The sky seems like the limit when a business plans its mobile presence. Customers are increasingly using mobile devices to first access a retailer website and most likely make a purchase. Analytics, when applied correctly, can provide new insights for personalized offers and customer engagement. But to avoid storm clouds, retailers should conduct due diligence on how their analytic tracking could inadvertently breech privacy laws.
First generation mobile devices made such an avoidance easy. They were not designed to use cookies -- text files placed on a user's computer to recognize browser activity. Because cookie use is at the heart of many privacy issues, smartphones were initially exempt.
However, smartphones today have technological features that rival laptops, with browsers that use cookies. Smartphone users expect that their mobile experience will match that of a PC in terms of privacy maintenance. As a consequence, retailers must be as clear with analytics opt-ins for mobile devices as they are for a standard computer.
Analytic inconsistency, however, challenges that retailer objective. Measurement across varied mobile operating systems can overlook capability differences, giving a false indicator of which privacy measures would best match the typical mobile-base site visitor arrival.
Web analytic solutions can usually capture metrics from smartphones that support Javascript and cookies, but data from older, non-Javascript supported phones can be disregarded. This means a customer segment that does not carry the latest phones can be overlooked for privacy plans that are typically forward-thinking in strategy.
Another challenge is a compromised visitor experience, even before a privacy measure is applied. A Georgia Tech study, which was cited by TechJournal.org, noted that many browsers do not display secure socket layer (SSL) indicators or even https in a URL. This omission can leave users susceptible to revealing cookies and passwords to a copycat site instead of a legitimate destination. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of a visitor's experience is critical to preventing phishing attempts.
Finally, geographic regulations complicate compliance further. Depending on the location of the host server, a website must reveal its cookie usage and analytics intention. The EU Act, for example, requires European-based website hosts to provide site visitors opt-in choices before collecting and processing personal identifiable data in cookie-based measurement solutions.
Germany presents a more detailed compliance issue. It requires website owners to provide an opt-out for IP address collection. But many mobile phones use varying IPs that are not related to the phone itself -- some are gateways to providers, while networks even share IP access. Marketers can become uncertain if an identified IP is revealing a person or a system, and if a compliance breech is occurring:
Best practices to minimize risks
All these factors mean that retailers can have varied mobile customer privacy risks. To minimize breeches, retailers can enact the following practices for customer data safety:
Retail marketers can run a trial mobile campaign and see where potential difficulties can occur. A consideration of how visitors navigate through their mobile devices will ultimately give an opportunity for a secure online experience.
(This is an updated version of my original post for Digital Canvas Retail, posted Feb 2013)
This comparison of paid search vs. organic search takes a light hearted look at the "war" between paid search and organic search. Created by Wordstream, the infographic is meant to explain how paid search is increasingly influencing the consumer decision to click, and thus the click through rate.
This also illustrates some of the reasoning behind Google's removal of organic search keywords in analytics reporting - the words are available in Adwords manager. Thus users will be more inclined to create a comprehensive search engine marketing program. SEM has been part of digital marketer toolkit for years, but there were many business that avoided paid search, assuming that SEO would carry all their marketing needs. As the factoids indicate in this infographic, deploying paid search strategically can build a potentially more effective presence in a search result. Read below to learn more.
These days it seems like every organization uses social media in one form or another. As adoption into business strategies heighten, evaluating internal metrics like Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can feel social, too.
Used with internal and strategic business measures, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) always contain numbers that are contextual in nature. Rates, ratios, and percentages are great examples of relating one number in a metric to another.
Context for relating metrics have shifted to include more than traditionally internal business operations. Over the last few years, as social media platforms have attracted daily users, new ways to influence customers with media have multiplied. For example, customers are long accustomed to downloading a pdf has been long established. But there are now multiple ways to display pdf content, from appearing in a Slideshare profile for a business to within a Linked In profile of a key employee. The bottom line for many businesses, including banks, is more online exposure of sales methodologies - ones that were once circulated on internal channels.
Another consequence is an increased attribution complexity among influences. Assigning traffic sources to campaigns can be blurred. Thus, the context of what is being measured becomes difficult to answer questions as to if a KPI is really valuable.
To better assess context, consider evaluating KPIs against the dimensions of social media where possible. Dimensions are essentially the “location” at which a metrics records. So matching that “location” to business objectives forces a clear understanding of the business and some reasoning to what is possible (or what good questions can be asked.)
