Columbus, OH (PRWEB) September 22, 2010

Following directly on the heels of the release of the Forrester Consulting study that showcased a 605% ROI for companies using ClearSaleing’s software, advertising analytics leader ClearSaleing announced this week the addition of two new team members, both experts in the technical and theoretical aspects of attribution management. ClearSaleing is expanding the company’s already growing attribution management practice by naming Alphonse Okossi as the company’s Technical Director of Media Mix Modeling and Data Analytics, and Thiyag Chinnappan as its Director, Media Mix Modeling and Data Analytics.

“Customers often come to us with attribution questions based on their own complex marketing spend,” said Adam Goldberg, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at ClearSaleing. “They want to know answers to questions like, ‘How much credit should I attribute to impressions in a Purchase Path vs. a click?’ and ‘How should I allocate my budget across the different marketing channels available to me?’ With the growth in ClearSaleing’s Media Mix Modeling and Data Analytics practice, we will be better able to provide customers with specific statistically-sound solutions and attribution models that will allow them to more accurately assign purchase credit, identify profitable Purchase Paths, and eliminate underperforming ads or ad types. The more accurate our customer’s attribution models are, the more accurate their decisions will be about what works and what does not, which leads to greater profitability.”

“We’re delighted to welcome Alphonse and Thiyag to the ClearSaleing team,” Goldberg continued, “and know that our customers will directly benefit from the insights and experience they bring.”

ALPHONSE OKOSSI
Alphonse Okossi, ClearSaleing’s new Technical Director of Media Mix Modeling and Data Analytics, will spearhead the company’s technical efforts in developing and implementing creative statistical methods to solve offline/online media mix and attribution-related issues. Okossi’s career path highlights more than 15 years of experience in marketing analytics, data mining, predictive modeling, risk management, forecasting and optimization. His most recent role prior to joining ClearSaleing was as Managing Partner of Planning Constructs, Inc., where he led development of the company’s marketing mix and price promotion modeling platform, including managing the programming team and designing demand forecasting and simulation web tool.

Prior to Planning Constructs, Okossi was the Analytical Product Development Manager for Information Resources, Inc., where he lead and conducted hands-on statistical modeling and related software application projects for price promotion, marketing mix, assortment, seasonality, incrementality and related forecasting/simulation web tools development. Prior to this position, Okossi held various high-level analytics consulting positions, providing web-enabled statistical analyses for clients, including Wells Fargo and JC Penney. Okossi, whose career started in the finance industry, holds a Ph.D. in Economics and an MA in International Finance and Trade from State University of New York at Albany.

THIYAG CHINNAPPAN
In his role as Director of Media Mix Modeling and Data Analytics, Thiyag Chinnappan will be responsible for leading the company’s practice and product strategy related to advanced data analytics. Chinnappan’s work experience is rich in analytics and media mix modeling. Prior to joining ClearSaleing, Chinnappan served as client manager in the analytics consulting division of The Nielsen Company where he developed and managed marketing and media mix activities for Kraft Canada, among other clients.

Before his work with Nielsen, Chinnappan was a project manager in marketplace analytics for HAVI Global Solutions, where he provided tactical data analysis and campaign launch insights for clients including McDonalds. Chinnappan, who holds an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, also holds a diploma in Project Management from Northwestern University.

CLEARSALEING ANNOUNCES NEW SERVICE OFFERINGS, TEI REPORT
With the addition of Okossi and Chinnappan, ClearSaleing plans to add a host of new offerings to its service roster, including improving existing attribution performance using profit weighting from Media Mix models, performing custom online/offline media mix analyses, simulating and predicting future sales using demand forecast functionality, and conducting custom analytics studies using advanced econometric techniques. Additionally, ClearSaleing will also develop custom Analytics Dashboards to allow clients immediate access to data and insights on specific online purchase behavior and target customers.

