TagMan – Universal tag and CPA deduplication

Chatting with a TagMan client (who I can’t name) about the attribution data we provide them, I was really impressed with the approach they have taken in assessing the quality (and ROI) of campaigns and how they use this data in their media planning.

The digital currency of awarding credit is still on the last click that generated the sale, and this is what they use for awarding their affiliates and other CPA channels commission for the business they generate. However, they use the attribution analysis of the campaigns to work out if a CPA channel is producing a positive ROI – and therefore if they should continue to invest in it.

Non-brand SEO vs. Affiliates

I’d like to illustrate this by looking at two of the campaigns we are tracking for them: non branded SEO and the affiliate sales through a well known and respected network.

On a last-click win analysis (how commission is awarded), non-brand terms in natural search results generated 600 conversions with revenue of £18,000 and the affiliate generated 4,300 conversions with revenue of £170,000.

On the face of it, it doesn’t look like SEO non brand really does much for them, and that the affiliate is doing a far better job.

The catch comes when marketers have a hunch that due to cash-back and voucher-code sites, the affiliate is cannibalising the sales of the other campaigns – shall we call it goal-hanging – and make a decision to stop working with the affiliate on this hunch.

Applied attribution

However, if you look at the sales and revenue each campaign generated not by last click, but by an attribution model it tells a very different story and with the data you can make a much better decision.

Using a flat attribution model where the credit and revenue of each sale is split evenly between all the campaigns that show up in the path to conversion, we see that, over the same date range, the non-brand SEO attributed sales (that is the sales where non-brand natural results show in the conversion path) were 4,050 with revenue of £145,000 and the affiliate generated 1,900 attributed sales with £73,000 revenue.

This shows the marketers hunch was partly right, but the key number is the attributed revenue by both campaigns.  For ease of numbers, let’s say this client had a profit margin of 10%.  Therefore the profit on the SEO work was £14,500 while the profit of the affiliate was £7,300.

Change in budget spend

As it happened, this client didn’t spent nearly £14,500 on SEO marketing and as a result of this data now spend incredibly more and are looking forward to seeing this channel push up last click conversions to other channels.

Moreover, while the affiliate wasn’t generating as much value as reported by last click, the profit was still higher than the commission paid out – i.e. the affiliate is still a channel with positive ROI even with the cash-back and voucher-code sites, and so the client also continues to invest heavily in this area.

I purposefully haven’t provided the length of time this analysis was over as the idea can work for smaller companies just as much for larger companies.  Whether this data spans a single day or three months, it still ensures that as a marketer, you are basing decisions on data and not hunches.

Air New Zealand is working with TagMan, the universal tag, to manage and track the online campaigns it has running across its European websites.

TagMan replaces Air New Zealand’s existing site analytics system as the company’s universal container tag, a single page tag that houses all the tags used to track Air New Zealand’s online campaigns, including display, paid and natural search, affiliates and site analytics on these sites. The system will allow Air New Zealand to view customer journeys,   tracking the entire path to conversion that any user takes to buying from one of its European sites. TagMan will enable future spend with affiliates to be apportioned more accurately, ‘deduplicating’ between channels that claim commission from the same sale. The company will gain instant savings in this way.

Chris Sumbler, online marketing manager at Air New Zealand, said: “Our previous tagging solution did not enable us to be as nimble as we would have liked in implementing new site tagging and testing innovative digital platforms. TagMan has solved this issue while also enabling us to use dynamic attribution and path to conversion analysis in order to more accurately measure the return on investment from each of our marketing channels.”

Jon Baron, general manager of TagMan, said: “TagMan was developed to remove the problems associated with site tagging and campaign management as well as reducing costs to advertisers.  Air New Zealand is now free to use new marketing technologies as they see fit.”

