New Wave Web Analytics – SEM Synergy Extras

It’s that time again! SEM Synergy, baby!

On today’s show I sit down with Richard Zwicky, CEO of Enquisite, to pick his brain about Enquisite’s search analytics platform, analytics in the Web 2.0 space, and how a payment model based on conversion value could change the SEO industry. The most fascinating part for me was when Richard explained that a performance-based Internet marketing economic model is just around the corner thanks to advancements in assigning values to conversions. From our interview:

“We’re on the cusp of actually being able to measure everything in the same way and value things the same way as we traditionally have in PPC, […] on actually tying it to that conversion — whatever conversion means to you. […]

It doesn’t really matter what your goal is of conversion, of value point. What does matter is that if you can tie a value to that conversion and then a value to the customer acquisition, you can pay your SEO firm, your email marketing firm, the firm you use to do newletters or email blasts — it doesn’t really matter — you can pay everybody for performance. Do a good job, bring me lots of customers and as I make a sale we both win, so there’s no maximum cap.”

If you too are intrigued by how a technology like the one Richard describes could change the SEO game, listen to the episode over at SEMSynergy.com or download it from WebmasterRadio’s SEM Synergy archives.

While we’re on the subject of the new wave of analytics, yesterday Ralph Wilson posted an interview he had with John Marshall, founder and CTO of Market Motive during PubCon. A Web analytics expert, John talks to Ralph about information you can gather that analytics data is not able to tell you.

The needle on my cool-o-meter went off the charts when John mentioned a tool he recently discovered called ClickTale. A long-standing opponent of site path as a viable search marketing metric, John changed his tune after playing around with ClickTale. The product lets site owners actually watch every move a user made on the site — each movement, hesitation and click of the mouse recorded in a movie. After watching a few of those I bet you’d have a pretty good idea of some of the hang-ups and abandonment points on the site.

With SMX West and SES New York barreling down on us, I’m sure this isn’t the final word on improvements to data gathering, analysis and reporting. I’m looking forward to those in the coming months, but if I missed any notable advancements in the world of analytics or things you’d like to see in analytics platforms that would make them more useful, let me know in the comments, would you?

Thanks again to Richard Zwicky for coming on the show. Richard will be attending SES London next week and is speaking during several sessions. If you’re in town I’m sure he’d love to answer your analytics questions. Then, when you’re ready for an analytics platform designed just for search marketers like you, remember that Bruce Clay, Inc. will soon be offering Enquisite Pro and all the smarty-pants data that comes with it to clients.

Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger.

See Virginia's author page for links to connect on social media.