[White Paper] Interconnections via API: Improving the performance of digital analytics

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INTERCONNECTIONS VIA API: IMPROVING THE PERFORMANCE OF DIGITAL ANALYTICS by Marion Joffre, Product Marketing Manager and Bernard Segarra, Editorial Communications Online Intelligence Solutions WHITE PAPER

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Discover our white paper "Interconnections via API" or how to improve the performance of digital analytics.

Transcript of [White Paper] Interconnections via API: Improving the performance of digital analytics

Page 1: [White Paper] Interconnections via API: Improving the performance of digital analytics

InterconnectIons vIa aPI: ImProvIng the Performance of dIgItal analytIcs

by Marion Joffre, Product Marketing Manager and Bernard Segarra, Editorial Communications

Online Intelligence Solutions

W h I t e P a P e r

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summary

IntroductIon 3

the aPI: a PromIsIng data exchange temPlate 4

hoW can connectIng dIfferent Platforms helP dIgItal analytIcs? 8

conclusIon 13

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IntroductIonnowadays digital marketing must include the new uses and trends of the fixed and mobile Internet: the social network boom, the rise of web and mobile applications, online commerce (e-commerce, m-commerce, f-commerce), Smart TV, gamification, the Internet of things etc. These different phenomena are completely changing the way in which we use the Internet and the way in which we interact with brands.

Data is becoming an essential element, making the link between user/brand interaction to provide users with an increasingly targeted, relevant and personalised experience. Data is becoming a competitive advantage by providing companies with better knowledge and a better understanding of their market, and will also have an effect on the company’s overall performance. Data is no longer a luxury but a true necessity for survival.

If we consider data as being a central element, it will create an environment whose existence will revolve around the data. This environment is known as a digital ecosystem. A digital ecosystem can be defined as an environment which is made up of multiple items that continually interact with one another. For marketers, the goal is to identify market trends, view their audiences’ behaviour, identify new opportunities and communicate with users as personally as possible.

The challenge is rather about synchronising all of the data so that it can be put into perspective, analysing the link between cause and effect, and establishing correlations. The aim is to take a reliable piece of information from the abundance of data available which can then be used to make appropriate decisions. With this is mind, a digital analytics project can help companies rise to this challenge by playing a more or less central role within the digital ecosystem.

API (Application Programming Interface) technology makes it possible to programme the different systems within a company so that they communicate with each another automatically. This fast-growing communication channel is starting to become integrated into web analytics and looks set to vastly improve the performance of digital audience analyses.

The aim of this white paper is to deal with the main challenges associated with interconnections and to understand the potential of using APIs in digital analytics projects.

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The challenge is rather about synchronising

all of the data so that it can be put into perspective,

analysing the link between

cause and effect, and establishing

correlations.

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the aPI: a PromIsIng data exchange temPlate

Goal: synchronisinG data

Companies have to accept one of the most complex and complicated challenges out there: to be increasingly effective, proactive and personal when communicating with each of their clients. Nevertheless, companies are still confronted with another problem: size. The lack of homogeneity of the different internal environments within a company means that information is not shared correctly, and as a result affects the smooth running of exchanges.

To make things more complicated, the number of contact points with brands both in the online world and in the real world have increased dramatically over the last few years. The digital world has experienced a dramatic increase and companies nowadays are required to consider the online world as part of their strategy and operations. As a result, we demand marketing teams to be very versatile, and use a wide range of marketing levers which makes reporting increasingly difficult, and also reveals problems associated with making budget-related decisions for the different marketing channels used.

Let’s take the example of television. For many years marketers understood and mastered TV advertising as the audience was spread out over a small number of channels. Advertising costs were, of course, prohibitive and for some channels this is still the case today, but companies were guaranteed the positive impact that this advertising would have on sales. Today, the introduction of satellite television, digital terrestrial television, pay as you go and replay channels etc., have seen the same audience be distributed over many more different channels, making it more difficult to predict audience needs.

Potential customers can now view brands on a wider range of media than just the traditional media such as TV, radio and newspapers for which brand advertising is no longer exclusive. User/brand interaction has clearly become increasingly complex. Some people will use a brand’s website, maybe even the online store to find out consumer opinion on discussion forums, ask questions directly on the company’s blog, keep up to date with the company’s latest information on social networks etc. Other people, however, prefer to contact the customer service directly by telephone, fill in a request for contact form or go directly to the shop etc.