About Air New Zealand

Air New Zealand is an international and domestic airline group which provides air passenger and cargo transport services within New Zealand, as well as to and from Australia, the South West Pacific, Asia, North America and the United Kingdom.  It has 12 flights a week from London Heathrow to Auckland, New Zealand via either Los Angeles or Hong Kong.  www.airnewzealand.co.uk

About TagMan

TagMan is the single-tag solution to the problems of online campaign tracking. By acting as a single, universal tag and interface through which tracking tags and pixels can be deployed to an advertiser’s web site, online marketers can save time and money in the way they track campaigns and see how all online channels are working together. TagMan was founded in November 2007 and has 5 offices across the US and the UK. Clients include Virgin Atlantic, Subaru, Boden, Laura Ashley, Thomas Cook and Santander.

www.tagman.com

NEW YORK (June 30, 2010) TagMan, the ad tag management system that solves the problems associated with site tagging and tracking of online marketing campaigns through universal- or server side- tag solutions, today announced the further expansion of its US-based team by naming Wendy L. Zenchyshyn Vice President  of Business Development and Aaron K. Gragg as Vice President of Sales, two newly created positions.

“Wendy is a proven strategic-thinking, results-oriented professional with years of sales and marketing experience with technology companies and Aaron is experienced in web content management, social computing and measurement, web analytics, document management, personalization/content delivery, and other aspects of enterprise content management,” says Jon Baron, General Manager of TagMan. “They will both be invaluable new members of the TagMan team as we continue to ramp up in the US market.”

Before coming to TagMan, Ms Zenchyshyn had been with Enquisite Search Analytics (San Francisco) as Director of Strategic Partnerships since May 2008 and where she developed strategy including SaaS pricing models and marketing programs to effectively recruit large advertising agencies and direct advertisers focused on search engine marketing. From August 2007 to May 2008, Ms Zenchyshyn was Director, Business Development for Lyris, Inc. managing technology partners whose products were integrated into Lyris’ solutions. Before that, she was for four years Director, Worldwide Channel Sales for ClickTracks Analytics (which was acquired by Lyris, Inc.).

Earlier in her career Ms Zenchyshyn was a Regional Account Manager for WebTrends Corporation; a Channel Sales Manager – International for VPNet Technologies (Avaya); the Director, Global Channel Sales for Mobile Automation, Inc,;  Channel Sales Program Manager for Cisco Systems and spent ten years with Merisel, Inc  in positions of increasing responsibility and authority, the last being Director Worldwide Sales Services, Product and Marketing. She is graduate of Waterloo, Canada’s Wilfrid Laurier University.

Mr. Gragg comes to TagMan from WebTrends (Portland) where he has been a Strategic Account Executive since May 2008 responsible for $4.2 million in software and on demand sales for enterprise web analytics in Southeastern US. Prior to that, he was a Regional Sales Manager for RedDot Solutions/Hummingbird/Open Text from 2004 to 2008 and before that, a Financial Services Practice Manager at Verian Technologies. Earlier in his career, Mr. Gragg was an Account Executive with FileNet Corporation and served in sales and sales management positions with eGrail, Interwoven, Parametric Technology Corporation and the Mars Mission Research Center. He holds Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from N.C. State University.

TagMan (www.TagMan.com), the first independent tag and pixel management system, was built and developed by web analytics pioneer Paul Cook as a solution to the problems of implementing new tracking tags on advertiser websites. TagMan has revealed that up to 25% of a typical e-commerce advertiser’s commissions are duplicates.  TagMan’s universal tag solution  instantly deduplicates sales and attribute credit in real time across ALL online channels so that for every $1 spent with TagMan, clients see up to a $41 return on their investments.  Existing platforms do not offer this conversion report. The negative impact of too many pixels on a client’s website (contributing to shopping basket abandonment) drove TagMan’s focus on latency and pixel reduction as a core part of the platform used by clients globally. Clients include online advertisers and agencies in the UK, US and Germany, including Virgin Atlantic, Subaru, Boden, Laura Ashley, Thomas Cook and Alliance & Leicester.

Founded in 2007, TagMan is privately owned and funded and has offices in New York and London. It has received funding from Cambridge Angels and the London Business School E100.

Big thanks to the NMA awards judges and award sponsor DoubleClick for some great news for TagMan – the Special Award for Technical Innovation.

NMA summed up the evening’s events, stating that: ‘This year’s Special Award for Technical Innovation went to TagMan, the platform that provides a single-tag solution to the problems of online campaign tracking. Tagman, which works with brands including Virgin Atlantic, Boden and Thomas Cook, was deemed an “innovative solution for an increasingly challenging problem” by the judges.’

