a customer is not running many campaigns, that indicates they’re not using the product.  If they’re not using the product, it’s a safe bet that they’re not getting the promised value, which is something we like to avoid.

If a customer was running 22 campaigns yesterday and launched 2 more this morning, then our measurement will reflect the additional 2 campaigns and a growth rate of 9.1%.  Similarly, if 3 campaigns were turned off or completed, we would see the attrition rate (or negative growth rate if you prefer) of 13.6%.

Measurement Methodology

State-based metrics are inherently different than transactional metrics because we can’t just add them up to look at them.  We’re looking at these as of a point in time, and then trending them over time to see growth and attrition.  So we take a measurement every day and record it.  We probably won’t look at it every day, but daily granularity lets us aggregate to weeks, months, quarters, and years as needed.  If we only had weekly data we couldn’t aggregate properly.  Daily granularity also preserves our ability to drill into the data when we see abnormalities at the weekly or monthly level.

So where do we actually measure this?  For this kind of thing, we rely on plain old databases and timed processes (cron jobs for the technical folks in the audience).  At the end of every day, when all the day’s data has rolled in, there is a computer process to run a few queries on the back-end databases to collect the data we want.  There are a number of data points we collect and one of them is Active Campaigns per Customer.

Once the data is in our hands, there are a few options at our disposal get the data into SiteCatalyst.  You can use the standard XML-based Data Insertion API, the new PHP measurement class, or a Data Source of some kind.  Implementation will obviously vary depending on which route you go.  I went with the PHP measurement class in a timestamped report suite, picked a conversion variable (eVar) to hold Customer Name, and picked a conversion event to hold Active Campaigns.  We must also send in a Day Counter event (1 event per day) and I’ll get to that in more detail in a moment.

We then turned the Active Campaign event into a Numeric event instead of a Counter event (through the Admin Console).  Numeric events can count up by arbitrary numbers that you pass in, rather than just counting by one.  That means I spend only one server call per customer even if they’re running 25 campaigns.  These processes are all run automatically in the wee hours of the morning and all the data is processed and ready to be looked at by the time I roll out of bed.  

Reporting

There are a few things to keep in mind when you report on this kind of data, since it does differ from standard transactional data.  First and foremost, you must always keep granularity in mind.

For an example, above, is the number of Active Campaigns that one of the Omniture marketing teams is running for the month of October (to see the results of some Omniture campaigns, you can play this game).  Keep in mind the state-nature of the report, and you can see that they’ve got around 100 campaigns running each day with some growth in the latter end of the month.  If I look at this on a weekly basis then it would tell me that there are around 700, which is obviously not correct (in addition to the misleading partial week).

Monthly suffers the same problem, but to the tune of 30k Active Campaigns.  In fact, any time period greater than a day dramatically inflates the numbers.  If this is all we had, our analysis potential would be rather limited, but not to worry.  To the rescue comes the Day Counter event that I mentioned a moment ago.  By creating a calculated metric that divides Active Campaigns by Total Day Counters (700 / 7 or 31,000 / 31), we get an Avg Active Campaigns metric that can be freely applied to any time frame.

Looking at the same report with my Avg metric yields the following:

Much better.  Much easier to see the overall trend here with the growth displayed nicely (and accurately).  The number of Active Campaigns this team is running is increasing over time.  The fact that they are running more and more campaign indicates to me that they are realizing the value of the product and are trying different tests to increase their ROI.  My hope is that as they complete one test they get some interesting results which drives one or more additional tests to increase learnings about their audience or to target particular content to a segment of their audience.

If you have any questions about how state-based measurement could apply to your business or need some help interpreting the results, feel free to email: ben / dot / robison / at / adobe / dot / com.  You can also find me on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ben_rob).

“With the BlackBerry Advertising Service, RIM plans to provide developers with access to a large pool of quality and innovative ad units from trusted top tier and specialty advertising networks such as Jumptap, Lat49, Millennial Media, Navteq, 1020 Placecast, Quattro Wireless and Sympatico.ca. The service will feature ads compliant with the Mobile Marketing Association’s (MMA) guidelines as well as rich media ads that will be able to deeply integrate with BlackBerry applications. Examples of this deep integration between ads and applications will include the ability to easily initiate a call from an ad, add a calendar entry or contact entry from an ad, and directly link to an application in BlackBerry App World™ from an ad. The service will also include real-time, detailed, consolidated reporting of advertising across ad networks, including ad impressions, clicks, conversions and earnings, as well as integration into the Omniture Online Marketing Suite™ for more advanced analytics.”

