TagMan is pleased to be speaking at next week’s inaugural Affiliate Management Days in London – the must attend event for affiliate managers looking to learn how online retailers are successfully implementing and managing their affiliate programs.

In this never before seen presentation, Sandra McDill – Global Client Services Director, will use real-world examples and some pretty pictures to dispel the common myth that attribution and affiliates don’t mix.

With seven years experience working in affiliate marketing, Sandra knows first-hand how attribution models can be both exciting and concerning for affiliates, networks and advertisers. On one hand there is an opportunity to optimise affiliate performance based on consumer trends and conversion pathways, yet on the other there is a fear that moving beyond ‘last click wins’ is death for affiliates…

Join TagMan on Wed 15 May and find out how online retailers like Boden and Air New Zealand are using the customers’ complete journey to sale to prove the true value of affiliates in the marketing mix and identify ways to ensure they are fairly rewarded for their contribution to generating sales across the funnel.

What: Affiliates and Attribution – Friends not Foe, AM Days London. Register here>
When: 15 May 2013, 1:15-2pm GMT
Where: Stamford Bridge – The Home of Chelsea Football Club, London SW6 1HS

TagMan is frequently asked to provide expert insights on the latest trends in omni-channel marketing, attribution, data management and site and channel performance optimisation.  For speaking or media-related opportunities please contact marketing@tagman.com

TagMan was thrilled to host an engaging discussion on ‘Big Data,’ moderated by Marketing Week’s Michael Barnett, at Econsultancy’s Digital Cream in London last month.  Marketers representing numerous industries from ecommerce to finance and retail to pharma, gathered to discuss the various challenges and opportunities Big Data presents on a daily basis.

The Cream of the Crop Came to Discuss Big Data at Econsultancy Event

While the discussion was ripe with technical tongue twisters, the overall message was clear. Big Data, and its implications on Big Marketing, remains a mystery for many. Here are few key themes that emerged:

1. Diverse perspectives 

The definition of big data, as well as the perceived value, costs and implications of big data projects, can vary significantly. For example, large pharmaceutical enterprises with time, resources and funding to build the infrastructure to collect, crunch, cleanse and analyse huge volumes of data from multiple systems (e.g. CRM and ERP) might perceive big data projects as opportunities to glean unprecedented insights and efficiencies.

In contrast, smaller, more nimble ecommerce brands were more curious about containing big data projects and revealing solutions to make big data easier and more applicable to their specific needs – investing in the right marketing channels and ecommerce conversion.

2. The Right Data = The Right Stuff

Data quality, relevance and applicability are big concerns for big data neophytes and gurus. For marketers to make successful decisions which are informed by big data, it is essential that the right source data has been identified, checked, de-duplicated and verified. Data which has been processed by standards to check for regulation and integrity is considered valid and is known as clean. When setting out, make sure your vendors have solid answers to how and why their data sources and processes are more effective for achieving big business results from big data.

3. In the end, consumers still rule the day

Companies universally desire to understand the ‘consumer’s journey’ from end-to-end across touch points in time. They seek the solutions and best practices to help them invest in the right marketing and service channels so they can leverage meaningful insights to serve more targeted, personalized and more delightful consumer ecommerce, fulfillment and customer service experiences.

4. Pragmatism still applies

Big data is no silver bullet in itself. Roundtable participants agreed that a pragmatic and well-planned approach with well-tested hypotheses and goals, supplemented with human insights and qualitative concepts, were still necessary to make data actionable. While useful, owning big data does not lead directly to successful marketing.  Instead, it is the ways in which big data is utilized and interpreted that leads to insightful choices being made. It is so-called big marketing – i.e. the decisions that data enables marketers to make – that is the pivotal term that defines modern marketing practice – not big data in its own right.

Download your FREE copy of the Big Data Trends Briefing today and find out everything you need to consider and next steps to getting the most out of your Big Data.

The TagMan Client Services Team

The recent news that Google Affiliate Network is shutting down just after a year in operation doesn’t come as a surprise after complaints about the technology service have been rife in the industry. Online marketing controller of strategy and planning at BSkyB, Helen Southgate was quick to weigh in on the news stating, “clients want more than just tech” – a sentiment shared by TagMan and its customers.