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Potential customers can now view brands

on a wider range of media than just the

traditional media such as TV, radio and newspapers for which brand

advertising is no longer exclusive.

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Let’s not forget the different technological channels used in the process! Tablets, mobile applications, Smart TVs, the Internet of things all represent the different channels which online operations have to be adapted to. In a certain way, the customer takes control of what they are exposed to, meaning that they have become increasingly volatile and are not as easy to influence as before.

From a brand perspective, these exchanges are more often than not separate from one another as they rely on the use of different management tools (email campaign tools, CMS, CRM, hotline management software, cash register software in shops) which are management by different departments (marketing, sales, supply chain, customer service client etc.). With such a wide range of tools available, information providing details on the different interactions with users starts to get lost, preventing the brand from implementing any automated actions according to a set of engaging criteria.

according to the “2012 Brite/nyama marketing in transition study» 36% of marketers in the usa know that they have “lots of customer data” but “don’t know what to do with it.”

http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/null/2012-BRITE-NYAMA-Marketing-ROI Study?exclusive=filemgr.download&file_id=7310697&showthumb=0

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sales history call center e-commerce real time maintenance and repairs

email saleforces Support

Competitor web content

refunds and rebates

credit rating related accounts

location Purchases Demographics accounts payable

Existingcustomer

Existingcustomer

Potential customer

Potential customer

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The large increase in the number of data sources available today has forced companies to implement data synchronisation solutions, whilst taking into consideration the diversity of the different environments and different technological platforms used.

PoPularisation of the aPi

As we have just seen, it can be very difficult to make all of the different marketing tools communicate with one another, simply because they were not designed for this purpose. Up until very recently a lot of effort had to be made so that data could be shared.

Today, however, this constraint is disappearing, little by little. The arrival of new man/machine exchange protocols allows us to foresee connections which, not so long ago, were not possible on increasingly large volumes of data. The advantage of these new exchange protocols is that they allow any tool to communicate with another irrespective of their technical structure and the language that they have been developed in.

the term synchronisation is no longer used to refer to data duplication or data replication. The challenge is much greater as it requires a much smoother exchange of information between the different systems in place. The aim is to optimise the flow of data and to improve the responsiveness of those involved.

This is where the idea of API becomes key, as it offers a level of operability between software components which up until now had been unmatched. What exactly do we mean by APIs?

“An application programming interface (API) is a protocol intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other. An API may include specifications for routines, data structures, object classes and variables.”

Source : Wikipedia

Numerous economic models based on APIs exist including free, fee-paying, and limited models. After Ebay, Amazon, SalesForces, GoogleMaps, Facebook, Twitter, there were almost 8,000 APIs in October 2012, in other words a 100% increase in the space of one year (source: FabelNovel, 6 reasons why APIs are Reshaping Your Business, November 2012).

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They allow any tool to communicate

with another irrespective of their technical structure

and the language that they have been

developed in.

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The Gartner market research company predicts that 75% of Fortune 1000 companies will have an API in 2014 with an estimated 1 million APIs in 2017.

It cannot be denied that the openings generated by the APIs will greatly impact the different brands. Let’s take the example of Facebook and its “Like” button. Before 2010 the button was only available on the Facebook site, but it has become an unavoidable functionality on social networks. As of 2011 the “Like” button became exportable to external sites, linking Facebook to external sites through the Facebook API. Potentially, each visitor who visits an external site has the opportunity to “Like” a piece of information without having to sign in to Facebook. This functionality has had mind-blowing success: 1,000 new sites add the “Like” button to their site on a daily basis, in addition to the 2.5 million sites which already use it. (Source: FabelNovel, 6 reasons why APIs are Reshaping Your Business, November 2012).

When developing AT Internet solutions, the notion of API has always been central, allowing us to provide a wide range of possibilities in terms of configuration, automation, data exports and imports.

The decision to open up our solution was also strengthened by our will to maintain and develop a very wide network of technical partners, and to respond to customer needs on connecting different platforms. This opening is essential for us as we would like our clients to be free to choose the set of tools to be used in addition to the AT Internet solutions.