Many challenges advertisers and publishers have faced with respect to mobile advertising (low fill rates, low response, CPM/CPC rates misaligned with value, etc.) can be linked to treating mobile as just another screen for marketers to serve the same web content. Once the mobile channel is treated as a medium with unique capabilities, some pretty amazing things can happen as noted in this blog post about emerging mobile channels. The new RIM service has strategic significance for publishers and advertisers because it integrates deeply with capabilities unique to mobile while at the same time removing friction from developer implementation of advertising and end-user engagement with advertising. Here are four reasons the new RIM service makes sense:

Leverages action-oriented mobile environment
Natural orientation of mobile channels towards action-driven interactions (what’s the phone number for my favorite restaurant, when is the upcoming concert, how do I get from A to B) are reinforced with the new “click-to-action” ad types.

Provides high-value campaign response
Ultimately marketers want campaigns to produce a measurable impact on their desired audience. In a channel where users are already primed for action, the new RIM service provides ideal action-oriented ads. For example, event advertisers can deploy in-app ads which create a calendar event in the device’s calendar on ad click; or an ad for a local pizza company can create a contact in the address book which loyal customers can refer back to. In both scenarios, the action taken has much higher value than a click to a website.

Removes barriers gating ad deployment and user interaction
As usage trends for mobile services show, usability is key—in order to replicate the “add to calendar” scenario above without the RIM service, a user would:

click on in-app ad > be directed to website > copy event details > exit browser > launch calendar > paste event details > configure calendar entry > close calendar > re-launch app

For advertisements using the new RIM service, those steps can now occur from a single click inside the application, significantly reducing friction between the initial ad interaction and completion of desired engagement.  On the developer/publisher side, several steps have been removed from the process of integrating advertising into blackberry apps.

Enables analytic-based campaign optimization (pre and post “click”)
Finally, RIM has aligned analytics across the service so marketers can accurately assess effectiveness of campaigns. If you’ve sat on calls as I have where the publisher, platform provider, and advertiser/ advertising network are attempting to line up disparate motives and measurement methodologies, you understand how important having a single (unbiased) source of analytics is.

In summery, the new service has the potential to improve click-through rates, increase CPMs/CPCs, provide higher value to advertisers, and create a virtuous analytic-driven optimization cycle.

Q: You created ActionSource, Omniture’s tracking solution for Adobe Actionscript-based products. What were the business drivers behind ActionSource’s creation?

A: Omniture was actually an early leader in Flash tracking, having deployed a solution which interacted with analytics through JavaScript in the early days of Flash. This solution was a great start for us, helping a lot of our customers gain valuable insight into Flash based applications when it was considered impossible by most of our competitors. JavaScript was our standard mode of communication with Flash for several years.
I joined Omniture in 2004 after running a marketing agency focused on Rich Internet applications. I had been using Flash since version 3 and loved its ability to provide a rich experience that was not limited by the basic functions of web browsers. It offered an opportunity to do things a traditional web browser could never do. That is why it exploded across the Internet, and that is why Omniture needed a solution that could be as flexible as the Flash technology itself.

I helped a number of customers implement analytics in Flash using JavaScript, but quickly found that because the solution was not native to Flash, it lacked key functionality, and even caused some problems with user experience. The most important element missing from the JavaScript solution was the ability to run the solution independently - as intended with Flash. The flexibility to run a Flash based application in a browser, outside a browser, on your domain, in email, or across a distributed network and always have a consistent and rich experience is incredible. If the solution requires an external JavaScript library, this independence is gone. Another important problem with a solution not native to Flash, and using JavaScript is that when the analytics executes the JavaScript, there is extra processing required which often times causes a hiccup in animation or video playback and can cause a “click” sound in many browsers. Finally, there was also a workflow problem. A Flash developer was also required to build an HTML page and include a JavaScript library and scripts. This was never as simple as it might seem.

With the obvious limitations of a JavaScript solution for analytics in Flash, and my background in Rich Internet Applications, I started working on an alternative solution. At first, it was just for fun, but then I started working with companies like MTV, Lexus, GM, and others who wanted a bettertracking solution for their ever increasing use of RIAs. This created a priority, and I started working in earnest on an ActionScript solution. It was fun. I loved the thrill of reaching certain milestones.

When I had a working solution, I introduced it to Omniture and we started refining and packaging the solution for our customers. Our biggest milestone was when I introduced it at our annual user conference, the Omniture Summit. We had one of the biggest rooms at the conference and it was packed so full that people were standing all around the room. Customers were hungry for a solution that would match the incredible distribution freedom that Flash allowed.