It was a great night and fantastic recognition of how we’re helping the online industry move forward. Congrats to all the shortlisted companies, ‘highly commended’s and winners on the night.

NEW YORK (June 16, 2010) TagMan, the tag management system that solves the problems associated with site tagging and tracking of online marketing campaigns, expanded its technical division by appointing Ave Wrigley, as its Chief Technical Officer and Tim Jones,  as Technical Operations Director. Both are newly created positions that will focus on the company’s system research and development.

“As the industry moves forward, with new and emerging platforms, Ave and Tim have the technical skills and expertise we need to develop the TagMan system for our users.  I am delighted to welcome them both as pivotal members of the team,” says Jon Baron, General Manager of TagMan.

Mr. Wrigley is the former head of technology at ITN ON, and was instrumental in developing the online division of broadcaster ITN, into a market leader in video content for web and mobile, supplying all media platforms. Prior to ITN, Mr. Wrigley worked in Speech and Natural Language research for Canon Research Europe, ETL in Japan, and Surrey and Bristol Universities. He has a PhD from Bristol (UK) University.

Prior to TagMan, Mr. Jones, an experienced and skilled manager for IT infrastructure and strategy, was a founding member of digital agency Profero and developed one of the fastest 3rd party ad server solutions within Europe. He was also a member of the New Media Advisory Board for Comic Relief, developing campaigns for Comic Relief and Live8.

TagMan (www.TagMan.com), the first independent tag and pixel management system, was built and developed by web analytics pioneer Paul Cook as a solution to the problems of implementing new tracking tags on advertiser websites. TagMan has revealed that up to 25% of a typical e-commerce advertiser’s commissions are duplicates.  TagMan’s universal tag solution  instantly deduplicates sales and attribute credit in real time across ALL online channels so that for every $1 spent with TagMan, clients see up to a $9.50 return on their investments.  Existing platforms do not offer this conversion report. The negative impact of too many pixels on a client’s website (contributing to shopping basket abandonment) drove TagMan’s focus on latency and pixel reduction as a core part of the platform used by clients globally. Clients include online advertisers and agencies in the UK, US and Germany, including Virgin Atlantic, Subaru, Boden, Laura Ashley, Thomas Cook and Alliance & Leicester.

Founded in 2004, TagMan is privately owned and funded and has offices in New York and London. It has received funding from Cambridge Angels and the London Business School E100.

Below is the list so far of all the tags that TagMan clients currently have plugged into their websites through TagMan. It’s a long list and helps to demonstrate just how many systems rely on tags to work and why tag management has become a crucial issue for website owners. Remember, every tag you have on a page slows it down and each one reports data that could be even more useful if it was reported in the same place (and using the same rules) as all the rest.

Web Analytics
AT Internet
Coremetrics
Google Analytics
IndexTools
Microsoft
Omniture
Unica
Webtrends

Display advertising/ad servers
Adconian
Advertising.com
Atlas
Blue Lithium
Doubleclick
Eyeblaster
Facilitate
Flashtalking
Mediaplex
Trip Advisor
Unanimis
ValueClick

Retargeting
Criteo
Infectious Media
Invite Media
Mediaplex
Right Media
Specific Media
Struq

PPC
Bing
Click Equations
Double Click
Google AdWords
iCrossing
Kenshoo
Marin
MSN
Yahoo

Affiliate
Adcell
Adconion
Adscale
AdTiger
Affiliate Future
Affiliate Window
Affilinet
Buyat
Commission Junction
Hotels Combined
iProspect
Linkshare
Mediastay
Metanetwork
Peak Point
Quown
Rupiz
TradeDoubler
Webgains
Xtendmedia
Zanox

Email
Cheetahmail
Email reaction
SilverPop

Other
Channel Advisor
Coomunicate
Do-Hop
edigital
eFrontier
Kelkoo
Lynku
Lyris/Clickstream
Nextag
Peerius
PriceGrabber
Qype
Returnity
Shopzilla
Z Mags
TravelSupermarket

New tags are being added all the time but it shows just how complex the world of tagging has become.

