Unica wp next generation_web analytics1109

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Unica Corporation | www.unica.com 1

Next-Generation Web Analytics

Web analytics is evolving rapidly as companies recognize that online

behavioral data is a mission-critical asset that businesses can lever-

age to increase revenue, improve results, and deliver differentiated

customer experiences. As such, web behavioral data must be man-

aged much like any other critical business data. A deep understanding

of this natural market progression and the experience of being the

leader in helping clients deliver marketing results with data-driven

marketing technology solutions defines Unica’s approach to web

analytics and sets Unica apart from the competition.

Unica® NetInsight® is a next-generation web analytics solution

designed from the ground up to meet the full range of online analysis

requirements for business today. NetInsight features a fundamentally

different, and dramatically simpler, approach to collecting the data

needed to understand online visitor behavior, while providing unpar-

alleled flexibility for reporting and analysis. The result is a compre-

hensive solution that is easy to implement, use, maintain, adapt, and

extend to support evolving business needs.

In contrast, traditional web analytics products were designed and

optimized for aggregate web traffic analysis. They are inflexible,

expensive to maintain, and only address a subset of today’s busi-

ness requirements – often through a patchwork of add-on product

extensions and wholly separate modules.

Data ColleCtion aPProaCh

The NetInsight architecture cleanly separates data collection from

reporting and analysis.

other products rely on hard-coded page tags • that require

marketers to decide up-front what site goals they want to track,

what visitor segments they want to distinguish, and even how

they want to analyze the data. The problem? Business is not

static so it’s impossible to define all of these things ahead of

time. Every analytical marketing process requires flexibility: flex-

ibility to capture more or different data and flexibility to analyze

the data at varying levels of depth. The maintenance cost of re-

tagging is high. It is complex, error prone, and slows down the

pace of business change.

netinsight leverages a “soft-tagging” approach • that requires

fewer up-front decisions, less up-front work, and dramatically

less maintenance over time as business needs change. The tag

is only 10.5K. Why does this matter? Two reasons: (1) the tag

doesn’t slow down the page; (2) less data is lost when visitors

navigate away from a page before it is fully loaded. Furthermore,

the job of the tag is solely to collect data, not to define analysis

structure. With NetInsight, business users specify how they want

to analyze and report on the data through the application. This

approach dramatically increases business flexibility by giving

marketers the freedom to change their analysis requirements

without the need to re-tag. Furthermore, when key business

metrics change marketers can reassess the business historically

through the new lens. Other products can only look forward.

UniCa’S aPProaCh to WeB analYtiCS iS DiFFerent

Unica’s approach to web analytics is unique in its ability to

deliver business value. Why? Five fundamental reasons:

Data collection approach: 1. The NetInsight architec-

ture cleanly separates data collection from reporting

and analysis giving the business unparalleled flex-

ibility while minimizing maintenance costs.

Flexible and open data architecture: 2. NetInsight is

powered by a highly flexible and open data archi-

tecture enabling the business to create unlimited

reports (at no additional cost), drill into every metric

to validate its accuracy, and easily extend the product

to integrate with other data sources.

“Democratized” access to web analysis: 3. Net-

Insight’s powerful role-based interface gives business

the flexibility to empower application users with the

right level of access and functionality to match their

skill set. With NetInsight, there is no need to purchase

different applications to support different user skillsets.

Differentiated delivery approach:4. NetInsight is avail-

able on-demand or can run in your data center. Same

product, your choice.

Part of a holistic marketing suite:5. Unica is – and

has always been – a marketing solutions company

focused on helping clients succeed with data-driven

marketing technology solutions.


example: Why Separating Data Collection and Data analysis Makes Sense

All web analytics products require deploying at least basic

page tags during implementation while additional tagging is

needed for client side events such as shopping cart activity. Yet

traditional web analytics products unnecessarily intertwine data

collection and data analysis.

Suppose that a car manufacturer wants to learn more about

visitors that are browsing new hybrid car models on their site.

Some solutions require customers to work through several steps

involving many people from business to IT.

Identify the questions that will be asked about hybrid 1.

models (e.g. what keywords bring visitors to the site).

Determine, with a skilled web analytics programmer, 2.

how these questions translate into custom tag coding

requirements.