ClearSaleing also recently announced the release of a Forrester Consulting study detailing the value that ClearSaleing provides to its clients. The study, titled “The Total Economic Impact™ of ClearSaleing”, indicates a 605 percent adjusted return-on-investment for companies engaging in ClearSaleing’s attribution management offering, along with additional benefits of time savings, eliminating waste and more. Forrester conducted interviews with four ClearSaleing clients and found that, by using ClearSaleing, these companies experienced a net present value of more than $2.3 million, in addition to improving efficiencies in decision making and media buying and increasing productivity in automation and reporting. The full study is available for free on the ClearSaleing site.

ABOUT CLEARSALEING
ClearSaleing has been named “Technology Platform Search Marketers Can’t Live Without” at the SES (Search Engine Strategies) Awards. ClearSaleing’s advertising portfolio management platform helps marketers identify ways to more effectively and profitably allocate ad spend across a complex mix of online advertising investments.

ClearSaleing is a thought leader in the growing scientific field of attribution management and publishes www.AttributionManagement.com that provides a rich repository of ClearSaleing and externally published articles, white papers and other material focused exclusively on attribution management.

ClearSaleing’s unique ability to give marketers telescopic insight into their online ad investment is attracting major brand customers such as American Greetings and Nationwide Insurance. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, please visit www.ClearSaleing.com.

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Photograph © Jack Wilgus

I’ve read several articles and blogs recently that talk about the trend towards quantitative marketing.

A few weeks ago, for example, New York Times reporter Stephanie Clifford noted:

The shift to data-based campaigns is forcing marketers to learn new skills and drawing a new breed of worker to Madison Avenue. While most data executives now in the field came from media backgrounds, they are recruiting Wall Street math geniuses because the job requires hourly adjustments in strategy based on numbers.

This week, in a Brandweek column called “The Evolving CMO,” Todd Wasserman observed:

While crunching numbers was always part of the job, new sources of data—from emerging media like interactive TV, mobile and social media—along with a need to show ROI have CMOs awash in data and newer, often younger marketers have adapted. Sometimes derided as “spreadsheet jockeys” they are a break in tradition from the “creative savants” of old who dreamed up big ideas and multimillion-dollar TV campaigns.

Given that we started ClearSaleing in 2006 to create a Wall Street-like tool for enterprise marketers, it probably won’t surprise anyone that I agree in full, or at least in significant part, with what they’re saying.

I know I’m not exactly climbing out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure that we’re in the early stages of a rapid transition of marketing into a mostly left-brain activity. And I want to go on record with a few can’t-miss predictions so I can eventually (and accurately) use the phrase “profoundly visionary” in my future bio.

Besides, I need to get my batting average up after being slightly off on my prediction that GM would return to profitability in 2009.

So here are 4 predictions that I think are safe and easy:

1. The numbers trend will accelerate – and won’t ever reverse. As enterprises demand more financial accountability out of the marketing department, marketing in general, and online marketing in particular, will become more numbers-driven. ClearSaleing and other marketing technology companies will respond with new, sophisticated tools and methods. Marketing conferences everywhere will become much more boring.
2. Marketers will start to speak with a financial accent. As marketing becomes more quantitative, marketers and agency executives will begin to adopt the language of finance. They’ll say things like “derivatives,” “asset class,” and “portfolio optimization” without feeling the least bit self-conscious.
3. Smart quants will develop derivative instruments to help manage risk. I don’t know what they’ll ultimately look like, but as marketers try to manage risk, derivative instruments (such as futures) will be introduced into the marketing world. Skepticism and incomprehension will quickly fade once marketers become fascinated with the cool hand signals on the trading floor.
4. Quantitative marketing will require different skill sets. The trend towards quantitative marketing will result in one less career path for English majors. Quants from Wall Street and aerospace engineers from NASA will invade marketing departments and ad agencies. Despite the initial embarrassment over their marketing titles, they’ll eventually dominate the marketing world and often refer to their non-quantitative colleagues as “standard deviations.”

Check back in about a year or two to see how I did with these. Or just read my bio in a few weeks.