Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Driving further adoption of e-Government with Analytics

We focus a good deal of our time talking about the lessons learned in the public sector and how they apply to e-Government. I was fortunate to have had an opportunity to contribute some of our views to Business and Technology recently and I’m re-posting the article on my blog as well. Please feel free to share your opinions and thoughts.

The original article can be found here: Business & Technology

Citizens cast a vote every time they visit a government web site – but not for a candidate or ballot measure. Rather, they are indicating what they need from their government and how well the government is meeting their needs. While these votes may not be as purposeful or explicit as a check mark on an election ballot, they do offer a directive that can be quantified and used to improve government services.

With interaction in a Government domain, four main activities take place; information is shared across the internet, a two-way communication between the agency and the citizen is established, online transactions and online governance is conducted.

When citizens can’t find what they need on a government web site, they often end up calling help lines or visiting government offices, increasing agency service costs and the frustration of these citizens.

Mass adoption of e-Government

As many government agencies have discovered, e-government services are not a field of dreams that once built, people will come to and embrace. Even when several federal government web sites have managed to gain awareness, online registration begins to dwindle after years of growth and web developers are unable to uncover the reason for the decline.

Web analytics are a crucial tool in helping organization and government agencies gather additional insight that help identify online communications opportunities and goals.

An experienced web analytics partner, dedicated to e-government solutions, will be able to provide invaluable analytics insight and consultative guidance to better understand and serve diverse audiences online with the efficiency, transparency and interactive engagement that is increasingly expected.

Key to good web analytics is a system which provides short-term and ongoing assistance, in compliance with privacy policies, facilitate agencies in understanding citizens’ changing needs, and provide a simplified view of analyzing sophisticated data.

Adapting to Citizens’ needs

As the Gen Y, a term coined for people born in the late 1980s, enters the workforce and attain voting rights, e-Government portals will witness a surge in usage from this “online savvy” population. Being well-versed in the workings of the internet, this generation of adults will demand faster, well-tailored and interactive mobile and websites from the government.

Web Analytics help drive site optimization and precise segmentation by offering the most accurate and current visitor information, enabling agencies to continuously adapt their web sites to the evolving needs and preferences of their audience. It helps identify and determine the needs of different citizen groups, including differences in the online services or assistance sought by people in different districts.

Individualized tracking also helps web analytics to determine and advice on tailored usage of the website. Each unique visitor is identified and determined by the click-level on any number of links, promotions or content, and this result is used to help determine which web site pages and elements are attracting most attention and driving traffic most efficiently.

Citizen-driven site optimization can save visitors time and encourages increased use of online services. It can also reduce follow-up calls to telephone support or in-person requests at government offices.

Privacy policy compliance

While it is ideal to be able to freely attain and store visitors’ information for web analytics, government agencies face extreme pressure to maintain the privacy and security of the citizen data online. Government agencies should maintain complete control and ownership of all customer data, and be able to tailor information gathering according to the needs and privacy expectations of their visitors.

A on-premise software or On Demand software as a service (SaaS) has been shown to be viable method which enables agencies to secure the data collected using user IDs and passwords, and even biometric security appliances. Agencies should also ensure that its Web Analytics provider undergoes a third-party security audit on a frequent basis.

Another issue on eGovernment web analytics which has gained some media attention is the proper use of cookies in government web sites, allegedly some of which has been reported as a violation of regulations. Cookies are small text files containing a long unique string of characters given to web browser by the web server. This file is sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server, identifying users as unique and tying together their actions. There are procedures to follow to gain exception to technology guidelines and agencies are encouraged to gain a thorough understanding of the documents with their assigned governing body.

Web analytics solution providers offer customers a broad range of alternatives ranging from using no cookies, using session-based cookies, using session parameters or using persistent cookies. Unique first-party cookies are the most accurate and privacy-conscious method of visitor identification for both software and hosted solutions. In place of a third-party cookie, which is served to the visitor’s browser by a web analytics vendor, a first-party cookie is served to the visitor’s browser directly from the web site’s domain.

Third-party cookies are increasingly blocked from being set on user’s machines due to settings in web browsers and other applications, so by utilizing a first-party cookie, the server can ensure more accurate metrics and minimize privacy concerns.

Making sophisticated analytics manageable

Being able to measure and quantify site traffic requires certain computational techniques and IT tools, but the ability to simplify and analyse the data obtained in a context relevant to government agencies demands a dedicated team of consultants who work exclusively with government agencies and organizations. Being versed in the analytics and communications challenges that governments face today, they can provide short-term and ongoing assistance in the essential areas.

With the current advancement in the web analytics industry, government agencies should expect the following from their vendor.

* Governance: Best practices for capturing and maintaining data consistently and producing accurate analysis
* Key Performance Indicator (KPI): Metrics that help align web site investments with agency goals, and provide objective measures of web site success
* Scorecards: Combined performance data from online and offline sources to get a more holistic view of web site visitors
* Reports: Customized overviews of the data and services trends which allow every member of an organization to dynamically filter, drill into and query their reports in an interactive reporting console.
* Dashboards: Keep up to date on important performance data and metrics in one single vie
* Analytics adoption: Training and guidance for individuals throughout the organization on how to access analytics data and create reports
* Independent analytics: Advanced training and guidance on how to access data and create reports without assistance from technicians or analysts

* Link: businesstechnology.in//2009/09/22/Web-Analytics-to-drive-further-adoption-of-e-Government.1.html

Published
by
jascha kaykas-wolff
on September 23, 2009
in Updates
. 0 Comments

5 Ground rules for marketing campaigns

A few weeks into any campaign it’s natural to start to ask questions.

