What is Big Data and how can it be applied for marketing?
It seems "Big Data" should be firmly on the agenda for business improvement according to all the major analyst firms. But what is Big Data? How does it differ from traditional data management and business intelligence?
In this post I summarise the view of three experts I talked to about "Big Data", asking how business can apply it.
What is the scope of big data?
Andy Mendelsohn, Senior VP of Database Server Technologies at Oracle.
One way to think about the scope of big data and how it fits in with previous data technologies is to consider the automobile industry, suggests Andy Mendelsohn. “Henry Ford invented the Model T 100 years ago,” he argues. “Today, Ford makes cars, and they have much better engines, and they have their full sensors and computer systems. But at the end of the day, they're still cars.…
How Facebook Test and Improve
It’s interesting to see recent details of how Facebook are now testing changes to their experience and ads using the vast amount of data at their disposal. I’ve been taking a look and thinking what this means for smaller businesses without this data and resource.
Facebook recently disclosed in a briefing on how it uses Big Data that its system processes a mind-boggling 2.5 billion pieces of content and 500+ terabytes of data each day. It’s processing 2.7 billion Like actions and 300 million photos per day, and it scans roughly 105 terabytes of data each half hour.
I’ve been reading about how they manage this in the Facebook engineering blog in this post by Andrew (Boz) Bosworth who is the Director of Engineering at Facebook and is naturally from Harvard and FWIW looks a cool dude!
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Using AlternativeTo to find better ways of working
If you are anything like me, you like to find new tools and ways to improve what you are doing. Software, apps and online services are often ways to aid in process changes, but searching the web, looking for reviews etc can make this task very boring and costly (from a time perspective).
In this post, I'm recommending AlternativeTo (www.alternativeto.net), a site recently introduced to me. For any service you're already using, it will give you a user rated list of alternative apps, software and services to trial and use instead.
Another example of where this tool is relevant is if you are making the switch from PC to Mac (one I would recommend) you might want to find a similar tool you use on the PC for a Mac. Using the search, filters, categories & tags it is easy to what you are looking…
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July 24, 2012
Step Two - Talk
In this article we continue to explain the 6-step Conversion Architecture model we discussed in Part 1, which dealt with Step One – “Analyse”. This 6-step process has been developed over the last 10 years of our work to become the foundation of all our clients’ projects.
Step Two - Talk
If step one focused on data analysis from analytics, the ‘talk’ phase is all about the human analysis. In other words, you’ve perused all the hard stats, now you need to gain a more qualitative insight.
You are not the audience for your website. Looks obvious when it’s written down, but I see websites every day that have clearly been created with little consideration for the customer.
You need to understand your audience so you can construct a targeted strategy. I mean, truly understand them. You can look…
How to convert more B2B prospects
In the entire history of business you have never been able to access as much data as you can now, thanks to the plethora of analytics programs around.
And, today you can find out more about your customers than you could a few months ago - because analytics software is constantly being upgraded.
In fact, companies are now swimming with so much data that analysing it in any meaningful way is often too difficult.
Which vital data is unavailable from analytics?
According to the business intelligence company, BuiltWith, Google Analytics is by far the most popular service; used by just under half the top one million websites worldwide.
Google Analytics presents each site with thousands of pages of up-to-date information covering every aspect of their current and historical website use - in other words, what people did.
There is, however,…
wherever in the world you are...
We're about to take a bit of a break, so we thought we'd say "Hope you enjoy your break".
I'd also like to say a big "thanks" to all who have shared ideas on marketing better through posts, comments and shares over the year. We're looking forward to sharing more of the latest insights with your help next year.
We would also like to thank all the talented folk who worked hard to create the new SmartInsights.com including designers Anna Weaver and Chris Leach of First 10, Paul Rouke of usability company PRWD, plus James Wray and Alasdair Wightman. Thanks guys!
Introducing Clicky Analytics
We've covered a lot of tools to help with analysis and planning, so will end the year with one more recommendation. Since we've launched the new site we've started using the excellent Clicky alongside Google Analytics. Here's an idea of where our site visitors are…
Using the 4Ps of the marketing mix to give context to decision makers
Most web analytics departments in large companies are now using data to report on their online marketing performance. Navigational patterns, conversion funnels, and marketing channels have come to be the focus of most of these reports.
But what happens after these analyses are distributed? "Analytics ninjas" may comprehensively understand what is happening with their website, but do other organizational members? Who is viewing these analyses and do they have the propensity to act on the data insights?
Producing analytics reports is not a simple process, but involves numerous company resources. From technical departments for the implementation and deployment of web analytics to different levels of marketing management to adapt reports to business objectives, the whole process is undertaken whilst dealing with multiple assets and data sources.
Such big investment is always undertaken with the objective of reporting financial growth, but it…
Dave's talk at TradeDoubler UK 2011 Digital Marketing Summit
The title of this talk is natural since presentation was for a "performance marketing" audience who use TradeDoubler for affiliate and search management.
I hope it's particularly helpful for folks running transactional site marketing - the examples are from retail, financial services and travel.
But I hope the case study on mobile marketing, suggestions on strategy and the 10 tips on Google Analytics are helpful for other digital marketing folks.
Maximizing Online Performance by Dave ChaffeyView more presentations from Dave Chaffey.…
Our suggestions on getting more from your web analytics
Rather than just looking at predictions or trends in analytics, I've tried to make these practical to show quick wins or changes to your digital strategy which can help get better results.
5 success factors for your web analytics in 2011
Since we're big advocates of using Google Analytics, we've tried to apply many of these practical suggestions to Google Analytics.
1. Make Smarter use of your analytics.
(more…)…
A detailed case study showing how Dell structure their customer experience and improvement programme worldwide
Value: [rating=5]
Added Jan 2011: The commitment of Dell to improving sales and experience through a measured approach is shown since have 25 dedicated people doing A/B and MV tests, not counting several others who support them. This was reported on Twitter by @anilbatra who was listening to Dell present at a Web Analytics Assocation symposium in Austin.
Our commentary: Presented at Emetrics Washington DC in 2010, this 36 slide presentation entitled "From Good to Great" shows how Dell have evolved their analytics capability as shown in the diagram. It shows that the move to digital optimisation doesn't occur overnight.
Marketing implications: This case shows the strategic importance Dell attach to web analytics and how it supports their vision for the digital channel. It shows…