Schedule a web developer to customize the existing tags 3.

on all relevant pages. The tag may require a hard coded

flag similar to the example below in order to define the

segment of interest.

Test the modified web pages before releasing them into 4.

production on the site.

Enable correlation reporting for the new custom variables 5.

related to hybrid cars.

Negotiate payment terms and ensure budget availabil-6.

ity if the allotted number of correlation reports has been

exceeded.

Wait several days for enough data to accumulate in order to 7.

perform the analysis.

Perform the analysis about hybrid cars that they specified in 8.

step one (e.g. keywords used by visitors).

These steps can be daunting and can take time. What’s more, if

answers to the identified questions result in new questions – as

is virtually always the case in marketing analysis — the process

must start all over again. Our customers and prospects tell us

that, often, important changes simply don’t get done.

Unica netinsight Cleanly Separates Data Collection from analysis

By separating data collection from analysis as much as possible,

Unica NetInsight eliminates the multi-step process. In the same

example, the car manufacturer would answer its questions

about paid keywords relating to hybrid car models by accessing

the application and simply:

Selecting the search keyword report.1.

Dragging and dropping data filters to restrict the report to 2.

visitors that viewed pages related to hybrid car models

during their sessions.

That’s it! Marketers get instant answers to brand new questions

on historical data. Additionally, to drill down into further detail

about referrers, entry and exit pages, or visitor details, users

simply drill to those reports. Changing the analysis to answer

questions about convertible cars is just as easy and a few more

clicks away. NetInsight customers rave about how much time

they save and how many more opportunities they can investi-

gate with NetInsight’s ability to apply new questions to

historical data.


FlexiBle anD oPen Data arChiteCtUre

NetInsight is powered by a highly flexible and open data architecture.

traditional products were designed to capture and •

aggregate web traffic. In essence, buyers get a black box that

provides no capability for users to drill into and analyze the data,

much less audit the accuracy of the reported metrics. As busi-

ness requirements matured in recent years, other vendors added

or acquired separate products to deliver drill-down capabilities

and accommodate changing business expectations. The result?

It is common for companies to have multiple products from a

single vendor each giving different answers to the same ques-

tion! The lack of a single, open approach to data management

also means that traditional solutions are not sufficiently exten-

sible. Again, companies are forced to buy separate products that

often require expensive custom services projects that delay time

to value.

netinsight is a single application built around an open data •

architecture ensuring a high degree of certainty on all analyses

and providing a strong core for data integration and extension.

In stark contrast to most industry competitors, NetInsight is fully

auditable allowing users to drill down to every single click that

supports any number or metric. Because NetInsight stores data

at an atomic level of detail, there’s no limit – or additional charg-

es – on the number of segments, reports, metrics, or dimensions

for analysis. What’s more, NetInsight’s built-in ability to extend

data and facilitate limitless slicing and dicing within a single,

role-based interface provides businesses with the ultimate level

of flexibility – all in a single product.

example: Why traditional Web analytics Products Don’t Provide enough Depth

Assume you are a bank with a customer service oriented

web site. Web analytics products that pre-aggregate can

help understand success with activities like registrations

or popular self-service processes. But, they can’t help you

answer questions like:

How many customers that used the site for self-service •

were really able to avoid a call to the customer service

line within the next 48 hours?

How do customers in various lifecycle stages or value •

segments use the site differently from each other so that

enhancements can be prioritized for the most valuable

clients?

Simply put, traditional web analytics solutions don’t capture

the granular information or possess the integration capa-

bilities necessary to answer these kinds of vital business

questions.

Unica Facilitates an integrated View of Click and Customer insights

With NetInsight, atomic level data is captured and stored by

default. What’s more, NetInsight’s open and extensible data

architecture makes it easy to extend the product to integrate

other data sources required to answer complex multi-chan-

nel questions. Analysts can even reproduce the behavior

of individual visitors in the event of a dispute or audit any

metric by breaking it into the detailed data that make up the

total result.


“DeMoCratiZeD” aCCeSS to WeB analYSiS

NetInsight extends self-service access to personalized metrics

beyond the core web analytics team via a powerful, role-based

application interface.

the primary reporting applications offered by many vendors •

are too static for business users to answer their own questions.