  • What kind of successes are we seeing?
  • Are there failures?
  • Any surprises?
  • What should we change?
  • Should we keep going?

Because of the sheer volume of participants in digital campaigns it can sometimes be hard to nail down the details. It’s no small task to get an objective view; marketing managers may have a different view of the progress than the creative director, and so forth. How do you make sense of it all? Each business we work with and those that we study do it slightly differently, however, we’ve found ground rules that work well for our business at Webtrends:

  • Accountability – Yin & Yang
  • Empowerment – Swift, bold, responsible
  • Iteration – Make many mistakes, just never the same one twice
  • Communication – Find the right vehicles, pick a cadence, do it one better
  • Optimization – Let the customers and data guide you

Create the yin and yang of accountability

Balance is key and should be anchored with singular owner of the campaign (for our Open Campaign that is Mylissa) and a singular owner for the utilization of data for experimentation (for us that is Elizabeth). Collaboration is incredibly important in multiple phases of the campaign but a single owner needs to have accountability for it’s overall success and/or failure. This functional leads on the team set direction, takes feedback and give advice to the campaign owner who is responsible for making decisions on what to keep and what to change. Their senior counsel, the campaign’s left brain, work together harmoniously to make decision making possible.

Empowerment is an often overlooked aspect of campaign management

Senior management must unshackle the campaign owner from traditional operational processes of conditional approvals to conditional approvals. With the speed of change and availability of data so typically in digital marketing campaign the campaign manager must be able to quickly make decisions, and fail, until ultimately success is achieved. Remove the HIPPO from the equation is one way we describe it internally. That isn’t to say management should be involved and directive, they should. They shouldn’t, however, inhibit the campaign owner from acting swiftly, making bold decisions and, of course, being responsible.

Never be afraid to fail

Just don’t fail the same way twice. The foundational requirement to iterate changes the way a campaign runs. The creative services team (and most likely your web development team) are truly never done. Another interesting, and important shift, is that the creative services number one partner and advocate is the campaign’s left brain, the owner of data utilization. Find a pace that is manageable for the team….more of a jog than a sprint…and try more and different options.

Don’t ever underestimate the vacuum that is created when communications don’t happen frequently enough

The campaign owner should prescribe an internal communications plan with similar detail to anything done outbound. The baseline communications plan created will almost never be adequate. Plan on communicating more than what you planned and use all the vehicles at your disposal (email, in person, dashboards, etc.).

Rely on your data

We collect data to use it, so be confident in it. Even (especially) when it tells you something you didn’t want to hear. Let tools like Optimize and Analytics represent what they are, the voice of your customer through their recorded actions.

Feedback

How are we doing with our own ground rules?

Ok.

We are excelling in most areas as a marketing team but we haven’t been as strong as we need to be with internal communications. I’m looking forward to doing a deep dive on what we’ve learned about the Open Campaign to date and how that will play a role in the coming weeks.

Published
by
jascha kaykas-wolff
on September 8, 2009
in Updates
. 2 Comments

Celebrating progress and innovation

What would the Sistine Chapel look like if it was evolved, real-time, with patron's feedback?

What would the Sistine Chapel look like if it was evolved, real-time, with patron's feedback?

For Webtrends, it has indeed been a busy summer. As we enter these last few days of August, a period when all the excitement and activity that has occurred over the past few months could take a waning toll on enthusiasm, Webtrends is not winding down and simply reflecting on the launch of Analytics 9 as the “release that was.” Having fully embraced the agile development model, we continue to focus our energy on collecting feedback from our customers and innovating with our products ahead of the next release.

Phil Kemelor recently posted his thoughts on Analytics 9, appropriately titled “Webtrends: A Busy Summer for Analytics.” It was a nicely written and balanced piece. Phil’s post made note that he was waiting for more from Analytics 9 and Webtrends. As we’ve done over the last year, we are happy to take the ball from him here and continue to drive forward.

With Analytics 9, the foundation has been laid on a canvas from which we’ll continue to paint. This phased approach to our product is a conscience decision and I want to reinforce that. It’s been great to see the positive feedback from folks within the industry and our customers. It’s motivating to have encouragement to introduce more powerful, more elegant, and more open products. We have heard you, we are listening now, and we will continue to deliver.

Last April, during our annual customer event, Webtrends Engage, we broadcasted the view we all had of Webtrends, within Webtrends, to the industry. More importantly we made a promise to change the way people and organizations view and make sense of their data. As the first web analytics company, it makes sense for us to take on this initiative, and since those few days with our valued customers and partners in Las Vegas back in early spring, Webtrends has announced the availability of Webtrends Social Measurement, provided a benchmark for measuring the effectiveness of a digital marketing campaign, introduced The Open Campaign, acquired a leading multivariate testing and site optimization company – Widemile, and yes, released Analytics 9.

As we roll into the fall coming off one of the busiest and most exciting periods we’ve experienced as a company, we’re looking forward to delivering more on our promise.

Published
by
jascha kaykas-wolff
on September 8, 2009
in Updates
. 0 Comments