For example, take raw numbers or simple integers. Social media adaptation has made number of tweets or likes popular reporting data. Numbers are especially used to justify “Reach” – the volume of people contacted in a campaign. But numbers alone are ineffective as KPIs. They lack context to indicate a metric’s value relative to a desired effect.
Comparing raw numbers in a relevant time period to a business’s operations can provide KPI-compatible metrics that can properly compare one social media platform’s value to another. So comparing platforms by visits can be adjusted to visits/month or a delta to determine which platform experienced the most response. Regression modeling of such data against other data sources is also a useful technique to determine influential relationships.
The need to adjust KPIs is evolving. According to eMarketer, marketers are increasingly studying ways to measure across platforms. Survey respondents who integrate cross channel data increased from 72% to 86%. This is notable particularly as interest in social media ROI grows.
Raw numbers do have their place in analysis. But by placing attention of numerals to ratio and time periods, bank marketing analyst can make metrics more relatable to KPIs essential to business objectives….and gain more from social media interaction analysis.
Website testing can influence the budget for website maintenance. Yet many businesses under-estimate the costs involved. Monetate provides a view of the cost in this infographic.
Monetate Marketing Infographics
Customer relationship management has always been a valuable business intelligence asset. A growth in mobile marketing has enhanced that value further than many marketers could have imagined.
Some digital solutions have contained long-standing features that have been relatively dormant when it comes to immediate utility.
Take geolocation reporting in web analytics. Web analytic solutions have been available for years, permitting analysts to discover regions from which website traffic arrives consistently. Developing strategies for those regions, however, have been limited to search engine marketing (SEM) and the imagined purpose from the analyst.
Paid search ads in a SEM campaign connect announced banking services to a customer's view through a laptop at home.
Enter mobile devices. Tablets and smartphones have further perfected digital marketing strategy. With mobile, businesses can scale message exposure while coordinating their responses along the chosen marketing channels.
Digital advertising networks have taken advantage of that scale. For example, Google improved Adwords, an ad service once reserved for laptop search, with filters for device, operating systems, and blending with other Google services such as Google Maps. The Location Extension feature can display retail sites in a Google map alongside an Adwords mobile ad. Enhanced campaigns provide adjustments of where an ad can be shown relative to search conducted on a smartphone, a tablet, or desktop.
With these features, the marketing challenge comes clear. A once-singular connection between a business and a PC in a living room has morphed into digital marketing alternatives that can potentially draw customers in a multitude of ways.
Mobile marketing capability has consequentially increased the strategic value of CRMs. CRM data can reveal the best decisions between where website traffic is currently arriving versus where mobile media should be placed.
By having analysts compare analytics data to customer locations, businesses can tailor appropriate offers to the customers who will most likely respond. For example, a CRM can link to a website lead capture form. Comparing geolocation search traffic patterns to collected CRM contacts can indicate ideas for media that attracts new customer leads or strengthens branding for prospective customers.
Mobile conversions
The end result is increased marketing conversions from on-the-go customers. Google once noted in a study that most customers are willing to take action when receiving local-specific marketing. Tying a unique appeal to customers within a region is certainly possible with a CRM and mobile campaign.
Establishing a customer connection based on CRM data requires proactive privacy protection. To do so, managers should understand when identifiable information is added to an analysis. Doing so can prevent abuse of analytic solution safeguards.
The terms of service for Google Analytics, for example, forbids pulling data that can identify an individual. So managers should know how CRM data is used for a model in which its data is combined with an analytics solution.
Nevertheless, planning geolocation with CRM-related data can lead to an effective mobile campaign. A good plan can stretch marketing dollars further. In fact, mobile ads are affordable relative to standard search ads -- at least for now. Google's Larry Page has suggested the cost gap may not last long.
The newly introduced Hummingbird algorithm may refocus businesses on including paid search to analyze keyword contribution to conversion. Bing, Google's main competitor in the paid search space, has introduced its own enhanced campaign feature. The competition from Bing raises the stakes just as social media platforms Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram are all adding their own interpretation of advertising.
But until that day when the mobile ad pricing is raised, businesses relying on CRMs for any mobile program have the best advantages for marketing and budget.
Need a few events to network and learn the latest trends in Analytics. Stephane Hamel (@SHamelCP) of Cardinal Path has created a great list of annual events that focus on analytics and big data issues of the day. You can click on each event on Hamel's List.ly post (click here to see the analytics events list). It's a solid list, with worthwhile events such as the eMetrics summit (founded by Jim Sterne). Check it out if you are looking for other resources that can raise your big data or business intelligence wisdom.