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hoW can connectIng dIfferent Platforms helP dIgItal analytIcs?Marketing ecosystems are becoming increasingly enhanced with new tools on a daily basis. During implementation, the teams concerned want the tool to respond to the first level request. Once this step has been overcome, many teams face restrictions and realise the importance of being able to connect their different systems with one another.

As part of any digital analytics project, connecting different systems using an API will make each step of the project easier. Let’s see how.

taGGinG and automated confiGurations

All digital projects have at least one essential point in common: tagging.

Whether it be campaigns, content, rich content (videos, podcasts), newsletters etc., it is necessary to use a certain number of tags to collect information in order to accurately monitor a project’s KPIs.

Once the implementation phase is over the marketing teams are then faced with a new challenge: making it easier to tag new, often temporary, sometimes permanent or recurring campaigns.

Today our technological partnerships allow us to offer our customers with procedures to automate campaign declaration. Instead of manually tagging each campaign by adding a tag to it in the URL containing the correct parameters, we have created bridges (technological solutions using APIs) between our solution and other email campaign, affiliation, adserver, CRM, SEO, CMS solutions etc. These bridges save our customers a lot of time, as the entire process described above becomes automated.

This automated process ensures the integrity of the tagging in place and avoids any incorrect human manipulation. Furthermore, it also allows users to instantly view the impact that a new campaign has had on their traffic and to quickly measure whether the goals, which were set, have been met.

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This automated process ensures

the integrity of the tagging in place

and avoids any incorrect human

manipulation.

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Let’s take the example of one of our technological solutions, AT Connect Retargeting, which has a partnership with the Criteo company.

Thanks to the connections between our two solutions, customers benefit from reduced costs and require less time to implement each campaign.

Criteo campaigns are declared automatically in the AT Internet solution configuration zone. The Criteo analyses are available on the AT Internet interface in real time, meaning that users are able to access and read their results immediately.

masterinG incominG/outGoinG data flows

Once tagging is in place (automated or manual), data collection is operational and can begin. Marketing teams can now work with the data.

• Data imports To make it easier to read data, some connections enhance web analyses with new variables from our partners. These variables are imported directly into our solution, meaning that they can be considered alongside web analytics data.

Let’s take the example of a current bridge that exists between our web analytics platform and an adserver solution (AT Connect Adserver AdPerf). In addition to the automated tagging process, we also import an AdPerf metric known as Post view.

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Online Intelligence Solutions data collection for Analizernx

Displays information on viewed, purchased or abandoned products

1 single TAG

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By using a set of specific variables this metric accurately measures the impact of a campaign display by providing a complete view of the path taken by visitors. Users can evaluate the impact that advertising campaigns have on Internet users who view banners before their visit and any conversion, irrespective of the traffic source. Such information can be used to improve how advertising investments are managed, and to allocate a budget according to the best performing combinations that have been identified.

• Data exports

Integrating data from a third-party solution into a web analytics solution provides users with a certain level of comfort. However, it is sometimes necessary to do the reverse and export data from our tool to a third-party solution to reuse the data. Our partner programmes have also set-up such outflows. Whether the data is to be integrated into a partner tool or into an internal tool, we have different methods available which can be adapted for use in both cases.

The need to go further in personalising analyses and adapting them to meet specific user job requirements has led us to develop a simple, intuitive and customisable data export tool.

data Query is a tool which allows users to structure and export reports using formatted, customisable templates. The templates can be exported in different formats, 2 of which use our aPI: the IQy connector which is used to create dashboards can be updated directly in Excel, and the REST URL which is created to automatically import data into a third-party solution used by the company. Each format has very specific goals and meets a large number of expectations by providing a generic solution which can be integrated into all types of external tools.

automatic Performance manaGement

One of the most important requests from marketing teams is about how they can manage their activity and implement accurate reporting so that they can easily measure the ROI of each marketing action in place. This activity can quickly become time consuming and often requires human intervention on a regular basis. To make this task much easier, and to limit any risk of human error it is therefore necessary to automate this process as much as possible so that the marketing teams can focus on analysing data.

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Data Query contains an innovative and easy to use functionality: a connector which links Excel files, in our case dashboards, directly with our API. The connector retrieves web analytics data which has been collected so that it can be integrated directly into an Excel file. This functionality is particularly adapted to regular reports which use information from rolling periods. Each user can then easily manipulate the dashboard without the assistance of technical teams.

