At this year’s MindMeld, industry experts from leading companies such as Extra Space Storage, AOL Inc., DaveRamsey.com, and Intuit will discuss several issues that have the most opportunity to positively impact business and will address and shape solutions to the following key issues:

· Personalization — Is online personalization achievable and is it worth the cost and risk?

· Online Advertising — What are the key issues to achieve the touted promises of one-to-one conversations, relevant offers, and compelling ROI as the market changes from buying impressions to audiences?

· Privacy — How should we approach privacy as consumer trust, self-regulation and looming legislation are radically altering digital marketing?

MindMeld offers industry thought leaders and experts an open forum to discuss the major trends and issues that are rapidly revolutionizing the digital marketing industry. We’re thrilled to bring together the best minds in digital marketing to explore and define where the industry is heading, so professionals can stay one step ahead of key trends.

MindMeld will be held on Tuesday, March 8 prior to the Adobe Omniture Summit 2011 opening on Wednesday, March 9.

Adobe Omniture Summit 2011 is one of the largest communities of online marketing professionals. This year’s conference in Salt Lake City will feature breakout sessions from some of the top online brands including Ford Motor Co., NBC Universal, Virgin America, Oracle, Sprint, Scottrade, and Columbia Sportswear.

For more information about MindMeld, please e-mail mindmeld@adobe.com.

The two established methodologies that sites have come to rely on in measuring audiences (visitors) include web analytics (server-based) data and panel-based measurement from an opt-in group of internet users (the panel). To understand the challenges that have existed between these two methodologies, you first need to understand the objectives and approaches for each. Web analytics has generally been used to understand the visitor activity on a site, such as page views, videos watched, pathing through the site, conversion rates for those purchasing products, etc. This insight provided by web analytics has enabled innumerable online businesses to optimize their sites by providing better, more engaging experiences for the visitor such as more efficient shopping cart processes and display of more relevant content based on previous content consumption.

On the other hand, panel-based measurement has generally been used for comparative measurement between sites to effectively determine broader visitor habits and projections for the greater Internet population. Panel-based audience measurement has provided a way to measure a statistically significant sample of online audiences to determine how one site, such as an e-commerce or news & entertainment site, would compare to other sites and project this to the broader Internet population. The panel-based measurement approach has become one of the primary ways for publishers and advertisers to arrive at a general valuation for advertising rates for sites commanding certain audience sizes, demographic makeup, and more.

Yet both methodologies are not without their own specific shortcomings and measurement nuances. One particular issue for web analytics is the deletion of cookies, which are the files used to communicate between that local machine and the host site to determine site preferences, repeat visit activity, and other anonymous activity. Cookie deletion on a visitor’s PC would typically mean over counting that visitor as a new visitor when they are actually making a repeat visit to their favorite e-commerce site, for example. Panel-based measurement approaches usually encounter issues when it comes to measuring “at work” activity as many IT organizations prohibit the installation of the software necessary to measure the opt-in panel participant’s Web activity. This means that the online activity of audiences may be under counted since it does not include that lunch time surfing at work to catch up on the weekend college football results at ESPN.com. Plus, much smaller sites with niche audience focus may not be adequately represented in an opt-in panel which would result in under counting audience activity as well.

So how does a site come to an accurate or closely representative view of what their audience size and makeup really is? There have been a number of prominent articles written bringing this very issue to light, including coverage in the NY Times, Fortune, and BusinessWeek magazine dating back to October 2006. The reality is that the “best” number representing a site’s online audience is somewhere in between that provided by the web analytics reporting and the panel-based measurement. So how do we get to this number?

Enter Omniture and comScore. Our announcement on September 21 of this strategic partnership creates a solution combining comScore’s rich audience measurement data with web site visitor data captured by Omniture Web analytics-SiteCatalyst. This solution will provide advertisers and publishers with a unified measurement system resulting in the industry’s most comprehensive view of digital audience measurement. This strategic solution will benefit publishers, which become more appealing to advertisers by providing more comprehensive data on site visitors, particularly smaller publishers who may have been previously under-represented to advertisers. And it will also benefit advertisers, which can use this comprehensive view of digital audience measurement for more targeted media planning.

This is a really exciting development which will provide these advertisers and publishers the confidence to rely on one set of metrics for a consistent measure of audience reach and online ad performance. This solution will reduce complexity, save time, and enable advertisers & publishers to increase return on ad spend (ROAS) in an increasingly fragmented digital marketplace.