In digital marketing, where major brands rely on software to run their marketing campaigns, determine web performance and improve efficiencies, the difference between good, bad or complete lack of service could mean a significant impact on overall sales. With several Forrester studies confirming that B2B customers still perceive their experiences to be worse than those delivered by bottom-of-the barrel consumer industries such as TV service providers and health insurance plans, why is quality service so seldom seen from today’s SaaS (software-as-a-service) providers?

Lack of resources (budget and time) is stated as the biggest barrier to cultivating better customer engagement (2013 Econsultancy Customer Experience and Engagement Compendium). While that’s no doubt true, spending the majority of resources on technology development and sales leaves little left for SaaS businesses to develop and maintain experienced and dedicated service.  Pressure to prove rapid sales growth has shifted SaaS companies’ focus from ‘client’ to ‘prospect,’ making the more appropriate acronym definition, ‘Software as a Something-to-sell.’

Ennis Al-Saeigh, Marketing Director for OfferoftheDay, suggests that “SaaS companies which are successful focus on client services and have an experienced client services team, like TagMan.” At TagMan our mission is simple; we’re putting the ‘Service’ back in SaaS. Every member of our 35+ client-facing team globally brings extensive experience in digital marketing and managing enterprise customers with complex technical challenges.  Coupled with a robust, always accessible, self-service support platform that adheres to a clear SLA (service level agreement), we understand how to manage and solve real customer issues ensuring clients are getting the most out of their marketing investments.

The result, customers who can trust that service matches technological excellence and a client relationship that becomes a true partnership. For Fergus Boyd at Virgin Atlantic Airways, a TagMan client for almost 6 years, the TagMan account team have “become an extended part of our Commercial Analytics team and are always responsive to our needs and are happy to be hands-on when required.”

Our commitment to service is also being seen with the 300+ vendors and agencies we partner with. Dominic Edmunds, CEO and Founder of SaleCycle feels that “not only are TagMan making it easier for marketers to work with technologies like SaleCycle, they’re putting the ‘Service’ back in SaaS. In a world where everyone’s feeling the effects of ‘data-overload’ and pressure to do more with less, the account team at TagMan take the time to really understand a client’s specific business objectives to help deliver the best results based on their targets.”

As the Global Client Services Director, there is no better feeling than knowing you have the right team for the job. I am pleased that so many of our clients provide glowing recommendations of the account management team. If you have a comment, question or would like to find out more about TagMan, please feel free to contact me directly on Sandra.McDill@TagMan.com

Sandra McDill has been working in the digital space for nine years following a spell in retail management and obtaining a Masters in Marketing Communications. Previously working as the Client Services Director for TradeDoubler, she has worked across multiple digital disciplines including affiliate, PPC, SEO, mobile, display, technology and social. Sandra is currently working at TagMan as Global Client Services Director and is passionate about the topic of attribution. She has previously spoken at events including IAB Engage, TD Summit, Econsultancy roundtables and A4U and has won numerous awards for clients including NMA, Revolution, IMA and PMA. In addition to being named one of Media Weeks 30 under 30 people to watch, Sandra also lectures for the Digital Marketing Institute on the topic of Future Digital Trends.

TagMan were delighted to attend and support the Inaugural US Performance Insights conference in New York City, March 12th-13th 2013 which featured 25 thought-leadership sessions covering international, regional and local markets, 50 speakers, 2 days, an official networking party and a C-Level, Director and Global attendance in a targeted environment.

There were several themes of the event which spanned the performance marketing channel and its global challenges such as attribution, privacy, Omni-channel marketing, big data and mobile with attendance from leading brands including Tommy Hilfiger, Chanel, Saks Fifth Avenue, Calvin Klein, Panasonic, Ticketmaster and Spotify.

