In previous posts, I’ve tried to explain the reasons behind the frustrating fact that some report data just won’t ever match.  This week’s topic is a no-brainer.  To best describe why reports created by pulling data from different data sources won’t match other reports, let’s see it visually.

So, why is this a problem?  Say you haven’t configured your web analytics to track your PPC, or maybe an agency is managing your PPC, but you have not given them access to your web analytics, so you must rely on the data the search engines provide.  Inevitably, someone in your organization is going to want a roll-up or an executive summary of all the engines.  The result is then the creation of a report from disparate data sets.

The problem – each vendor report is not aware of the other vendors.  So, in the example below, each vendor report will claim credit for the entire purchase and claim all of the revenue.

As you can see, this greatly overvalues the conversion and creates an unrealistic view of the performance.
If you do try to compare the compiled report to your web analytics, there will be a problem as to how web analytics will credit that sale, as you can see below.

The real need is to conceptually ‘divide up’ the order and revenue and give everything credit.

By thinking about dividing up credit, you more accurately value the contribution of each advertising source.  With this accurate and comprehensive picture, you can really optimize your spending, ensuring that you focus your spend, time and attention on what truly is working. What you may then find clicks (and impressions) that occur at the very beginning of the ‘funnel’ are getting the credit they deserve, so you may be able to increase bids on your more general keywords or show true ROI on banner impressions.

I found it interesting this week to read What Celebrities Make For Twittvertising, which discussed the heavy payouts celebrities receive for tweeting about various products and brands. After reading this, I couldn’t help but think about how this relates to valuing a Facebook fan, so I decided to have some fun by identifying ways to truly value these celeb tweets…

Read the entire article on the Search Engine Land Blog…

Columbus, Ohio (PRWEB) October 26, 2009 — ClearSaleing, a technology and thought leader in attribution management, today announced that the company has been recognized by Forrester Research, Inc. as an Interactive Attribution “Leader” in an independent report: “The Forrester Wave^TM: Interactive Attribution, Q4 2009″ (October 2009)”. ClearSaleing received the highest scores in both the “Current Offering” and “Strategy” categories. It also garnered a 5.0 out of a possible 5.0 score for its strength of management team.

Forrester described ClearSaleing’s attribution offering as “a standalone attribution tool with rich modeling,” saying it “comes closest to offering a complete solution…” The report also says ClearSaleing’s technology is “easy to use, sophisticated, and relevant for a wide variety of interactive marketers” and notes that “ClearSaleing is an easy-to-install standalone product rather than a feature of a larger offering, but it is still relatively affordable and scalable for a range of clients…. Through a partnership with Vetra Analytics, ClearSaleing offers the best of both rich custom modeling and easy-to-use reporting.”

“ClearSaleing is delighted to be recognized by Forrester,” says ClearSaleing co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Adam Goldberg. “Since we began, ClearSaleing has been working steadily to develop and deliver technology that marketers can put to use immediately to optimize campaigns and realize the greatest ROI. We believe attribution management is the linchpin of any successful marketing strategy, combining customer insight with smart campaign management.”

The Forrester report also stated that “All of the clients we spoke with were fiercely loyal to ClearSaleing, citing its high level of service and its commitment to high-quality insights.”

Based on the increasing recognition among marketing executives as to the importance of attribution management and ClearSaleing’s position as a leader in advertising analytics technology, the Company has also been successful in forming partnerships with large interactive agencies to offer its attribution management platform to their customers.

“We did an exhaustive search and review of a wide range of attribution management solutions that we could use to optimize the performance of complex, cross-media campaigns that we manage for our customers,” said Dustin Engel, Vice President, Strategy and Media, Range Online Media. “And we found that ClearSaleing had by far the most robust advertising analytics platform, built from the mindset of attribution management,” Engel said. “The ClearSaleing Attribution Management platform has received enormous interest from our customer base and has already been implemented for a few of our clients, with many other customers lining up to implement our attribution strategies utilizing the platform.”

“We knew from the beginning that to optimize the ROI of a company’s online advertising portfolio required the ability to do cross-media profit tracking and true attribution management,” said ClearSaleing President and co-founder, Randy Smith. “We have built our advertising analytics platform from the beginning on these cornerstones and our customers and our agency partners all recognize our position as a leader.”

Download the Full Report

About ClearSaleing

Named “Technology Platform Search Marketers Can’t Live Without” at the SES 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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This article from Practice Ecommerce details the problems surrounding the last click effect along with ways to avoid it. Some of the solutions include using the latest attribution management tools and technology.

Read the entire article from Practical Ecommerce…

…Continue reading the MediaPost Article

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) September 21, 2009 — ClearSaleing, a technology and thought leader in attribution management, and Vetra Analytics, a marketing analytics provider, today published the first ever Internet Retail version of its American Attribution Index (AAI). The Internet Retail AAI measures the relative effectiveness (purchase attribution) of each online media source and influence factor on online consumer conversion, serving as a valuable benchmark for CMOs and marketing executives.

ClearSaleing CIO and Co-Founder, Adam Goldberg, talks to attendees at the Shop.org Annual Summit

The first Internet Retail AAI, generated from more than 790,135 retail consumer purchase paths during the 1st quarter of 2009, shows that many types of media sources contribute to and influence a consumer’s purchase decision. Specifically, branded and non-branded SEO, branded and non-branded paid search ads, comparison shopping engines, email, display and affiliates all play an important role in influencing purchase decisions among retail customers.

