A Dozen Take-Aways from Webtrends Customers about Analytics On Demand

I moderated a panel at Engage 2013 today and interviewed three Webtrends customers about their measurement strategies and how they use Webtrends Analytics On Demand in support of those strategies.

Three leaders in analytics and measurement –  Susan Schultze, Project Leader at 3M, Kevin Jemison, Digital Analytics Architect at Hilton Worldwide and Charles Yoo, Media Analytics Manager at Thomson Reuters –  shared their stories, for which I thank them. They represent three companies in three different industries spanning B2B and B2C. We covered topics from designing a measurement strategy, to democratizing data, to managing Webtrends within your enterprise and using digital intelligence beyond reports.

Each of these companies has different priorities for their analytics and measurement discipline, but throughout the discussion, a few key take-aways surfaced that were broadly applicable.

Here are twelve really important points made by our panelists:

1. Align your measurement strategy around the goals of your business. It must meet the needs of your stakeholders. When starting out, ask stakeholders, “What are you trying to get from data.” Analysts need to think like a marketer.
2. Build a solid foundation first. Look beyond simply the metrics and reports – gain a holistic understanding of why something was created and what business questions you want to answer.
3. Governance must be incorporated into your measurement strategy from the start. More formalized governance processes and policies are needed in order to scale.
4. Integrate mobile and social within your measurement strategy early. A holistic approach is needed in the foundation.
5. A few important skills for digital analysts – listening skills, analytics skills & supportive skills.
6. Communication and education is critical – be clear about what you are delivering and to whom.
7. Data democratization has many forms. Understand your internal customers and use the tools that work best for them from Webtrends Analytics 10 dashboards to BI tools.
8. Webtrends Analytics On Demand enables the population of executive dashboards and BI tools via REST – a great way to combine Webtrends data with other 3^rd party data for consumption by executive management.
9. Use Voice of Customer as an important aspect to influence and validate your measurement strategy.
10. Competitive intelligence must be integrated into your measurement strategy. Be sure you are not just measuring performance relative to yourself, but also to your competition.
11. Executives need more than just a report card – they need context to help decision making. “Data without context is meaningless.”
12. A measurement strategy is not a one-time event. It needs to be continuously iterated upon and kept current.

Thank you again to our esteemed panelists from 3M, Hilton and Thomson Reuters for their extremely insightful comments and for taking the time to be part of Webtrends Engage!