Dr. John F. Tanner Jr. at Baylor University has written an article about how online data misleads marketers if it's isolated from offline channel data. As an example he sites popular outdoor retailer Cabela’s, where shoppers may place an item in an online cart as many as three times on average before purchasing the item offline in a brick-and-mortar store.
Dr. Tanner says, “A marketer may observe those multiple cart abandonment episodes and conclude that the website isn’t working.” In that incorrect case, the data might be used in a way that actually reduces sales opportunities.
Acquire, Analyze, Apply, Assess To gain a properly integrated view, Cabela’s paired Teradata’s Integrated Web Intelligence (IWI) application with Webtrends' online data collection technology. The process included four steps — acquire, analyze, apply and assess. Those four steps resulted in Cabela’s successful creation of more than 30 customized catalog flyers, each made for customers in different regions and each made to highlight local interests and leverage specific store location needs. But that's only the beginning. As Dean Wynkoop, Sr. Manager of Data Management at Cabela's, says, "It's not a fixed process with a fixed start and end. It's a process of getting better at each step ..."
The Consumer Electronics Show is the biggest spectacle in the world of tech. Although the event is held in January, the technologies announced at the show set the pace for the year — and sometimes the next several years.
But CES 2011 is not an event to be held at face value. While giant 3D TVs are grabbing the attention of show-goers, the real technical revolution is occurring over the air.
About a decade ago the proliferation of cell phones made it possible for individuals to cut their landlines and depend instead on a device that could go anywhere. Today's mobile devices are much more than landlines ever were.
They are now our advisors, our navigators, our entertainment and they still make our phone calls. Now, fourth generation (4G) wireless technologies are poised to accelerate these devices to speeds as fast as your home broadband — and in many cases faster.
As Marko pointed out in the Friday Morning Buzz, coverage of mobile devices constitutes 54.5% of the press coming out of CES, and 4G is a big part of the reason why. But if you're still thinking that you've heard this all before, consider this: The average speed of broadband in U.S. homes is under 5Mbps — Verizon's LTE wireless hits about 20Mbps.
Speeds like these will change the way you interact with the Internet and the way the Internet interacts with the world. In short, it's the mobile revolution that you've been waiting for and Webtrends Mobile Analytics are ready and waiting to measure it. 
There is a lot more ad inventory. Remember the tab change to 520 pixels, where your custom tab couldn't be as wide any more? Now you see why-- to make room for ads. The benefit of being at the top of the page is even more important, since more of your ads are below the fold. CPM bidders get hammered. If there used to be 3 people each paying a 15 cent CPM to show their ad on a page, Facebook makes a 45 cent page level eCPM. Now if there are 5 people paying 15 cents, Facebook is making a 75 cent CPM, which is a 66% increase in earnings. But if you're a smart CPM bidder and target well, you will bid beyond the top of the suggested bid range and do much better than via CPC bidding. We still recommend CPC bidding, except when you're looking for reach or have a very small audience to hit. Average position is more important. Google, for all intents and purposes, has 10 positions on the right side of the page. So position in Google and Bing CPC is dependent upon position, where there is a log scale drop-off in your CTR and CPC by position. When there are only 3 positions on Facebook, you have a cliff. In other words, if the ad serving algorithm scores you as position 4, you don't show up. Remnant inventory is unlocked. Now a ton of low eCPM can show up. Facebook may even create premium positions in the top, like what Google has done, thereby creating incentive for advertisers to bid up to first position. It will be curious to see Facebook's take on Google features such as sitelinks, reviews, frequency capping, position preference, accelerated vs even serving, and so forth. Premium inventory becomes cheaper. The Facebook homepage is seen as premium inventory because of who can advertise there (currently only big brands with dollars), the exclusive ad features (video and quizzes, primarily), and the fact that there's only one ad unit. DoubleClick experienced the same trend 10 years ago, when they could sell remnant inventory at $20 CPMs-- stuff which sells for 20 cents nowadays. Your CTRs will decrease, but CPCs will decrease, too. If you're a smart Facebook marketer, you'll know how to adjust to these changes. More ads on the page mean your ad has to stand out more. You better have more granular targeting. The folks who have campaigns with just a few ads in them will suffer.WHAT YOU NEED TO DO ABOUT THIS
Multiply more ad variations. Don't go crazy and generate 1,000 ads per campaign. That will potentially mark you as a spammer who is trying to trick the algorithm into allocating you excess inventory to test eCPMs. But do make sure that you are tightly aligning interest targets to messages. A good rule of thumb-- if the audience size for your ad is above 100,000 people, then you're probably not granular enough. Focus on images as the most important attribute.In English speaking countries, we read left to right. In the new ad format image is even more primal in attracting attention. Your users scan ad images first to decide which ones to consider-- and then they will look at the headline and body copy. Your copy means nothing if the image doesn't first get their attention. Make your ads social.Did you notice the profile update last week? Showing images of items and friend connections further reveals the social graph in a visual way. Your ads better reflect that. Are you running Friend of Fan targeting as your primary vehicle to acquire new fans? Are you setting up fan-only campaigns so that you are separating out the impact of messaging, while also comparing apples-to-oranges on your metrics? Are you sending fans to a custom tab on your Facebook fan page that has some sort of engagement-- a reveal tab, a quiz, a video, a coupon, etc..-- so those folks can share with their friends, too?NOT SURE WHAT TO DO IN LIGHT OF THESE RECENT CHANGES? Will your page break when FBML goes away? Do you have the right metrics to measure your Facebook marketing efforts, especially as your other marketing channels impact your Facebook presence and vice-versa? Webtrends has integrated solutions that address all of the above, combining ads, apps, and analytics. No need to worry about manually loading up ads and monitoring them for ad burnout. And no need to keep up with every update to the Facebook platform, considering how it will affect your page. Interested in learning more about Facebook Marketing watch one (or more!) of our social marketing webinar series.