The Kmiec Ramblings

Tag Archive: Analytics

The Beautiful Trackability Of The Web

Written on August 16, 2009 by adamkmiec in Misc.

My single favorite thing about the web is trackable the web is. I’ve been dealing with a repeat spammer and verbal abuser lately. With every comment this person leaves or email they send to me, I’m able to collect a little bit more data. Right now here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Based on his IP Address and Hostname I know he’s using his work time and computer to spam and verbally abuse me; that’s not a good idea.

2. The IP address and Hostname info was most valuable. Using it I was able to edit my .htaccess file to block his abulity to see my site from work. I also used Disqus’ options to block that IP address range from posting comments . So, he’s resorted to home based spamming and abuse. Easy enough. Again, every action is trackable. Using the IP Address info I traced him to his internet service provider: Verizon Fios. How nice of Verizon to give direct access to their spam/abuse contacts

If he stops now, I’ll cut him some slack. If not, I’m going to keep playing this out – collecting all the information and once I’ve grown bored I figure I’ll turn it over to the right people.

You’d think a guy who was working at a law firm in Chicago would know better than to break the law.

Quick update – the home spam is coming from a different person; well a different state at least. This makes it all the more interesting and fun. Already traced it to the source (still Verizon Fios).

Quick update #2 – The spam is is coming from a lawyer working at Alcoa corporation. Tsk. Tsk.

Tags: Abuse, Analytics, Fun, Law, Spam

Rethink The Funnel – Why Real Estate Is King

Written on May 5, 2009 by adamkmiec in Marketing & Advertising

2 Comments - Leave a comment!

By now those who know me are tiring of my constant cry, “Real Estate Is King.” I’ve been telling anyone who’d listen for the past year and a half that your brands need to be owning property all over the monopoly board. Just owning Boardwalk isn’t going to cut it.

What does that mean? Since the dawn of the internet we’ve all been following the same funnel based model for success:

Run a bunch of advertising
Have the call to action for the advertising be to the brand’s site
Get people on to the site
Convert the people

In applying this model we were trying to drive traffic to 1 destination. In doing so, the focus was always on Unique Visitors. The baseline and focal point for success rested on increasing the number of unique visitors. If you were estimating a conversion benchmark of 10%, having more unique visitors increased the total number of conversions. Makes sense.

But, in leveraging that model, we didn’t take into account all the other interactions taking place throughout the web. Often these interactions were smaller…micro if you will. Despite being small, they definitely mattered; and they still do.

As companies look to engage consumers where they are (Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, etc.) something interesting is going to happen. Unique Visitors to the site are going to decrease. They’re going to matter less because the funnel isn’t linear.

Best Buy and Amazon recently announced that they are going to make their inventory available to any and all developers who want to create apps, widgets, or the like so that sales of the product could happen on this site. The idea is that they don’t care where the sale takes place, so long as it takes place. The path to purchase isn’t linear. Think about it. You could be on Facebook with the Amazon App installed, see a deal on that book you added to your wish list, and then buy it right there…with NO need to visit Amazon.com. Now, that’s value.

But, what are we going to do about those decreased traffic numbers? The implications are huge. Online publishers set their value based on their audience size. Is your site less valuable because it now gets less traffic? Again, maybe the real point is we need to look beyond unique visitors when determining what success looks like.

Make no mistake about it, real estate is king. If your focused on hoping people land on Boardwalk you’re going to lose this game. Start buying up property now.