Jim Sterne
2013 in Review
I stole this blog post I was up against the Wall of Time, trying to stick to my one New Year’s Resolution: keep to a strict editorial schedule. But planning that in advance of a couple of weeks off is way different than facing the…
Predictive Analytics – He Wrote the Book
2007 was the first year the eMetrics Summit came to San Francisco after five years in Santa Barbara. It was also the first year that Eric Siegel put on his Predictive Analytics Workshop along with the eMetrics Summit. That workshop became so popular, it...
Making Friends + Influencing People at the eMetrics Summit
Imagine my embarrassment when I didn't recognize her. It was only moderate embarrassment at first. I re-meet lots of people... again. My memory for names and faces was never good and it's gotten worse. When Carey Wilkins of Evolytics came up to me at the…
Lessons from the first eMetrics Executive Roundtable
I went Back to the Future and I'm here to report what I found. It was Thursday, April 18, 2013, from 9:00 until 4:00 at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis Hotel in conjunction with the eMetrics Summit. It was the eMetrics Executive Roundtable and I...
Automated Marketing – Soon
Up early, feeling refreshed. Morning run, feeling self-righteous. Play with the puppies over breakfast, feeling cheerful. Into work early – more self-righteousness. Quick check of a handful of Tweeters I follow and it starts to dawn on me: It may be Tuesday, but the Universe…
Social Intercourse: How to Score Online
Klout says I'm a Klout Addict because I have visited Klout only seven times. And they want me to believe anything else they have to say after that? Woo Hoo. Klout says I have a score of 49, that I am a specialist and influence...
Four Metrics for Social Media Marketing Success
Social media is a growing plethora of ways and means of letting people share pictures, videos, opinions and more online. Social media has become so popular because it makes it easier for humans to communicate. The telegraph, the telephone, and fax machines were the...
Marketing in the World of Social Media is About Engagement
Marketing in the world of social media is about engaging your customers and non-customers. In a broad sense, it closely relates to branding, PR, sales, and customer support. In short, you have to create relevant and compelling content so that you can...
Stick With Your Story
When somebody walks into my office with a spreadsheet, a chart, or a graph in their hand, my first response is to duck. In my gut, I think they're coming after me…with evidence of where I screwed up. When the offending reports are laid before...
Let There Be Light (2003)
In the beginning, the IT department created the Web server and the server log. And darkness was upon the face of the marketing department. And the spirit of the home page moved upon the face of the marketing department and the marketing department said,...
Enough Hype, Time for Social Media Metrics! An Interview with Jim Sterne
Bob Thompson interviews digital marketing thought leader Jim Sterne about his new book, Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment. Topics include: Social media is "free" -- why bother measuring business value? What has been the impact of social media on…
Change the Message for the Medium
Do people respond better to an offer that promises lower price, higher quality or instant delivery? Yes they do. And that's why we all need segmentation. When it comes to segmenting customers by behavior, Bernard Berelson pretty much nailed it in his "Human Behavior:...
Web Analytics 101, Stardate 11.07: Don’t Just Take Your Web Site’s Pulse. Make Your...
In the old days, we measured how quickly our web servers were serving. Speeds and feeds were what it was all about because our visitors were sipping our content through tiny 14.4 kilobit-per-second data straws. We needed to do anything we could to keep...
Asking the Next Question To Improve Online Customer Experience
It started with, "How many hits?" Nobody knew what a hit was, but it sounded cool. It was the Internet and on the Internet, all things were cool. We all assumed it had something to do with how many people looked at our website. But...
Beyond Web Analytics: Measuring Web Site Success
One day, somebody in the IT department downloaded a web server and created the company's first website. Eighteen months later, the marketing department discovered the Web and realized that the company and its products had been presented online by the IT department. The result...
So Many Web Analytics Tools–So Little Time
Wondering what sorts of web analytics tools are available? Wondering which ones might be worth a look? Mashable - Social Networking News - covers 50 of them. Analytics Toolbox: 50+ Ways to Track Website Traffic From analyzing your RSS feed to counting page views to…
21 Reasons Why You Do NOT Need Web Analytics
Manoj Jasra, Director of Technology at Enquiro Search Solutions posted that attention-getting article on his blog, Web Analytics World Among them? You don't want to know where your visitors are coming from. Who cares what paths visitors take or the length of their paths, as…
Web Analytics? Customer Analytics? Business Analytics? Yes
People have a very narrow view of web analytics. "That's where they measure the clickthroughs and pageviews, right?" But that definition is about reporting. Reporting is all about setting up specific KPIs (key performance indicators) and then glancing at the results every now and then....
“Profiling Helps Us Help Our Customers”: How Microsoft Approaches Customer Analytics
Seth Romanow headed up the most impressive web analytics team I had ever met. Compaq Computer tracked every visitor click, from banner ad to click-through to landing page and through navigation path to laptop purchase. In 2001, I profiled Romanow and his team as...
Certifiability: Web Analytics Comes of Age
Web analytics is growing up. Omniture - one of the 800 pound gorillas of the web analytics industry, has added certification to its offerings at the Omniture University. An Omniture Certified Professional comes in three flavors according to the Omniture Certified Professional Program Omniture Certified…