Highlights included Rakuten Linkshare’s Chief Operating Officer, Liane Dietrich who reminded us how far performance marketing has grown, Dr Augustine Fou who wowed the audience with his reach and insight into the ever evolving channel and a fantastic panel moderated by Founder of A4U Matthew Wood on the topic of mobile strategies for the agile consumer.

TagMan Global Client Services Director Sandra McDill was part of the popular panel on the Evolution of Attribution in Omni Channel Marketing featuring Greg Shepard from Affiliate Traction and Vik Mehta CEO of VastEdge.com. Advice to the audience included the need to track all online activity through one unified platform such as TagMan’s LEAP, ensure that you approach attribution with your business objectives in mind, and to thoroughly test your media optimization theories using a “what if” scenario before deploying in real time.

The session was particularly enjoyed by VP of E-commerce at Calvin Klein, Brett Miller, who told A4U in an interview that the topic is something that many e-commerce executives are trying to understand and plan for and that “conferences like this are global in nature since the challenges facing internet marketers are common.”

The conference was dominated by great stories and statistics that showed why the event is renowned for its exceptional content and TagMan was proud to join as a sponsor for the evening networking drinks on day one where clients and partners such as Dr Jays, Hilton, Salecycle and Ring Revenue discussed the highlights of the day over a few well deserved drinks.

For more information on the TagMan presentation please email contact@tagman.com.

As we settle into 2013 and what will be a BIG year in digital marketing, we’ve teamed up with our premium partners to bring you our collective take on the biggest opportunities for marketers this year. Marketing gurus from leading digital solutions share their answers to the following question:

What are the greatest challenges and/or opportunities facing digital marketers in 2013? 

Ron Brien, VP Global Marketing, TagMan:

“In 2013, brands will really start to move beyond antiquated ‘Last-click’ methods of attribution when deciding which marketing channels contributed most to sales.  Awarding credit solely to the ‘last-clicked’ channel provides an incomplete, skewed view by failing to account for each consumer’s unique experience of the brand across all marketing channels and stages of their purchase process.  The challenge for digital marketers is finding the right tools to abandon rudimentary ‘last-click’ views of marketing effectiveness and figure out which attribution model(s) fits their business’ needs.  Marketers will look towards technologies that enable them to view campaign performance on a comprehensive and holistic level, across all channels, all devices, and all events.”

Glenn Cross, Vice President of Marketing, ForeSee:

“Today’s customers are both multi-channel and multi-device users, which creates a unique circumstance that is both the challenge and the opportunity for digital marketers.

The challenge is that the modern consumer can shop and engage with a company anywhere at any time through any channel and on any device.   And, if any of those experiences fail in the eyes of the consumer, companies run the risk of losing current and potential customers. With low to no switching costs involved, customers can and will go to where the experience meets their expectations.

However, the opportunity to create loyal customers that are more likely to purchase, return, and recommend IS there. It comes down to business leaders using a sound methodology to listen to THEIR customers’ wants and needs. Only then will they have the business intelligence to make the right strategic, tactical, and operation decisions that will drive their business forward.”

Jon Myers, Commercial Director – EMEA, Marin Software:

“2013 is the year when big data gets turned into big actions

The rate of change and evolution in this industry doesn’t look like slowing down in 2013, and as always that will be the biggest challenge. However, the challenge specific to 2013 for marketers will be how they turn all the “Big Data” they sit on into actions to optimise revenue. Marketers sit on more data than ever before across multiple online and offline channels, and this year they will look to find solutions to how they can turn this data into actions which optimise revenue outcomes in a scalable way.

The biggest opportunity remains in mobile in 2013. Nearly 25% of search clicks are now coming from mobile devices, and as mobile and tablet penetration increases, this will only increase alongside it. The advertisers who succeed will be the advertisers who effectively adjust their marketing programs to deal with this new multi-device world. It will be particularly interesting to observe how bricks and clicks retailers integrate mobile into their high street shopping experience in light of what’s happened to Comet, Jessops and HMV recently.”

