Today at econsultancy’s digital cream, digital marketers, social media - ites, search - ites, and web analytics ites thronged together and debated. It was actually fascinating and informative so a big thank you to econsultancy for organising it and to all the staff for being so helpful. ( I just got back from just over two weeks holiday in Playacar and in the yucatan in Mexico - the photo is Tulum).

I went to the web analytics roundtable in the morning and the social media roundtable in the afternoon. At each, there were 7 senior marketers and a moderator all talking out their strategy, sharing ideas and revealing what they want to do. To the extent that competitors were even opening up and talking quite honestly about plans and site features that hadn’t even been launched yet.

As web analytics continues to shift into marketing optimisation, the big solutions like omniture and web trends differentiate by offering integrated multi-variate testing, behavioural targeting and integration in and out with external email solutions or databases so you only need one place to your fully integrated picture of what’s going on with your company,
Buy a web analytics tool first or hire the skilled web analytics person? Better to hire the right person first and use a free tool than spend the money on the tool without having the right person to get the analysis and insights out of it.

Social media is so fast moving. Yet for many companies there is still caution and worries about security, brand awareness and even how to measure it’s impact.

I know I’ve missed things out so get in touch if you have any thoughts about the event.