Clients of TagMan recently discovered that, since the system enables you to gain visibility of on-site search terms in real time, the Icelandic volcano spewed out more than air-traffic hindering ashes.

There was – on travel retailer sites specifically –  an astounding amount of new keywords that were quite unique – seeking advice on airline and holiday bookings in the context of the ash cloud.

With site analytics tags plugged in through TagMan, they were able to see this new range of search terms immediately and adjust their site content, first to provide the right advice for customers and, second, improve their natural search rankings on the new keywords.

Every fresh air-traffic shutdown as the winds push the ash cloud across Europe are making these steps regularly useful.

Hot on the heels of its nomination in the A4U Awards, TagMan has been made a finalist by New Media Age magazine for its own Special Award for Technological Innovation.

The big night is Thursday, June 24th at the Grosvenor House Hotel – in the meantime, take a look at the full NMA Effectiveness Awards shortlist.

Excess Ad and Analytics Tags Slowing Page Loads and Contributing to Traffic Abandonment

NEW YORK (May 10, 2010)  TagMan, the single-tag/pixel solution to the problems of online campaign tracking, today announced the introduction of ServerTags, that enable publishers to reduce or eliminate slow page loads and audience loss that result from having dozens of  ad/analytics tags/pixels on their sites. Slower page loads encourage users to abandon their retail and e-commerce site visits, resulting in lower sales.

ServerTags move the housing of  all ad tags and pixels off publisher/retailer pages to TagMan’s server where they still perform their call functions, but do not impede pages from loading.

“A recent internal TagMan study confirmed that the slowest‐loading assets on site pages were tracking tags, taking as long as 250ms to fully load. Based on our experience, a delay of around one second causes approximately 10% of users to abandon the page, suggesting that four tags on the page could cost sites 10% of their potential visitors,” says Jon Baron, TagMan’s General Manager. “While the figures depend on how important the users feel the page content was, such an adverse affect on user experience causes a significant loss of revenue for online retailers. The problems were not just with tags from small vendors, tags from major vendors introduce significant delays to page downloads.”

TagMan ServerTags remove 1×1 pixels from the browser call,  speed up systems through cleaner integration and increase the ability of publishers to work with multiple partners.

No matter how many third parties a publisher wants to work with, they only end up with one tag being served in the users’ browsers. Reducing many pixel calls to a single TagMan call benefits both the client and their customers.

“Slow page loads due to excess page tags was already a problem when we did our study in the first quarter, but now that Google recently announced it has started ranking webpages by the speed with which they load, the stakes just got higher for retail and e-commerce sites,” adds Mr. Baron.

TagMan will continue to offer its traditional publisher-side universal tag solution to give its clients the broadest possible choice.

TagMan (www.TagMan.com), the first independent tag and pixel management system, was built and developed by web analytics pioneer Paul Cook as a solution to the problems of implementing new tracking tags on advertiser websites. TagMan has revealed that up to 25% of a typical e-commerce advertiser’s commissions are duplicates.  TagMan’s universal tag solution  instantly deduplicates sales and attribute credit in real time across ALL online channels so that for every $1 spent with TagMan, clients see up to a $9.50 return on their investments.  Existing platforms do not offer this conversion report. The negative impact of too many pixels on a client’s website (contributing to shopping basket

abandonment) drove TagMan’s focus on latency and pixel reduction as a core part of the platform used by clients globally. Clients include online advertisers and agencies in the UK, US and Germany, including Virgin Atlantic, Subaru, Boden, Laura Ashley, Thomas Cook and Alliance & Leicester.

Founded in 2004, TagMan is privately owned and funded and has offices in New York and London. It has received funding from Cambridge Angels and the London Business School E100.

TagMan’s work for Thomas Cook in helping the travel giant with its affiliate deduplication has been recognised by the Affiliates A4U community.

The work – which saw Thomas Cook save 25% on affiliate commissions by identifying precisely who delivered the last click – has been shortlisted in the annual Affiliates A4U Awards, in the Innovation Award for Advertisers category, which take place on June 9 at the Grosvenor House Hotel.

Thanks lots to the judges and we hope to see lots of friendly folk on the night.