Ben Plomion, VP Marketing & Partnerships, Chango:

“2013 is the year of programmatic

Real-time bidding is poised to reach as much as 50% of display spend in certain verticals such as finance and CPG. Retailers are making a smarter use of behavioral and CRM data to customize their products page. Businesses to business companies are quickly adopting lead nurturing system. Whatever industry we look at, there’s a general appreciation that 2013 will be a year where CMOs will wrest control of their first party data to deliver the right message to the right user at the right time.

Retargeting is no different. We are seeing more CMOs understand the value of serving display ads to customers, based on either their browsing history (Site Retargeting) or search history (Search Retargeting).  In addition, CMOs now have the ability to serve ads on Facebook based on user’s search history on Google, Yahoo! And Bing.

Tag management companies such as TagMan are a key component of the programmatic ecosystem. By allowing CMOs to manage their tags effectively, TagMan makes it easier for CMOs to gain full transparency into retargeting campaign results.”

Barney Larkin, Marketing Manager, FusePump:

“2013 is going to be an exciting year for digital marketers and e-commerce in general. There is the challenge of managing increasingly large and complex data sets relating to consumer purchasing behaviours. There are plenty of decisions that will have to be made around sales attribution and how different channels and devices relate to one another and ultimately to the sales funnel. Companies that manage this well will unlock some superb insight that will, in turn, allow them to get closer to their customers and personalise their product content in more creative ways than ever before. There are also incredible opportunities that international e-commerce now has to offer even the smallest of merchants. With global delivery now a reality, the focus is on ensuring that your products are visible and accurately and consistently represented in whatever channel a consumer chooses to engage with you in. Exciting times in e-commerce!”

Chris Sheen, Head of Marketing, SaleCycle:

“2013 is the year to think simple.

With plenty of attention on emerging channels and technologies, top brands will focus on the basics which get lost in the pressure to innovate:

1. Don’t make me think: Get that checkout process optimized and make it easy for customers to purchase by keeping it simple, offering clear and concise actions and plenty of payment options.

2. There’s always some who slip through the net:  Make sure you’re doing everything to recover sales that might get away due to increasingly high abandonment rates – basket abandonment emails for example (we do a pretty good job by the way…)

3. Creative is King: With so many high-resolution devices, whether it’s smart phones or tablets, and a plethora of photo sharing apps like Pinterest and Instagram, our consumers are becoming a little more demanding when it comes to digital design.  Don’t scrimp when it comes to top-drawer photography and product imagery.”

Brian Stone, VP of Marketing, Causata:

“Digital Marketers will be challenged with the Customer Data Prison in 2013

Digital Marketers are now challenged with gaining insight from many customer data warehouses, which include the web, email, social, CRM and even mobile. As the amount of customer data is continuously growing, customer journeys and paths are now often scattered across these different databases – creating data prisons. Taking this customer information, analyzing it and developing actionable insights can very challenging, along with getting measureable results and immediate ROI on past customer behavior.

With TagMan’s partnership, Causata’s predictive analytics and real-time decisioning applications enable B2C companies to create meaningful experiences through data. Our industry-specific applications for cross-sell, loyalty, and retention can drive email and mobile campaigns, personalize web and social experiences, and create context-driven sales and services.”

Scott Meyer, CEO, Evidon:

“Within interactive media circles in recent years, the greatest challenges mostly have pertained to fragmentation, which makes buying – and can make selling – far more complex than need be.  Today, perhaps in response to fragmentation, the move to streamline audience buying and measurement has enabled the so-called “programmatic” segment to grow dramatically.

The programmatic segment, which has given us acronyms like RTB, SSP, DSP, and others, brings tremendous value to the market. But it brings challenges as well, specifically, when a number of the tracking elements that enable these technologies go unseen by businesses and consumers.  Unknown and/or excess tracking code can slow sites down; microsecond latency on a major e-tail site could cost that site’s owner millions of dollars over the course of a year. Unseen trackers can also make a site’s data vulnerable and its advertising less valuable, not to mention compromise consumer privacy.

Brands and other digital ad businesses clearly need to focus on revealing this invisible web, so they can capitalize on innovation instead of being inadvertently damaged by it.”

