Web Strategy Show: Eric Peterson, Web Analytics Guru on Measurement, Engagement and Attention

Categories: Social Media Measurement, Web Analytics, Web Strategy ShowPosted on June 8th, 2007

This was one of my favorite discussions, Eric and I have been exchanging ideas on blog posts about the terms “Engagement” and “Attention” and the value that they bring as we start to measure social media.

I even posed a few interesting questions to Eric, which he was very eloquent and professional in responding to. Did you know that Eric recently left his full time job to now be a Web Analytics Consultant? You can learn more about him at Web Analytics Demystified.

Did you like this interview? You should also check out my interview with Avinash, or you can learn more about the Web Strategy Video Show.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Social Media Measurement, Web Analytics, Web Strategy Show. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Sorry for the background noise, we were in a hallway at a conference.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 8th, 2007 at 1:36 pm

Jeremiah, thanks for interviewing me when you were in Portland. I look forward to your interview with Jim Sterne as well!

Eric T. Peterson
http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com

Posted by Eric T. Peterson on June 8th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

Thanks for another interesting interview & providing another title to read, Jeremiah!

Posted by Connie Bensen on June 9th, 2007 at 11:56 am

Great interview. I especially like Eric’s position on time spent.

It will be exciting to see how Eric continues to develop his Analytics 2.0 framework.

I really like his suggestion to integrate qualitative analysis with click stream analysis.

Posted by James Key Lim on June 9th, 2007 at 11:48 pm

Jeremiah, thanks for your continuing great views into the next stages of web analytics. I am happy that Compete.com made it into your conversation about Attention and Engagement; looks like our Scoble interviews increased awareness of Compete.com usefulness for web analtics! We’re hell-bent on using our clickstream and survey capabilities to come up with universal metrics in these two areas (frameworks are key, but our view is that marketers need universal measures in order to put their own performance into context - relative to rivals, peers, or anyone else they want to compare themselves to).

Earlier this year, we introduced our Attention metric, and I need to disagree with the conclusions that you, Eric and James (above) have come to. Attention is a time-based measure, so logically the more time we spend on a site, the more attention we give it. We think of Attention as a pie-chart - its finite - so the sites that are increasing in Attention over time are performing well along this metric. Sure people can cite the issues of multiple browser tabs, etc, but the point is that marketers need an effective way to see why sites like http://www.millsberry.com are so incredibly cool. This General Mills site ranks in the top 1500 in visitors but leaps into the top 100 in Attention because its members spend over 30 minutes on the site each time they visit it (more than Myspace). Click here to see this phenomenon: http://snapshot.compete.com/millsberry.com+myspace.com+generalmills.com?metric=avgStay. Ask the folks at MillsOnline if they think that total time spent on site is a great way to understand whether they are increasing/sustaining Attention in the marketplace - I’ll bet they’ll say yes.

Here’s another great application of our Attention metric: http://snapshot.compete.com/barackobama.com+hillaryclinton.com+johnedwards.com?metric=att. Don’t you think this will be a great predictor for which candidates are generating the most momentum between now and Fall 2008?!

Engagement is a different story altogether - and we agree with you and Eric. Unlike Attention (a pie-chart), we see Engagement as a spectrum. Worse yet, its tough to place companies/sites on the same spectrum because of the important “emotional layer” of metrics that need to be considered and that are company/situation specific. Our view is that you necessarily need to use attitudinal inputs gathered via surveys to crack the code on a universal Engagement metric (and we think that Reicheld’s work around advocacy and net promoter scores is a fertile place to begin).

We appreciate you including us in your conversation and would love to advance our approaches with further feedback from you, Eric and your collective fans. We’ll keep you all abreast on our progress….Best, Stephen (Compete CMO)

Posted by Stephen DiMarco on June 10th, 2007 at 4:55 am

[...] Como esta entrevista con Eric T. Peterson, máximo gurú de web analytics. Apunta cosas muy interesantes, como la necesidad de combinar datos cualitativos con datos de clics. Algo que venimos pensando hace tiempo, y que será material para futuros posts a medida que lanzamos proyectos similares con nuestros clientes. [...]

Posted by Video entrevista con Eric T. Peterson | WebAnalytics.es on June 11th, 2007 at 3:30 am

[...] About a month ago, just before I started Web Analytics Demystified, I had the pleasure of sitting down for an interview with Jeremiah Owyang of PodTech.net. Clint first introduced me to Jeremiah when I was talking about measuring visitor engagement and how social media might be best measured. Jeremiah is very much connected in the Bay Area and I though the interview went really well (but you can judge for yourself by watching the interview at Jeremiah’s web site.) [...]

Posted by Web Analytics Demystified » Blog Archive » Video from Jeremiah Owyang and the WAW Guru breakfast on June 11th, 2007 at 1:57 pm

[...] Eric Peterson: Web Analytics for Search Marketers I’m sitting in the back of the room where the bloggers sit, not because we’re second class citizens, but because that’s where the power is. Avinash Kaushik is here too. Beth, who’s not here, has some info if you want to know more about Eric. I video interviewed Eric, you can check it out on my previous post. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Searchnomics Conference: on June 27th, 2007 at 11:22 am

[...] as the advertising dollars shift from TV to the web. For other videos, check out my interview with Eric Peterson or Avinash Kaushik of Google [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Web Strategy Show: WebTrends focuses on Customer Engagement: Interview with Tim Kopp, CMO on August 6th, 2007 at 11:35 am

Hello,
Sorry to be getting to this so late. I know people will be shocked that I disagree with “Attention is a time-based measure, so logically the more time we spend on a site, the more attention we give it.” I’ve written about this topic in a number of places, most notably http://www.imediaconnection.com//content//14568.asp.
Joseph