So, will this new chocolate (web analytics) and peanut butter (panel data) combination taste good for your business? Let us know what you think!

Yet one of the areas that I believe was overlooked in this Forrester Report is related to the discussions, debates, and ideas I’ve covered with friends and peers throughout the industry over the past few years. As consumers engage in more social media, video, and mobile activity it presents a challenge for online marketers to measure what is happening off-site in addition to the traditional on-site measurement. Laurie Sullivan actually opened her recent column in the MediaPost Online Media Daily with a reference to this point:

“Struggling to analyze data and prove campaign performance from Web sites, Facebook, Twitter, iPhone and BlackBerry applications, U.S. companies in aggregate will more than double investments in Web analytics during the next five years…”

Interestingly enough, the Forrester Report does not explicitly call out Facebook, Twitter or these mobile app platforms. Yet I would contend these represent some of the most exciting growth opportunities for measuring and understanding consumer engagement. Fundamentally, I believe we need to start thinking and talking about web analytics as online analytics-that is– the tools, technologies, services, processes, and people engaged in measuring both the on-site and off-site clickstream behavior.

Here at Omniture, we of course believe so strongly in this impending transition that we’ve launched numerous social media, mobile, and video measurement offerings to help our customers get their arms around this. In addition to our Twitter announcement from earlier this winter, we announced our App Measurement for Facebook last week which received some great interest and attention throughout the media, blogosphere and Tweetosphere. In case you missed it, check out some great posts by Jesse Stay at louisgray.com (loving this title!– Omnipresent Omniture Makes Facebook Apps Omnipotent), eWeek, and Mashable. Social media is a huge space and, in addition to mobile and video measurement, represents that next quantum leap into what I would contend we need to call online analytics.

So what are your thoughts about this? Is the future of web analytics… online analytics? I say yes!

With so many companies, both large and small, jumping into the “app game” it has led me to wonder how they are measuring their investment in these efforts. Sure, having a cool app can drive awareness of your product or service but how can you really measure the effectiveness of these apps. As you will often hear-don’t market it unless you measure it. It was with this idea in mind that Omniture developed and recently announced the iPhone for App Measurement software toolkit to help developers and marketers better understand the effectiveness of these apps. Think about an iPhone app in the same sense as a campaign, in that in may prove to be an effective source for driving desired conversion such as product purchases or ad views.

By measuring how users are interacting within a native iPhone app, the developers and marketers publishing them can understand how they perform compared to other marketing investments like paid search, display ads, or video. Think about what this might reveal-like customer loyalty based on app opens and views, or conversion rates for in-app ads (like an interstitial ad between levels of a game) as compared to your display ads. Now, app developers and marketers can gain first-hand insight on their apps versus having to rely on the much less informative app rating system on the App Store.

In any case, iPhone app developers and marketers that can effectively measure their apps will be in a position to improve them, thus better serving the end consumer. I’m looking forward to the next wave of 10,000 iPhone apps with much better experiences now that there is a solution to make measured improvements to them.

Over the course of the week, I observed two key issues based on the questions I received from the audience at the SDSIC forum as well as the questions I asked of the exhibiting companies at the MMA Forum. The first issue was that people don’t really know where or how to start with the mobile channel. I heard numerous questions about “What kind of mobile advertising should I consider?” and “What kind of brand impact can I get with mobile users?” The second key issue I observed was that analytics and measurement are wholly underused and underrepresented in the mobile space. I spoke with numerous mobile advertisers and their customers who are NOT EVEN MEASURING simple viewing metrics! We’ve come a long way with Web analytics, but we clearly have a LONG WAY to go with mobile analytics and with all the companies who would benefit from measuring and optimizing their mobile marketing efforts.

If you are considering getting started in mobile marketing, allow me to offer a few ideas:

1. Start simple.

There are a seemingly overwhelming number of ways you could start engaging your customers via mobile marketing. Instead of trying to “eat the elephant all in one bite,” start with something small and simple. With mobile marketing, you have choices spanning SMS or text messaging campaigns, building a mobile internet or WAP site, developing downloadable mobile apps, creating mobile videos, and or developing IVR or voice campaigns. If you are trying to build awareness, you could focus on developing a text messaging campaign to promote your product or service. Or, consider search engine optimization (SEO) efforts so your mobile site achieves better rankings when mobile consumers are searching for something you offer. If you’re trying to improve customer loyalty, consider a trigger email marketing program that sends an SMS when a customer milestone is reached (such as follow-ups to purchases, or points reached in a loyalty program). The key is to experiment with mobile programs that support your business objectives, but keep it simple to start out.