TagMan, the leading tag management and marketing data platform, has joined forces with FusePump, e-commerce marketing specialists, to form a collaborative partnership to drive additional value and insight into multi-channel marketing.

TagMan’s services enable their e-commerce clients to efficiently manage and unify tag-based technologies to produce one independent stream of clean marketing data from all channels to master the complexities of web analytics, e-commerce and marketing data. FusePump make e-commerce marketing simple for their clients by integrating entire product inventories into online channels such as marketplaces and comparison search engines.

FusePump and TagMan have worked alongside each other for about two years, helping companies to integrate into these online channels and track the results. They have several joint clients including O2, John Lewis and lastminute.com. The new partnership will ensure closer working relationships and knowledge sharing between the two companies, which will benefit both current and future clients.

Lina Patel, Head of Partnerships at FusePump, comments:

“We’re delighted to be partnering formally with TagMan. Working this closely with our technology partners ensures a better mutual understanding of both our capabilities which will ultimately benefit our clients. It’s a progressive way of working, and we hope this will also be attractive to potential clients in the retail e-commerce space.”

Alex Rodriguez, Senior Vice President of Global Partnerships at TagMan, thinks the partnership will be a great success.

“We are delighted to have FusePump on board as a partner, bringing their wealth of product data knowledge to the table for integration into the TagMan system. In return, FusePump will begin reaping the benefits from working within TagMan’s STREAM partner program, which enables  partners to master the complexities of marketing and e-commerce data by allowing their tags to be integrated into the TagMan solution to jointly improve our customer offerings.”

As big data and channel attribution, trends continue to gain momentum, marketers need to know how best to analyse and action marketing data from available sources. Tag Management is one way that companies can collect this data and use it in their marketing decisions. The TagMan platform allows tags to be optimised and implemented quickly and all data can be reported together to produce combined path to conversion reports.

Steve Murphy, Partner Manager of EMEA & APAC at TagMan, is also enthusiastic about the benefits clients will receive from the FusePump partnership.

“FusePump has been an excellent new addition to our partner portfolio here at TagMan. Their expertise means that they are able to drill down into product-specific data extracted directly from e-commerce sites, and use this to inform and feed a number of channels including affiliates, social networking, comparison shopping and many more. FusePump’s work within the travel and retail sectors matches perfectly with TagMan’s roster of clients, and their understanding of the importance of accurate product data will help both parties drive performance in all channels.”

About FusePump
FusePump provide simple and profitable marketing technology solutions for e-commerce retailers. FusePump’s e-commerce marketing platform allows websites to effectively promote their products in all the major online channels (affiliate, comparison shopping, marketplaces, search, display etc.) with little or no technical effort, improving the consumer buying experience and driving increased sales. www.fusepump.com

1. How does the release of Google Tag Manager affect the future of TagMan and other TMS systems?

The Tag Management sector has grown exponentially over the past couple years, both in terms of solutions available in the market and the demand for such services from companies of all sizes. Google Tag Manager is one more indication of this growth and validates the need for tag management. Like other sectors with such growth, such as ad networks or web analytics 10-15 years ago, smaller companies without a differentiated offering or large customer base will not be able to keep up with the pace of innovation and start to fade away. However, when a large player such as Google enters a market such as this, those leaders in the sector with a strong, differentiated offering become even stronger as it reinforces the value of the offering and encourages even more companies to find a tag management solution that best fits their needs. We believe TagMan, being the largest, most proven and robust technology, is well positioned to gain even more momentum as companies become increasingly aware of the benefits enterprise tag management can bring with this release.

2. Who will most likely use Google Tag Manager vs another system like TagMan?

For companies who wish to invest solely in the Google stack, Google Tag Manager lets them test out the benefits a tag management system will bring. We find that many Google Analytics clients also wish to use technologies not sourced from Google, and it’s those businesses that would likely want an independent tag management system that works seamlessly across all technologies, such as TagMan does.  In the same way that larger clients who use Google Analytics usually invest in an enterprise version of an analytics provider when they need enhanced capabilities and large scale data management, we’re likely to see these same clients requiring a more sophisticated Tag Management System that offers greater customization options.