One of our clients, the Solocal Group (Pages Jaunes, Mappy, …,) manages their traffic audience via a set of automated dashboards thanks to the AT Internet API. Bruno Guilbot, Data and Behavioural Marketing Manager at the Solocal group commented on the API’s effectiveness:

“The easy to use Data Query tool means that our web analysts are completely autonomous in creating the API URLs”.

(re)exPloitinG the value of web data

Web data has a clearly defined function: to generate an exhaustive vision of Internet user behaviour in order to measure the different actions which have been implemented. Of course this feature is essential but the data does not really have any particular goal: for example, it can be used to target a specific audience as part of a remarketing campaign. In this example the data is reused for customisation purposes where the aim is to slightly improve conversions or to send an additional incentive via email reminders to potential customers who abandon their shopping baskets.

As part of our technological partnerships, clients benefit from connections between 2 different solutions (for example between a web analytics and email campaign platform) providing them with an increasingly accurate level of detail.

Let’s take the example of a leading e-Commerce player who has realised that an important share of their orders does not lead to conversion. To improve the conversion rate, the e-Commerce trader decided to link their email campaign platform (for example our partner 1000 mercis) with the AT Internet solution. This allows the e-Commerce trader to send reminder emails to visitors who have abandoned their shopping basket.

The data is reused for customisation

purposes where the aim is to slightly

improve conversions.

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This automated exchange can be implemented several times a day, allowing our partner to add these users to their remarketing process. In this case we can imagine a sequence of email campaigns which is sent in two distinct phases:

• Phase 1: a first targeted email is sent, containing up to 6 products which the visitor has viewed

• Phase 2: a second targeted email is sent to promote an additional product if the first reminder email sent failed to generate any conversion.

crossinG online and offline data

How can specific individuals be targeted? By going beyond the limits of online data. In other words, connecting a web analytics solution to the company’s CRM tool. This level of customisation allows companies to provide services which are adapted to each customer or prospect profile by combining all of the data collected on all of the different commercial tools.

Online and offline data can be crossed directly in the web analytics solution. Data from the CRM will identify each visitor and will allocate specific custom criteria to them. The advantage of importing this data is that it allows for accurate segmentation on imported criteria such as sex, age, socio-professional category etc.

On the other hand, data collected by a web analytics solution can also be exported to a CRM tool, for example, an insurance company whose goal is to increase sales on their web site. To be successful, the company has implemented several different types of acquisition campaign on different marketing channels (affiliation, sponsored links, social networks, newsletters, etc.). By using a multichannel analysis solution (such as at Internet’s ChannelOptimizer), the company is able to collect the set of marketing and organic sources leading to conversion. The company is then able to inject this data into its CRM tool, at the core of the customer database, to segment customer profiles and implement targeted offers according to the different customer behaviour observed.

Online and offline data can be crossed

directly in the web analytics solution.

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conclusIon Now that the different technical constraints are being overcome one after the other, connection possibilities are becoming infinite and business opportunities are increasing considerably. However, before any company thinks about connecting their tools to another solution, they need to take a step back and think about the goals to be reached. The aim of the vast range of tools available is to make life easier but the danger is that too much time and energy would be spent on some, incorrectly identified, projects, taking us further and further away from the original goal.

As far as analytics is concerned, thanks to API exchange protocols the daily work of teams in charge of data processing looks set to be optimised in each phase of the digital project. The enormous potential that this technology provides is transforming companies’ web analytics activities. Not only does web data strengthen in value, it also becomes a key element of the marketing ecosystem, because as of now it can be synchronised with the different entities of a company’s information system (imports, exports, crosses, re-exploitation, etc.).

This approach, which is mainly based on the exchange of data flows with a total opening of the analytics platform, is unique in the online industry where the trend is to develop proprietor systems and formats. This singularity is promising as it provides clients with a very high level of flexibility and agility, whilst at the same time leaving them the choice to work with the best tools available.

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AT Internet, a major player in the field of Web Analytics since 1995, helps companies drive their online performance and optimise their presence on all online marketing channels such as web and mobile sites, applications, e-CRM, social media etc. The company’s Online Intelligence solutions provide reliable, valid, complete decision-making data. AT Internet has placed agility at the heart of its innovation process to provide its clients with an evolutionary and 100%

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