You Say, "Creepy." I Say, "That's What I Want"
Personalization vs. privacy. Behavioral targeting vs. big brother. When does it get creepy?
It's rare that I catch myself being a full-fledged consumer. I'm not talking about the guy who has not spent the last 25 years in sales and marketing - the guy who has not spent studying and writing books and lecturing about online marketing since 1993 - the guy who does not climb all over every random video to bask in the glory of the Old Spice Guy. But it happened again today.
Econsultancy's Peer Summit: What we learned.
Econsultancy held its first American Peer Summit this week, and we
learned a lot from the marketers who gathered in New York at the
Metropolitan Pavilion.
We brought together about 100 digital marketers from such brands as Conde Nast, The Wall Street Journal, JP Morgan and Yahoo, and sat them down together to discuss their issues and upcoming plans in roundtable discussion led by experts on such topics as email marketing, social media, user experience and site optimization.
It was an off-the-record event, but there were some themes that continued to pop up. Many digital marketers at large brands are seeing a shift in acceptance of online marketing in their companies, though getting their online and offline teams to cooperate on advertising buys and large decision-making is still an uphill battle.
Q&A: Web metrics magician Jim Sterne
It's unlikely anyone in digital marketing is unfamiliar with Jim Sterne. His career as a marketer, author, conference chair, speaker, and above all, web metrics guru has earned him international renown and respect. Jim will deliver one of three keynotes at Econsultancy's Peer Summit in New York in October, so we caught up with him to find out what he'll be sharing with the audience, and what's been on his mind lately in terms of how metrics can help build organizations.
Q: So, what are you going to be discussing at your Peer Summit keynote?
A: My favorite topic these days is using Web metrics to drive the business. What I mean by that is most people are using Web analytics as a benchmark: how did we do yesterday, and how are we doing today? Smart people are actually analyzing to optimize their website. The advanced people are using Web data to optimize all of their marketing. They're measuring what's happening on their website to inform the rest of their marketing. So when Best Buy does a television ad about Twitter, that's what I'm talking about. Really good companies - and I've only come across a couple of them - are actually using it to drive their business. In other words, watching behavior online to determine what new products or features or territories to move in to.