3. Should companies ideally be using an independent tag management system?

Yes. Independent tag management companies work with all vendors to support their technologies to the fullest. Also, an independent tag management system ensures that it will be built with full support of any type of technology in mind, enabling freedom of choice for the client – which is a major reason to have a tag management system in the first place. In addition with an independent tag management system the data belongs to the client, rather than the tag management provider. As an independent tag management system, TagMan works across the entire ecosystem to support clients’ needs and can act as an unbiased advisor to clients on tagging issues, data, and media performance. Advertisers should also prefer a system that is not also getting a lion’s share of their media spend. Google has a near monopoly in search and a leading position in display, making them an inherently biased source of marketing data and tag support.

As discussed on the TagMan blog, other players also see the danger of not using an independent tag management system as well:

“You are simply letting the fox watch the hen-house.  As a customer, you remove any opportunity to maintain control of the value that you receive from the various solutions.  You set yourself up to be trapped again.”

-Alex Yoder, CEO, Webtrends

4. What does this release mean for other TMS vendors?

It validates the market, just as Google Analytics helped validate the web analytics market while Omniture continued to thrive as an enterprise solution. We believe tag management systems will become a “must-have” for enterprise marketers and Google’s investment in this space only reinforces that. For non-enterprise, long-tail advertisers, Google’s TMS will be a starter product. Companies that focus on low-cost, basic offerings will likely be the most affected by that. However, many businesses will require a true enterprise TMS and it’s those marketers that will look towards companies like TagMan to provide an independent and universal solution.

TagMan offers:

• Integrations with over 300 tags, and 100 partners certified. Each tag has been fully tested by our team to ensure safe, asynchronous loading and integrated into the platform. Certified tags additionally ensure that we always have the most up-to-date versions from vendors for your convenience.
• Support for any type of tag. Even complex MVT testing and site personalization tags can run safely through the TagMan system, while other tags remain asynchronous.
• Real-time attribution. Make real-time decisions on which tags should fire based on a user’s marketing history. Reduce discrepancies and increase ROI through de-duplication of cross-channel media.
• A graphic tag library and user interface. We’ve focused on usability and design in our newest user interface so that our clients find their workflows easy and intuitive.
• Support and Services. We have global teams for implementation, account management, and technical support. When there’s a problem, you will be able to reach someone to help you resolve it.
• SLAs. We can guarantee 99.99% uptime and under 100ms response time. We’ve never broken these guarantees, but you won’t pay if we do.
• Clean data, marketing insight, and proven ROI. We can provide you with a complete, accurate, and unbiased source of cross-channel marketing activity. We help you understand it through visual reports, and what-if analysis. And we make it portable, so you can feed it into other systems for deeper analysis, offline CRM mapping, and updated bid optimization.

One Final Point… The True Cost of Free

Free sounds great, we all would rather have things for free than pay for them, right? But what if you were sacrificing flexibility and quality for free? For something as important as a foundational technology that powers your ability to optimize, market, and protect the performance of your online business, what is the true cost of free and total cost of ownership?

According to Forrester’s “Understanding Tag Management Tools and Technology”:

• 36% of companies listed page load performance as a top challenge
• 32% listed the technical skills required to manage tags as a challenge
• 28% of users said that that one of their top three benefits of a tag management system is improved flexibility to evaluate and adopt new vendors
• The top two things companies look for in a TMS is ease of use (62%) and ease of implementation and ongoing management (50%)

Without a system that can fully test, support, and asynchronously serve any tag a client wishes to implement, you’ve lost many of the true benefits of tag management by chasing something that’s free but unmanageable for the majority of use cases.

Putting it all together

• Free isn’t a benefit if it doesn’t solve your major challenges or help drive your business
• Quality, service, and flexibility are key
• Don’t settle for less than what you need to thrive, at any cost
• The opportunity costs and total cost of ownership add up quickly
• Free isn’t really free

Forrester Research, Inc.’s latest report “Understanding Tag Management Tools and Technology” provides third-party, unbiased insight from industry experts on the tag management competitive landscape. Highlighting findings from the survey, our latest Infographic looks at the benefits of using a tag management system (TMS), how companies are using the technology and important factors to consider when choosing the best TMS for your business.