At the same time, power user modules are too complicated to

be used outside the core web analytics team. To compensate,

web analytics teams spend much of their time handling reporting

requests for business users who must wait in line for their re-

quests to be processed. The result of this all too familiar analysis

cycle? Business decisions are often stalled or delayed. Worse

yet, key decisions are made on gut feel without the appropriate

analysis to back them up.

netinsight balances usability with powerful self-service •

capabilities enabling casual users to iteratively ask questions

and get answers. The application provides the capability to

define different user roles that have access to skill-level

appropriate subsets of reports, metrics, application functionality,

and depth of data. As a business user’s proficiency increases

additional capabilities can be authorized as needed.

example: how other Web analytics Products Create Unnecessary Barriers

Marketers responsible for demand-generation need to un-

derstand the quality of visitors attracted to their site by their

various search, ad, and email campaigns. While it is easy to

get reports on how many campaign visitors arrived on the

site and whether they converted, few marketers can answer

questions like:

What happened with visitors that didn’t convert •

right away?

What pages did campaign visitors view?•

Which on-site videos did they watch?•

Did they download any PDF documents?•

Where did they get lost?•

With the main reporting modules of other web analytics

products, these questions are out of reach unless the

metrics are previously defined and incorporated into page

tags. Yes, other vendors offer power user modules. But

these modules come for an additional fee and they are not

designed for business users. So marketers have to stand in

line while highly skilled power users get answers. As most

marketers have experienced at one point or another, this

process can be inefficient and frustrating.

Unica opens access to Web analysis

NetInsight’s user interface is suitable for

all users—power users and business

users alike.

To answer questions like those above,

business users simply go to the ad cam-

paign reports and drag and drop filters to

understand how many campaign visitors

viewed certain pages, videos, or PDF docu-

ments. More advanced users can also obtain

access to report wizards to add new calcu-

lated metrics (e.g. the percentage of visitors

who viewed videos).


a DiFFerentiateD DeliVerY aPProaCh NetInsight is available as on-demand or enterprise software,

with flexible deployment options, and access to deep technical

expertise right on the front line.

Few web analytics vendors offer flexible deployment •

options or the ability to shift the delivery model over time

with the same product. In addition, other products fail to

facilitate data integration or integration with other applica-

tions and systems within the enterprise.

Unica offers the flexibility to grow with the changing •

needs of the business. Business needs mandate how web

analytics should be deployed. Available on-demand or as

enterprise software, NetInsight enables businesses to make

the choice that is right for them. Since NetInsight collects

data in an open relational database, on-premise customers

get the additional benefit of an out-of-the box web behavior

data mart for enterprise-wide usage – eliminating the need

to extract data from the web analytics solution and build a

new data mart in order to integrate web data into other en-

terprise applications. Unica’s approach to customer service

is also unique, providing customers with direct access to

skilled engineers for guidance and advice on the product –

all at no extra charge.

example: the Power of Flexibility

No matter how intuitive the design of a web analytics

product, questions still arise.

How should the site be tagged to collect certain data (e.g. for •

tracking video usage or measuring mobile devices)?

How should a report be configured to answer certain •

questions (e.g. on engagement metrics)?

Yet with many web analytics products, answers are only available

after paying hefty consulting fees. Since most companies shy

away from paying fees up front, business users often find them-

selves stuck with nobody to answer their questions.

In other cases, marketers may reach a point of maturity with

web analytics where the data need to be so tightly integrated with

in-house CRM or customer database systems that a nightly data

feed is not timely enough to meet business needs. At this point,

some companies decide that it makes sense to migrate the web

analytics solution in house. Unfortunately, with other web analyt-

ics products, on-demand and enterprise software deployment

modules are often incompatible or unavailable.

Unica Provides answers to Questions and Choices for integration

Unica NetInsight is available on-demand or customers can

choose to run the software in their own data center.

NetInsight OnDemand and the enterprise software editions are

both available and 100% compatible. Customers wishing to bring

NetInsight’s open data mart in-house can do so by migrating

from one deployment model to the other. What’s more, custom-

ers that make the shift can bring along all their accumulated data,

reports, and metrics.

With Unica NetInsight OnDemand, technical help is included with

the service by default. Customers have direct access to guidance

and advice instead of gated access through sales people. Finally,

a simple, customer-friendly pricing model seeks to provide a

single price, avoiding a long list of add-on fees.


