seattle marketing seminar overview

yesterday, i attended the webtrends (web analytics and tracking company) marketing seminar at the grand hyatt hotel in seattle, washington. i wasn't sure what to expect from a free seminar. i experienced some things i expected and was pleasantly surprised by others.

the seminar started with a few keynote speakers including the chief marketing officer and president of web trends, along with a key microsoft exec speaking on a personal web trends experience. they touched on new industry trends and the direction they foresee the internet medium heading. there weren't any eye opening findings but they did, however, touch on the advancement of consumer generated web content and how the consumer is now in complete control of internet advertising flow and spend.

after the keynote speech, the seminar was broken into breakout sessions to highlight specific areas of web analytics and tracking. i attended the "delivering effective online campaigns." the initial presentation covered precise tracking and was geared around a specific web trends product. the case study that followed was given by kettle foods' vice president of marketing, michelle peterman. she explain the "accidental marketing" path her company took to achieving greater conversions online. it was a helpful insight into how companies can research, implement and track their online marketing campaigns.

the second breakout sessions revolved around tracking web 2.0 technologies, including rss feeds, ajax, rich media content and more. during a beneficial qa session, several questions were asked about tracking rich media programs. the overall consensus from the panel members was to create individual tags for each call out. however, a basic programmer would have trouble implementing these tags and should seek high level expertise.

the third breakout session featured building customer profiles through cross-channel information. marketing to specific clients and making sure each department is interacting with each other were the highlighted points of this presentation. i asked a question about tracking offline advertising through vanity urls (ex: fgi.com.us/tv for a television ad). bill bruno from stratigent recommended sub-domains and website search boxes as showing greater conversion rates for tracking traditional media advertising.

overall, the presentation was a strong sales pitch for web trends products but i was able to understand where top level companies like web trends view the current marketplace.

if you would like to hear more about this experience of have specific questions, please comment to this blog and i will respond promptly.