Including commentary from Forrester’s Customer Intelligence Professionals Analyst, Joe Stanhope, the full report provides an exclusive look at how marketers are using tag management systems (TMS) to tackle digital complexity through improved marketing efficiency, flexibility and performance. Download a FREE copy from our website for a limited time: www.tagman.com/forrester.

How much can TagMan increase your company’s bottom-line? We’re pleased to announce the results of our July 2012 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting.  No other in-depth study on tag management has been done before over a substantial multi-year period.  The study, “Total Economic Impact of the TagMan Tag Management System,” revealed that TagMan produced total benefits of over $640,000 in just three years and a payback period of only 2.6 months for a major international airline carrier.

Three-Year Risk-Adjusted ROI

We’ve been producing exceptional ROI results across the board for our customers including leading global brands in Retail, Consumer Products, Fashion Apparel, Pharmaceutical, High-technology, Financial Services, Telecom & Mobile and Travel & Hospitality.  It’s great to show the results that our superior tag management technology provides for our customers.

The study gathered results through a comprehensive approach including in-depth interviews with an existing international airline carrier customer. The main drivers for the airline carrier’s decision to implement TagMan were 1) to address the growing complexity and inflexibility of their pre-TagMan web environment in managing multichannel marketing campaigns and associated tags and 2) to successfully launch a global affiliate program, which required a deduplication solution to correctly pay out commissions. The TagMan implementation resulted in marketing and IT development cost savings, significant deduplication savings, and lower project costs due to faster time-to-market for the organization’s marketing initiatives.

The study further revealed that implementing TagMan addressed the issues the airline carrier had around the cost of tag maintenance in their previous environment and the delay the eCommerce team faced whenever they wanted to change the tagging code on the websites. With TagMan, the eCommerce team no longer had to wait for release cycles as dictated by the company’s IT organization. Changing tracking codes on the website now took minutes compared to previous project periods of up to three months.

The international airline carrier experienced the following quantitative and qualitative benefits:

• More efficient marketing spend from commissions saved due to deduplication of performance media.
• Productivity savings for both IT and eCommerce teams through nimble marketing activity and faster time-to-market for marketing initiatives.
• Improved ability to optimize marketing activity by understanding the interactions among different channels.
• Improved marketing performance from better targeted campaigns and response rates.
• Improved coverage and consistency of measurement.
• Improved privacy and control to comply with government regulations.
• Improved site performance with faster loading for web pages.

Total Benefits (Non-Risk-Adjusted)

The full report is available for download at http://www.tagman.com/index.php/forrester-case-study.

TagMan has played a pivotal role in a new report from the IAB, which explores attribution and customer conversion journeys in the retail sector.

We were delighted to provide the IAB with the data and analysis for this latest research. It forms the heart of the report and shows the true path to sale for retailers.

Using the full conversion path and non-converting data feed reports for leading UK retailers TagMan partnered with the IAB to investigate the following key areas:

• The role all relevant forms of online media play in the customer conversion journey
• How online media work most efficiently when integrated
• The non-linear nature of the customer journey and the way that different formats interact with each other on the journey in the build-up to conversion
• The real impact of online display advertising on site visits and user behaviour

There are many factors influencing a user on their journey to sale and this report highlights just how much one user journey varies to another.  With some users taking as little as one day to convert and others taking as long as 17, it’s important to understand how each channel is impacting the journey to be able to then reward their real contribution.

Our research showed that in over 55% of cases the consumer needed to be exposed to two or more online advertising touch points before they converted. It was also interesting to see that display advertising prompted a number of customer journeys and, when combined with search, the likelihood of conversion significantly increased.

The report, which also investigates brand loyalty and the opportunities for cross selling, is available to IAB members via: http://www.iabuk.net/blog/customer-conversion-journeys-in-the-retail-sector

To find out more about this report and how you can get a copy please email contact@tagman.com