We launched the official solution in the spring of 2006 and we saw tremendous adoption. Not only were customers able to understand their Flash based Rich Internet applications as never before, but because of the insight Omniture was able to provide, they had the confidence to deploy RIAs in mission critical areas of their sites. Omniture provided the analytics that enabled companies to use Flash in areas they had never before dared.

Referencing a 2007 Omniture Summit presentation - In 2006 Nike transitioned from all JSP based sites to Flash RIA based sites, and it was only through the native ActionScript solution from Omniture (named ActionSource) that they were able to have full visibility of mission critical metrics and visitor behavior across the application experience from load to purchase. The timing of the Omniture solution for Nike and other customers was perfect as RIAs using Flash really started to go mainstream.

Q: What’s the difference between ActionSource and standard javascript tagging?

A: Standard javascript tagging relies on a javascript file or library and scripts to accompany the Flash file wherever it is deployed in order to use analytics. The primary limit imposed by this approach is that the Flash application is no longer independent and easily distributed. In order to deploy the Flash file and get analytics with javascript, the two have to always be packaged together and this is a major problem with desktop applications like AIR or RIAs distributed across networks, via email, or embedded virally. In addition, the processing required for the javascript communication can cause poor user experience in rich media applications.
The Omniture ActionSource solution which uses native Flash ActionScript is part of the compiled Flash application, so it can seamlessly transmit analytics data wherever the application is displayed and without any impact on user experience.

Q: You’ve continued to innovate around RIA tracking at Omniture. How has ActionSource changed since you first created it?

A: ActionSource was originally intended to provide analytics for Rich Internet applications, primarily around loads, interactions, path analysis, visitor behavior and more. It has been enhanced to ensure compatibility with all versions of Flash, Flex, AIR, and any other Adobe solution which uses ActionScript, including mobile applications and other devices which use Flash Lite.

Omniture’s very talented engineering team now manages the ActionSource component and its ongoing improvements. Most notable of these improvements are media tracking for full analytics of video and audio playback, and integration with our optimization products. Now customers can not only understand the behavior of visitors using their applications, and how on and offline campaigns are influencing these, but they can also understand full streaming data, and using Test&Target they can test variations of their applications and create dynamic and self optimizing experiences within the applications.

These improvements are opening the doors to a whole new generation of Rich Internet Applications. It will be exciting to see what companies continue to do in leveraging these technologies.

Q: You attended and presented at AdobeMax 2009, what did you learn from the Adobe community?

A: It was refreshing to see the excitement and enthusiasm of those who were learning about how they can use analytics and optimization to lead a new evolution in Rich Internet Applications. I presented at the conference showing how analytics and optimization are integrated into RIAs, and the participants were fully engaged and very excited, particularly in the area of the analytics driven optimization. Many talked with me about how this was opening new revenue and creative channels for them. That is where innovation is driven.

The Adobe developers, designers, and creative managers have shaped the current Internet with their cutting edge ideas. As they leverage the new combined technologies of Omniture and Adobe, they will lead a new evolution in Rich Internet Applications based on real-time objective analytics and optimization.

Q: What’s next on your roadmap for Omniture?

A: Existing and future Omniture and Adobe customers will see a continued focus on analytics and optimization across all industries. Omniture is being run as a business unit within Adobe, focused on our core competency which is online optimization. The combination of Adobe and Omniture is a promise of more and better for all our customers, whether they are in retail, media, B2B, finance, travel, telecom, or any other industry. They will benefit from the combined opportunity of Omniture and Adobe. It is very exciting.

You can expect to see a lot of exciting convergences of the Omniture and Adobe technologies. Early on, we will see the existing ActionSource components for analytics and optimization included as options for streamlined instrumentation of these technologies in the Adobe development applications. The net result of this is that companies using Omniture technologies will continue to see the high standards of products and services they are used to, but they will also have opportunities to streamline implementations and improve communication and collaboration across their business units, even extending their ability to optimize their online and offline channels.

Adobe and Omniture are extremely innovative companies, with top talent across multiple industries. The innovations and integration opportunities we see today will be expanded many fold in the months to come as synergies between applications and processes are extended, and as customer feedback helps us find new opportunities.

Stay tuned, you will see a lot of incredible, and value oriented solutions come from Adobe with the Omniture technologies and services. Very exciting.

1. Don’t assume that all of your mobile users execute JavaScript

I don’t know what I would do without my JavaScript-enabled smart phone by my side, but not everyone shares my enthusiasm for constant connectivity and script execution. Measurement on mobile-specific sites should not be implemented using JavaScript. Omniture provides several approaches for implementing these initiatives without JavaScript including hard-coded image requests, server to server HTTP requests, and the Data Insertion API.

