eMetrics 2004 Summary. Learning 1. CPM/BPM/MPM

I have just returned to the office from The London E-metrics 2004 summit (www.emetrics.org). I attended to listen to the likes of Amazon, Argos, HP and MSN share best practice and it was a great event for hearing what's happening at the leading edge/bleeding edge.

I picked up lots of insights of how these companies are using web analytics and personalisation technologies to drive returns form their online channels. Rather than these learnings being lost I will be writing them up for incorporation into future books/workshops, etc.

So, I thought I may as well share them with the forum also. Since there were quite a few learnings, I will be writing them up gradually and posting one a week or so. I hope it doesn't seem as if I'm spamming the forum and I hope some of my learnings are useful to others.

Learning 1. CPM/BPM/MPM
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I know marketers don't tend to be fans of TLAs (try Googling define:TLA) , but I was pleased to hear that CPM, BPM and MPM were referred to a couple of times at the event.

I have just finished a book on Business Information Management and I looked a lot at the growing usage of measurement frameworks and tools to improving business and marketing performance. So, what do these TLAS stand for?
- CPM = Corporate Performance Management (or measurement or cost per 1000 ad impressions)
- BPM = Business Performance Management (or measurement)
- MPM = Marketing Performance Management (or measurement)

At the event there was a presentation by Don O'Sullivan of University of Cork talking about the work of the CMO Council (http://www.cmocouncil.org/) and specifically the marketing performance management audit.

The presentation was useful since it showed that a structured approach to measurement is even rarer in general marketing than e-marketing with a survey reporting very few companies adopting a structured approach to measurement. It also showed that many common issues are shared. Don suggested the essential requirements for MPM are:
* Align business/marketing objectives/metrics.
* Buy-in/metrics agreement by key stakeholders.
* Standardize user-friendly process across functions/organization.
* Cross-functional MPM process integration.
* Correlate metrics to business success.
* Invest in MPM process, data integration, measurement tools, and staff dedicated to MPM.
* Develop real-time output.

Exactly the same as the needs of those struggling with web analytics!

This focus on performance management in business arises from adoption of the Balanced Scorecard since the early 1990s and efforts to improve the quality of manufactured products and reduce defects in other processes, most evident at the moment as Six Sigma (www.isixsigma.com).

Why is this relevant to web analytics? Well, at the event there were around 20 vendors who were almost exclusively offered web-centred products. Many of these tools have great capabilities for operational reporting on customer behaviour, campaign analysis and traffic volumes, but they don't tend to have strategic reporting of contribution of online marketing to the business (although some of the higher-end tools do offer integration to legacy / ERP systems to achieve this).

I believe the vendors are, to some extent, reinventing the wheel when business intelligence tools for summarising business performance and alerting managers to variations in KPIs from plan have existed for a long time. Think Cognos (www.cognos.com) and Business Objects (www.businessobjects.com). I think the type of visualisation and exception reporting/alerting tools long available in these products would greatly benefit web marketers and we are starting to see tactical dashboards offered in a lot of web analytics products. Interestingly, there was a representative from Pilot Software (www.pilotsoftware.com) at the event who are one of the first vendors I know who of offer a solution bridging both traditional BPM/MPM and web analytics.

I guess it's also relevant from a budgeting sense since the web analytics solutions could tap into budgets available for BPM and management reporting.

If anyone's still reading, a good place to find out more is Andy Neely's Performance Measurement association at Cranfield (http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/cbp/pma/). Their periodic newsletter has some great articles in it.

Dave Chaffey
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Internet Marketing trainer, consultant and author
eResources and Books: www.marketing-online.co.uk
Blog: www.davechaffey.com