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ActionablefocusAnalysisMultichannel Marketing and Measurement Come of AgeThe Launch of Convergence Analyticsby Andrew EdwardsAt SES New York, my partner RandSchulman and I will present EfectyvMarketing’s first convergence analyticsmarket study. Developed inconjunction with Incisive Media, the reportis based in part on a December 2012 surveyof more than 500 vendors and practitioners.Adam Singer from Google Analytics will joinus on the panel to help illuminate the rapidlyevolving market.The Promise of Convergence AnalyticsConvergence analytics represents a constellationof maturing, interoperable marketingtechnologies that have recently come toform a new marketing environment. It is differentfrom the environment that has existedsince the advent of the commercial web.We know that Internet marketing beganwith the first dotcom and that web sites wereconsidered the flagship marketing vehicle.Multichannel, electronic marketing beganwhen a certain law firm in Arizona “targeted”an email list with ads for immigration andvisa assistance. This action generated a levelof opprobrium one might have expected inreaction to the behavior of a Lizzie Borden.In those days, “the net” was administeredby a self-appointed correctness league thatwanted the Internet to have a permanentamateur status.However, the web and its associateddigital technologies were commercializedquickly. One major reason for this wasthe perception that digital marketing is avery cost-effective and measurable way toreach prospects and nurture customers. Yet,despite the widespread success digital marketinghas achieved, the “measurability” partof the equation, especially actionability, hasin large measure been something less thana convincing success. Phrases such as “informationwithout insight” and “not trustingthe numbers” are characteristic of the commoncomplaints.This may be changing. Convergenceanalytics represents the maturing stages ofmultichannel marketing and measurement.Combining big data, powerful algorithms,cloud computing, digital connectors, commondata keys, and portable display layers,convergence analytics–oriented tools mayput all of your business’ relevant data into asmall set of manageable, insight-rich dashboards.Adding what is commonly called a“predictive” layer, some applications in thismarket may also make use of multichanneldata by driving on-the-fly content changesbased on user context.Presentation of First Industry StudyOur panel at SES will launch the first-everconvergence analytics industry study, whichis based on our experiences as operatingexecutives in the analytics space as wellas the survey we conducted with IncisiveMedia in December. Opening a dialogueabout what we really want from the currentwave of maturing technologies—as well aswhat we can reasonably expect—we will:••Explore many of the tasks that mustbe completed before the promise ofconvergence analytics is realized.••Look at things like the importance ofbuilding robust data connectors andhow the quality of these may prove adifferentiator for vendors.••Examine the complex work attendanton pulling together disparate data sets,normalizing them, implementing themeasurement, and determining theimportance of the data that comes backto us from the measurement suites.••Discuss the types of companies thatseem well positioned to succeed inconvergence analytics.••Try try to peel back some of the mysterysurrounding the true mix of productcapability versus professional servicesassociated with success in convergenceanalytics.We’ll also talk about the changing roleof the ownership of the digital domain. Asmeasurements become more complex andinvolve more of the company as a whole, arethey really only a marketing function now?Or does convergence analytics deliver moreof the company’s operations into the purviewof the information-empowered marketer?Expectations for the DisciplineWhile we can’t know which companies willthrive in a convergence analytics market, orfully glimpse the form our survey resultswill take, we can state today what we hopeto see tomorrow. This is rather simple: Wewant marketers and business executives tobe able to receive a single view, or a smallset of visualizations, of the greater portionof accurately collected data from desktop,mobile, social, email, call center, CRM, costcenter, and even ERP in order to make thebest possible decisions about digital content,its costs, and its rewards, as they relate toevery phase of customer activation.The goal today has not moved much fromits historic location at the nexus of informationand the most advantageous approachto the market. We believe convergence analyticsvendors and practitioners are movingcloser than ever to that goal.Andrew Edwards, a managingpartner at Efectyv Marketingand Technology Leaders, hasbeen a pioneer in the digitalspace since the 1980s.Don’t miss this sessionat SES New York:The Dawn ofConvergence AnalyticsTuesday, March 26, 3:30-4:30pmSpeakers:Andrew Edwards, Efectyv MarketingRand Schulman, Efectyv MarketingAdam Singer, Google AnalyticsSee page 18sesconference.com • SES 11