Tag Management Done Poorly Can Create Performance Issues

Many marketers don’t realize just how much impact a few 3rd-party scripts have on their website’s page loading and performance and how that can affect the bottom line in terms of conversions, not to mention user experience. Research indicates that it can be significant.

In fact, a study by the Aberdeen group, reveals that a 1-second delay in page loading can correlate to a 7% loss in conversions. That’s a serious problem.

And while tag management is a solution, tag management done poorly can create, rather than solve, performance issues. In essence, tag management done badly can lead to poor acceleration issues. In a recent study, “Smart Loading Tags to Accelerate Your Website’s Performance,” we looked at page-load times with different tag management solutions to illustrate this point. Continue reading

Q&A: Michael Lazerow On The Growth Of Social Media, Social Commerce, And Attribution

Mike Lazerow, Buddy Media

As Chairman and CEO of Buddy Media, a preferred platform for Facebook management by eight of the ten top global advertisers, Michael Lazerow is a widely recognized thought leader on digital media and marketing trends. We caught up with him to discuss the growth of social media, social commerce, and social media attribution, as well as the role tag management plays in helping marketers better understand customer’s path to conversion.

Q: In a recent study your company did with Booz & Company, ”Campaigns to Capabilities: Social Media and Marketing 2011,” you guys revealed that while marketing dollars are increasingly shifting toward social media efforts there are still many marketers who don’t understand ROI. Why is that?

A: There are a couple of factors at play here. Many brands don’t know what they should be measuring or even what they are able to measure. If you don’t decide upon attainable objectives, then it is nearly impossible to gauge any sort of return on investment. Continue reading

2012 Predictions: The Year Of Tag Management, Data Scientists, Privacy, And Attribution

Last year, AdExchanger.com asked us for our 2011 predictions, and the topics of attribution and privacy were at the top of our list. Interestingly, prediction 4 came true with Terry Kawaja launching an AdTechnopoly board. Here in 2012, we see attribution and privacy appearing again but overall we predict the tag management space growing with usage in those areas becoming more of a priority for marketers.

Here’s a summary of our top five predictions for 2012 with the full explanation on Adotas: Continue reading

Q&A: Webtrends Alex Yoder on Analytics and Independent Tag Management, Part 2

In part 1 of this two-part interview, Alex Yoder, CEO of Webtrends, discussed his company’s current success and what’s happening in mobile analytics. In this installment, he talks about the importance of an independent tag management system and what he sees happening in the space overall.

Q: Both Coremetrics and Omniture have recently announced their Tag Management Systems (TMS). Why hasn’t WebTrends built a TMS?

A: I speak to many, many clients who feel trapped by their current vendor, simply because that vendor’s tag is on their site and the client is concerned that it will be too difficult to retag. Continue reading

Q&A: Webtrends Alex Yoder on Analytics and Independent Tag Management, Part 1

Web trends, Alex YoderAs CEO of Webtrends, Alex Yoder is responsible for worldwide operations and the overall strategic vision of the company. Since joining Webtrends in 2000, he has focused on expanding the brand and delivering business value to global enterprises. Prior to Webtrends, Alex served as Vice President of Sales for Touch Clarity, a behavioral targeting company.

To say that he fully understands web analytics and where the industry is headed is an understatement. We recently caught up with him to discuss how his business is doing, how mobile analytics is growing, and the importance of an independent tag management system. Continue reading

The complexity of marketing attribution: how Logan Tod asks and answers big questions of attribution data

Analytics and optimisation consultancy Logan Tod has developed an approach that incorporates attribution modelling within its own optimisation framework so its clients can decide where to invest their ad spend.

The framework classifies individual marketing activity, from high-level channels down to low-level keywords, with specific recommendations associated with each. One visualization of Logan Tod’s process looks a little like this:

Continue reading

The State of Privacy, Do-Not-Track, And Why You Need Tag Management

The conversation about consumer privacy on the Internet is heating up due to recent legislation proposed both in the EU and the US. It’s a real concern for both consumers and website publishers alike. (This webinar from Marketo has the latest on EU and US e-privacy law, just in case you haven’t been following.)

Current technologies that track consumers’ behavior when browsing the Web are often dropping cookies on users’ Continue reading

Q&A: Andy Kahl On Third-Party Tags, Page Load, Latency, And Site Performance

TagMan recently caught up with Andy Kahl Product Manager at Evidon, Ghostery’s parent company, to talk about their recent study: Biggest Lagger: The Top Ten Elements that Slow Your Internet Down (US), in which they tracked their GhostRank Panel volunteers to monitor the Internet and most third-party content. Out of nearly 800 companies they watch, they found the top 10 that lag the web browsing experience the most in the U.S.

Biggest Lagger: The Top Ten Elements that Slow Your Internet Down (US) Continue reading

Tag management helps Glasses Direct take on a gloomy-looking 2012

Rob Silsbury, Marketing Director, Glasses DirectRob Silsbury, marketing director of online glasses retailer Glasses Direct is under no illusions as to the state of the retail environment in 2012.

Speaking at TagMan’s most recent client get together TagMeet 2, Silsbury said: “It’s going to be a pig of a year.” And none of the other retailers in the room looked ready to disagree.

So what does Glasses Direct plan to do about it? Given its focus is online, then drive its online channels hard. Efficiency is the overriding mission. But, that doesn’t mean the company isn’t prepared to invest to get as lean as possible. Silsbury has a couple of things in mind: Continue reading

Getting Social e-Commerce Ready With Tag Management

As Cyber Monday approaches, a lot of e-tailers are  contemplating the ROI of social commerce. While full service social commerce, such as setting up a store on Facebook might be a viable move for big players, like Procter & Gamble with its Pampers store on the social site, for smaller businesses the major play lies in adding social plugins, such as “Like” or “Share,” to their e-commerce sites.

The truth is, consumers aren’t visiting social networks to do their shopping. A recent simplyZesty article reported that Forrester found that the conversion rate for Facebook stores was equal to that of standard e-commerce stores, at between 2-4%, while also attracting Continue reading