Part oF a holiStiC Marketing SUite Unica is – and has always been – a marketing solutions company.

Most web analytics vendors got their start in web traffic •

analysis. The same legacy that has resulted in an architec-

ture that only supports aggregate traffic counts yields similar

expertise. Traditional web analytics vendors have only recently

shifted their messaging – and their product focus – from merely

reporting the numbers, to providing capabilities that marketers,

not analysts, can leverage to truly impact the business. Today,

traditional web analytics providers offer, at best, point solu-

tions that help marketers leverage insight from their products to

execute marketing activities.

Unica is a marketing solutions company• with a long and

unparalleled history of helping marketing organizations improve

business results with data-driven marketing technology solu-

tions and best practices. As a flagship offering within Unica’s

Enterprise and OnDemand product lines, NetInsight enables

Unica customers to leverage the insight they gain directly into

their customer marketing programs and visitor interactions. Only

Unica truly offers a comprehensive interactive marketing solu-

tion enabling companies to engage customers, prospects, and

anonymous web visitors in an interactive cross-channel dialog.

example: the Value of the Marketing Solutions legacy

Most web analytics providers have been transitioning from

reporting and analysis pure plays over the last couple of

years and acquiring or introducing solutions that leverage

web data to execute marketing activities. Some are even go-

ing so far as to position their suite of products as marketing

suites. Peel back the covers just a bit, however, and it’s clear

that the core web analytics application is the centerpiece

of these vendors’ suite vision, with point solution add-on

modules enabling discrete marketing execution functions.

Furthermore, the impact of the suite is only focused on the

early stages of the customer lifecycle—demand creation

through conversion.

This is not enough for most marketers. This limited focus

neglects the lifecycle stages that include on-boarding, cus-

tomer experience management, and customer value man-

agement (including up-sell and cross-sell, attrition detection

and retention marketing, and win-back). These activities are

critical to marketing, yet largely ignored by web analytics

vendors that claim to offer marketing suites.

Unica offers the Most Comprehensive Marketing Suite available

While no suite does absolutely everything that a marketer

can dream up, Unica offers the most comprehensive and

complete marketing suite available on the market today.

Unica helps marketers struggling to make the shift to

interactive marketing and conquer the inbound-outbound,

online-offline, anytime-real-time world that has become a

reality. Unica’s OnDemand and Enterprise products enable

marketers (when they are ready) to extend web analytics

to customer analytics, customize marketing messages in

both outbound and inbound channels, and more effectively

integrate their activities with marketing management and

collaboration tools.

life Cycle Stage

Marketer’s goal

initiatives Driven by Personal Web analytics

Suspects (anonymous site visitors)

Attract Ad Optimization

Prospects (registered

visitors)Engage

Site Optimization & Targeting

new Customers

ConvertLead Nurturing & Re-Marketing

high-Value Customers

ValueOn-Boarding and Cross-, Up-

& Repeat Sales Marketing

at-risk & Former

Customers

Retain & Win Back

Retention Marketing

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aBoUt UniCa

Unica Corporation (NASDAQ: UNCA) is the recognized leader in

marketing software solutions. Unica’s advanced set of enterprise

marketing management and on-demand marketing solutions

empowers organizations and individuals to turn their passion for

marketing into valuable customer relationships and more profit-

able, timely, and measurable business outcomes. These solutions

integrate and streamline all aspects of online and offline marketing.

Unica’s unique interactive marketing approach incorporates cus-

tomer analytics and web analytics, centralized decisioning, cross-

channel execution, and integrated marketing operations. More than

1,000 organizations worldwide depend on Unica for their marketing

management solutions.

Unica is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts with offices

around the globe. For more information, visit www.unica.com.

Unica Corporation

Worldwide Headquarters

Reservoir Place North

170 Tracer Lane

Waltham, MA 02451

USA

t +1.781.839.8000

F +1.781.890.0012

e [email protected]

www.unica.com

Unica and NetInsight are registered trademarks of Unica Corporation with the U.S. Patent and Trade mark Office. The Unica logo and MARKET-ING SUCCESS STARTS WITH U are trademarks of Unica Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. WP-NGWA-0909-PDF © Unica Corporation, 2009. All rights reserved.

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