2. Start Measuring.

As I stated earlier, it was interesting (but altogether not surprising) to learn how many players in the mobile space are not measuring. As you begin to start simple, ensure you start measuring as well. With the mobile analytics available in SiteCatalyst, there is no longer an excuse not to measure how your online efforts are performing with customers. Are your site visitors viewing the mobile videos you’ve produced? Are they downloading ringtones you’ve posted? Are they purchasing products on your site via their Blackberry, iPhone, or Nokia devices? Ensure your efforts and your investments are effectively being measured so you’ll gain greater insight into which mobile programs are working, which need improvement, and which should be discontinued.

3. Start with basic metrics.

As you start with a simple program that you now measure, focus on some basic metrics first. You may need to answer ‘Which of my mobile pages are most popular? How deep do visitors go in mobile site? Which mobile pages most frequently influence success?’ You should focus on metrics such as page views, time spent on site, and time spent on page to analyze the effectiveness of your site and its content. Other questions may be ‘Which campaigns drive most traffic to my site? Do mobile efforts outperform other campaigns? Do mobile efforts produce better conversion rates than untargeted efforts?’ For these questions, you should look at metrics including click-throughs and site conversion to increase ad spend effectiveness, email & newsletter effectiveness, or identify which paid partners drive most traffic.

Mobile marketing can represent a differentiated way to better connect and engage with your customers. While it may appear overwhelming at first, be sure to start simple, start measuring, and start with some basic metrics so your efforts will be rewarded with the most effective investments.

Good luck!

Over the past decade there has much talk and debate about “the three screens”- being TV, PC, and mobile. From the perspective of attention (and ad dollars), TV has received the most attention and focus. By most measures, it would be easy to conclude that TV is the “first screen” in most consumers’ lives. Yet my own anecdotal observations in the past few years have led me to conclude that the mobile device is rapidly becoming the primary screen- certainly for the busy, on-the-go tech professional if not already with many consumers. Think about the countless times as you’re traveling through an airport that you see the “Blackberry prayer”-someone hunched over, hands together, focused on furiously thumbing a message back to someone, or at least checking the scores on ESPN.com of their favorite sports team. Interestingly enough, a recent Nielsen Three Screen Report shows that consumers are spending more and more time on their mobile phones. In fact, this report revealed that adults aged 25-34 with mobile video subscriptions watched more hours of video on their mobile phone than on internet video! How many of you out there are measuring and analyzing the mobile traffic to your site, let alone how video is being consumed on mobile devices?

Drum Roll…

With that said, I am excited to share some of the recent innovation we’ve been cooking up in the Omniture labs. For those avid SiteCatalyst and iPhone users, we have just released the SiteCatalyst for iPhone now available on the iTunes app store. This enables online marketers who are on-the-go to take SiteCatalyst with them anywhere they’re traveling-at the airport, at home, in the car (pulled aside to the shoulder of course), or wherever their iPhone receives a signal.

This new application builds upon the mobile analytics capabilities we announced in July as part of the latest Omniture SiteCatalyst release, which also enables marketers to access their SiteCatalyst bookmarks and dashboards through their mobile device HTML browser. The mobile analytics capabilities in SiteCatalyst helps online marketers to better understand their mobile audience, such as the specific devices hitting their site, the type of video & audio support with these devices, as well as cookie and javascript support. These reports are critical to understanding the makeup of the mobile audience as the lack of industry standards has traditionally made it more difficult to accurately analyze mobile traffic. These innovations in SiteCatalyst now provide web and mobile marketers the ability to effectively measure key metrics such as revenue per mobile device (How much is the Blackberry contributing to direct ecommerce sales?), shopping cart adds (Are iPhone users converting at higher rates than T-Mobile Sidekick users?), as well as develop content strategies such as video formats to include on the site (Which video codecs are most supported across all mobile devices hitting our site?) and audio content (Which ringtones formats should we offer for download?).

Much like what Apple has done with PC’s, laptops, and MP3 players, the iPhone has certainly changed the landscape and dynamics in the mobile phone industry. This means your customers will soon be engaging your site in ways you may not have predicted. Don’t let these changes give your competitors a new advantage over you-learn what SiteCatalyst can do to help you better serve your (mobile) customers. As our good friend Heraclitus stated “The road uphill and the road downhill are one and the same.” Just make sure that hard uphill journey is the one your competition takes, while your understanding of your mobile customers enables you to coast downhill to online success.