Influence Analytics from “Wandering” Dave Rhee

As I recently mentioned on the Web Analytics Forum, I’ve accepted a position as Analytics Country Manager for Germany with OX2, the leading pan-European interactive agency for web analytics. I explored opportunities with a number of different firms, and concluded that this was clearly the right one for me. When I first decided to move to Europe some time ago, I made a list of criteria and desiderata for my ideal situation. Let’s see how well I did….

Find a truly international environment, not simply move to one new country. Well, I’m now living in Frankfurt, will work with clients throughout Germany and neighboring countries, and work for a pan-European interactive agency that is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, the Capital of Europe in many ways. My colleagues are Dutch, Spanish, Belgian, French, and between them speak English, French, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, and probably a dozen other languages they’re too modest to mention. So I feel comfortable checking this one off the list.

Continue to work with thought leaders in web analytics. Aurélie Pols has become known as the leader of the European “Web Analytics Dream Team,” and no enlightened firm can survey their peers about analytics without having her name and OX2 come up as a recommendation. But it’s not just about the expertise that OX2 has already developed — they’re eager to help advance the state of analytics throughout Europe, both by being one of the few truly vendor-independent agencies in the region (not uncommon in the U.S., but fairly rare here), and also by organizing educational events like the second annual European Web Analytics Day on September 14, 2007. As volunteers and members of the Web Analytics Association, they also support the global influence of the WAA on our industry, lending their unique perspectives to the standards, membership, marketing, and other committees.

Work with a variety of clients, in different industries, and with different web site goals. Having gone through a complete integration cycle with the eCommerce analytics platform for a major US PC manufacturer, I was eager to see how the analytics world looks from an agency point of view, and engage with clients whose sites are not necessarily eCommerce focused. Given OX2’s impressive client roster (and the web analytics subsidiary company’s own client roster, which I’ll have the opportunity to help grow, particularly in Germany), this one is also clearly a “win” for me. And that’s not even counting the fact that OX2 has even developed its own, surprisingly powerful and competitive web content management system, Onisystem, which is capable of building in the analytics tagging automatically! How many other agencies can boast that?

Keep abreast of the latest and greatest about other analytics platforms in the market. Let’s see now — besides being a long-time WebTrends Certified Partner (and only European member of the WebTrends Insight Network), OX2 is one of the few Google Analytics Authorized Consultants on the continent. Not only that, but the first public demo of Microsoft’s long-anticipated free web analytics platform, Gatineau, will be at the OX2-organized Web Analytics Day. Is that cutting-edge enough? Naturally, OX2 also works closely with Omniture as Certified Professionals in Belgium, France, and Germany, with Unica for analytics and their open marketing platform, and Visual Sciences / Web Side Story, IndexTools, as well as a number of regional players with a strong local presence in this space.

Continue to develop analytics for social networks, Web 2.0 initiatives, and other customer influence methods. I’ll be able to take advantage of the OX2 development team, as time permits, to create an influence analytics engine. Using proprietary algorithms developed in my incomplete doctoral dissertation, we’ll see how much additional lift can be generated by scoring members of an online community by their ability (proven and predicted) to influence others to purchase. Essentially, creating an additional segmentation variable as a community purchase predictor. Of course, it’s somewhat more complex than that, which is precisely why the existing tools for Social Network Analysis haven’t been able to encapsulate this additional value proposition in a way that’s useful to advertising, sales, and marketing organizations. Hopefully, we’ll be able to change that. Feel free to link to me on LinkedIn, Xing, Facebook, or any other of the major professional social networks, as they each have something slightly different to offer practitioners in the web analytics community.

Continue serving the greater web analytics community. I’ll have the opportunity to expand my role as a mentor to those new to the profession of web analytics, and contribute more to the Web Analytics Association, the Web Analytics Forum, various local communities throughout Europe, the US, and the rest of the world, as well as assist in the knowledge management efforts already underway through initiatives like Dylan Lewis’s Wiki Web Analytics collaborative site. As I say, the opportunities will be there, but the truly scarce commodity here is time! These are very important, though, and if you agree with me, I hope you’ll also make an effort to contribute even a few hours a month to give something back to your peers and colleagues by being an active community member both online and off.

Escape the influence of Eric Peterson. Except that his top-shelf consultancy, Web Analytics Demystified, is already a key partner of OX2’s, and he and I will both be presenting at the upcoming European Web Analytics Day. In the words of Homer Simpson, “D’oh!” Okay, 6 out of 7 isn’t bad — and since analytic interpretation is often a “close enough for horseshoes” sort of discipline, we’ll just give it a big green light on the dashboard, call it a perfect score, and bury the details in a spreadsheet.

Finally, I want to offer my sincere thanks and appreciation to those of you who provided me with your generous personal guidance and advice during my transition, both about the geographic move from the “New World” back to the “Old World,” as well as from client-side to interactive agency. I look forward to continuing our discussions about the differences and similarities across all the segments of our industry, as well as working with each of you towards our mutual success.

I want to thank you for your support of the Web Analytics Association, the Web Analytics Forum, and especially those of you who have helped me personally throughout this transition period.

As always, please let me know if you have ideas about how the Web Analytics Forum can better serve all of its members, and in particular, the Global Web Analytics community, and how, as an individual author, might help contribute further to the value of our community, profession, and society.

Best,

“Wandering” Dave Rhee
Web Analytics Forum Moderator
OX2 Analytics Country Manager, Germany
Author, Influence Analytics Blog