But what if you want to track mobile usage of your non-mobile web site? One option is to implement a hard-coded image request on your site using <NOSCRIPT> tags just below your SiteCatalyst JavaScript tags. For example:


/************* DO NOT ALTER ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE ! **************/
var s_code=s.t();if(s_code)document.write(s_code)//--></script>
<noscript><a href=”http://www.omniture.com” title=”Web Analytics”><img
src=”http://bengaines.112.2o7.net/b/ss/gainesweb/1/H.20.3–NS/41782378?gn=Mobile%20Home&g=http%3A%2F%2Fm.mysite.com%2Findex.html&ch=Home&c1=Mobile%20Traffic&ev=event1&v0=mobile_campaign&c1=blog”
height=”1″ width=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”" /></a></noscript>


If you don’t like this approach, but would still like to seize the mobile opportunity for your business, some excellent guidance can be found in a previous blog post by Adam Greco.

2. Don’t rely solely on cookies—and especially not on third-party cookies

Mobile measurement actually has some huge advantages in capturing visitor data. HTTP requests from a mobile devices often include special carrier headers that SiteCatalyst can use to distinguish visitors from one another. Because these parameters do not change and cannot be disabled or “cleared” (a la browser cookies), they are much more effective at identifying mobile visitors. And who doesn’t want their mobile visitor data to be as complete as possible?

To ensure that Omniture is leveraging these special headers first where available, make sure to include /5/ instead of /1/ in the path of the request. For example,

<img src="http://metrics.yoursite.com/b/ss/gainesweb/5/54781023478?gn=Mobile%20Home&g=http%3A%2F%2Fm.mysite.com%2Findex.html&ch=Home&c1=Mobile%20Traffic&ev=event1&v0=mobile_campaign&c1=blog" height="1" width="1" border="0" alt="Omniture image request" />

This tells SiteCatalyst to use these headers first, and to set cookies only if the headers are not available (where as /1/ causes cookies to be set and disregards header identification). You’ll get the same effect using the Measurement Libraries for JSP and PHP (which handle writing the Omniture image to the page—perfect for mobile!) to build your image requests by setting s.mobile = true, as explained in the documentation available in the Online Marketing Suite.

Beyond this, keep in mind that many mobile devices (such as the iPhone) have default settings configured to reject third-party cookies. Therefore, even if primarily using headers for visitor measurement, implement a first-party data collection domain for your mobile site. Using a third-party domain dramatically decreases the likelihood that a mobile device will play nice with your analytics efforts.

3. Don’t forget your Traffic Sources reports!

It’s nifty that a standard, out-of-the-box SiteCatalyst JavaScript implementation will automatically capture referrer data. This information serves as the basis for all of the reports in the Traffic Sources section of SiteCatalyst and Discover, and you don’t even have to do much of anything in order to populate the reports. Mobile implementation doesn’t capture this referrer information quite as easily, although making sure that you grab this data isn’t terribly difficult.

Your server will have access to the referrer (in PHP, for example, you can use the $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] variable), so you can simply write this value to the page in the image request. Here is an example of how this might look when finished:

<img src="http://metrics.yoursite.com/b/ss/gainesweb/5/54781023478?gn=Mobile%20Home&g=http%3A%2F%2Fm.mysite.com%2Findex.html&ch=Home&c1=Mobile%20Traffic&ev=event1&v0=mobile_campaign&r=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com/search?q=little+saplings+handmade+toys&c1=blog” height=”1″ width=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”Omniture image request” />

I should also mention here that the Measurement Libraries do this automatically.

The result is the ability to attribute mobile conversion and engagement to specific referrers, including search engines. Very important stuff!

4. Don’t leave out image attributes

The image tag should have attributes. Make sure to include a height and width of at least one pixel. You never want a border (I mean, unless you want a nice little box around the otherwise-transparent image returned by the Omniture servers), so set border=0. And don’t forget the “alt” attribute, which you can set to anything at all. Each of these is automatic when using s.mobile=true in the Measurement Libraries. Some devices will not successfully request and receive the Omniture image if these attribute are omitted.

5. Ensure image request parameters follow established naming conventions and syntax

As developers can attest, syntax is critical in implementation, and mobile implementation is no different. However, even experienced Omniture developers can get tripped up when setting up a mobile site because, rather than s.pageName, s.eVar1-50, s.products and the rest of the familiar group of variables, you are building variables directly into the query string of the image request using shorter, very specific parameters.

The full mapping of parameters to SiteCatalyst variables is available in published documentation, so I won’t reproduce it here. I will, however, issue a word of caution: make sure that you are using the desired parameter name exactly as written in the documentation! Take a look at the two image requests below.