“The particular importance of both branded and non-branded organic search, together representing over 60 percent of the purchase influence factor for retailers, was probably the most surprising result from the initial Retail AAI,” says Randy Smith, ClearSaleing’s co-founder and President. “What was also noteworthy was the cumulative impact of multiple marketing and advertising touches from a range of media sources that cause retail customers to ultimately purchase. These sources work synergistically. Remove any one and you can impact the relative influence of all,” he adds.

“We are very excited to continue the quarterly publication of the American Attribution Indices so we can begin to understand how seasonality impacts consumer purchase decisions and media effectiveness, particularly for retailers during the upcoming holiday surge,” says Dr. Purush Papatla, President of Vetra Analytics. Vetra built the sophisticated attribution models that are the foundation of the indices. “By delivering an actionable, retail-specific version of the American Attribution Index, we will help retail CMOs make better media selection and allocation decisions that will positively impact both their top and bottom lines,” says Papatla.

ClearSaleing and Vetra will publish the Internet Retail version of the American Attribution Index (AAI) on a quarterly basis using a widget application. They will also publish relevant retail attribution management news and items of interest along with the Index. Subscriptions will be available beginning in the 4th quarter to the Internet Retail AAI.

ClearSaleing and Vetra would like to encourage retailers attending Shop.Org to become members of the AAI group and are offering special charter member subscription rates through October 31, 2009.

Customized Indices
ClearSaleing can also provide etailers with a custom AAI that will take into account the etailer’s operation size, its customers’ behavioral patterns in the past, its price points and other factors to enable etailers to have an optimum analysis of their ROI performance.

ClearSaleing Attribution Management Platform
The AAI is based on ClearSaleing’s attribution management platform technology which allows marketers to design and input their own attribution management model to fit their industry’s needs, precisely mapping the Purchase PathTM from a customer’s first action to their conversion and attributing a relative value to each marketing element along the way that contributed to that conversion.

About Vetra Analytics
Vetra Analytics is a marketing analytics consulting firm that specializes in analytics R&D, dashboards and customer data-based models. Created by Dr. Purush Papatla, Ph.D., the Vetra team brings years of global consulting and publishing experience to its clients. With this leadership, Vetra has the ability to dig deep into your data repositories and locate key insights that can optimize your marketing decisions, enhance your customer satisfaction and increase ROI on marketing efforts. For more information, please visit www.VetraAnalytics.com.

About ClearSaleing
Named “Technology Platform Search Marketers Can’t Live Without” at the SES 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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The company responsible for creating the Attribution Management Forum has been recognized as a leader in online advertising analytics.

Columbus, OH (PRWEB) January 28, 2009 – ClearSaleing Inc., an online advertising analytics and technology company, has been nominated as a finalist for three awards for the TechColumbus Innovation Awards, which recognizes outstanding achievements in technology leadership and innovation.

ClearSaleing is proud to announce they are a finalist for the Outstanding Product (less than 50 employees) and Outstanding Startup Business categories due to their advancements in advertising technology in 2009. ClearSaleing CEO Mike Lanese has also been named a finalist for the Executive of the Year (less than 50 employees) category.

“Being a finalist for these awards is truly a reflection of the determination and dedication of our entire team,” Lanese said.  “We are honored to be a finalist for the TechColumbus Innovation Awards. We have a long way to go as a technology company, but it’s great to be recognized for our innovations by our peers in the industry.”

On Thursday, February 5, 2009 the 2008 TechColumbus Innovation Awards will recognize outstanding achievements in technology leadership and innovation at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.  From a record number of entries from individuals and companies in all disciplines and industries, 13 winners will be honored and the region’s progress as an emerging tech center will be celebrated.

About TechColumbus

The TechColumbus Innovations Awards celebrate and honor individuals and teams in a variety of disciplines. Each category is an important component of the technology and innovation community. Receiving the top honor showcases an individual or team which is dramatically impacting Central Ohio and beyond.  For more information about TechColumbus and the Innovation Awards, visit http://www.techcolumbusinnovationawards.org.

About ClearSaleing

ClearSaleing is a leading technology provider to the online advertising market. Based on a strategic, portfolio management approach to online advertising investment, the ClearSaleing solution represents the next generation in advertising analytics technology. ClearSaleing’s portfolio management software delivers an improved, more profitable allocation of a company’s spend across a complex mix of online advertising options. At the foundation of the ClearSaleing solution is its patent-pending Purchase Path^TM technology that accurately attributes profit (ROI) across the multiple ads that contribute to and influence the ultimate purchase. Visit www.clearsaleing.com for more information.

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In working with CrimsonCup, we applied the principles we mentioned in the webinar. The “Barista for a Day” campaign has two key ingredients. First, the concept is genuine and interesting. We’ve all heard about master brewers for beer companies, but who knew the coffee guys had an equivalent position called a Barista? Turns out that the art of making good coffee is a lot more complicated than we thought.

Second, the “prize” is relevant and desirable. Unfortunately, it’s commonplace to see companies give away ipods or the latest electronic gizmos for WOM campaigns. CrimsonCup is, instead, giving away something you can’t find at your local Best Buy. They’re giving away an experience – an opportunity to learn about coffee making from one of the best in the business.

A well-crafted WOM campaign also contains an unexpected surprise: it’s fun to work on. Sure we got to drink a few gallons of great coffee. But we also got to see and feel the passion of a company that’s doing more than just going through the motions of selling a product. CrimsonCup loves coffee, and they love educating coffee drinkers.

Take it from us. Once you learn how to tell the difference between quality beans and cheap beans, you’ll never go back to Starbucks again.