Request 1

<img src="http://metrics.yoursite.com/b/ss/gainesweb/5/54781023478?gn=Mobile%20Home&g=http%3A%2F%2Fm.mysite.com%2Findex.html&ch=Home&c1=Mobile%20Traffic&ev=event1&v0=mobile_campaign&r=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com/search?q=little+saplings+handmade+toys&c1=blog” height=”1″ width=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”Omniture image request” />

Request 2

<img src="http://metrics.yoursite.com/b/ss/gainesweb/5/54781023478?gn=Mobile%20Home&g=http%3A%2F%2Fm.mysite.com%2Findex.html&ch=Home&c1=Mobile%20Traffic&ev=event1&v0=mobile_campaign&r=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com/search?q=little+saplings+handmade+toys&cl=blog” height=”1″ width=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”Omniture image request” />

Identical, right? Mostly. The difference is that the first request has “c1=blog” as a parameter. This would pass a value of “blog” into Custom Traffic (s.prop) 1. The second request is definitely not what the developer intended; there, we have “cl=blog” instead of “c1=blog.” The “cl” parameter controls cookie lifetime (the maximum amount of time that the s_vi cookie can remain on the user’s device. This variable is almost never set manually, and the default is five years; by inadvertently setting the cookie lifetime to “blog” (which makes no sense) the actual lifetime will be the session, rather than five years. This would, of course, dramatically inflate visit and visitor metrics and kill any conversion variable persistence every time the user closed his or her browser app. This might be an extreme example because “c1″ and “cl” happen to look so similar—the more common outcome, assuming that the erroneous parameter did not map to an actual variable—would be missing data in individual reports. Still, that outcome can be just as disastrous to your mobile initiatives. So make sure that the parameters in the request match the variables you intend to populate!

Okay, so this “top five” list probably isn’t as fun or philosophical as those recounted by Rob Gordon. . . but I can guarantee that it’s much better at helping you avoid pitfalls of mobile implementation in SiteCatalyst!

As always, please leave a comment with any questions, thoughts, or suggestions that you may have! I’m also available Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, or by e-mailing omniture care [at] omniture dot com.

Strategic Developments

Rapid expansion of mobile internet usage: Opera’s September State of the Mobile Web report pegs year-over-year US mobile page view and unique user growth at 309% and 123% respectively; Pew Internet reports daily mobile web users comprise 19% of all US adults (a 73% increase in 16 months)
Emergence of new mobile markets: rough estimates place the market size of Apple’s App Store at around $150 million annually
Mobile market share up for grabs: while Baidu is the clear leader in China for web searches, Google’s mobile investments have made competition nearly even for mobile searches in China

Opportunities

In school way back in 2000, my class reviewed a Harvard case study which centered on the impact of new internet brokerage firms like E*TRADE on Charles Schwab. The case debated whether Schwab should chase the internet leaders or stick to its core “brick & motor” business, forgoing internet channels entirely.

Some students at the time maintained Schwab shouldn’t invest at all in internet channels—rather they should focus on their “high touch” positioning since their best clients weren’t currently engaged with online channels. Fast-forward ten years and the class debate looks pretty archaic, until you consider a recent review of the top 100 internet brands which contends that only 1 in 3 brands has an effective mobile web presence (incidentally, Schwab and E*TRADE both got it right).

While the recent review had considerable subjectivity in the way “effective mobile web presence” was measured, my personal experience validates that many brands are still sitting on the sidelines. Businesses not engaging users in the mobile channel bring us back to the old debate—”should we build a [mobile] website?”.

These businesses should be warned—brand dominance in the mobile space is not a foregone conclusion. Recent search engine market share data from China (as reported by Analysys International) shows Baidu, the leading search engine, has not maintained its dominant position in mobile search. In fact, several providers with virtually non-existent market share for standard web search have captured a significant proportion of the mobile search market (e.g. 3GYY).

Emergence of completely new business models and markets is also creating significant business opportunity. A case in point is the iTunes App Store. Rough estimates place the paid app market within the iTunes app store at $150 million annually—not shabby for a market that didn’t exist 2 ½ years ago!

Explosive growth of mobile web usage, business innovation in the mobile sector, and uneven investment by the dominant players in the traditional web has unfrozen market share and created completely new business models, revenue streams, and growth opportunities. All of these factors are reminiscent of internet growth from ten years ago—is your business still partying like it’s 1999?

Sources:
http://www.opera.com/smw/2009/09/
http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/Wireless-Internet-Use.pdf
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/171371/ googlebaidu_rivalry_goes_mobile_in_china.html
http://www.marketreportchina.com/market/article/content/3376/200908/206975.html