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Thursday, February 5, 2009

Web Analytics Association Finland - an official press release

Last October I wrote about my selection as a chairman of WAA Finland. Today, other members of the board are officially announced as well. Now, when the crew is ready and there's expectations towards us, we need to get some actions around. I promise that we will have the next Web Analytics Wednesday arranged in Helsinki pretty soon.

As a matter of fact: it's all about actions - our team, members and web analytics itself. Could say that the ultimate goal is to create a data driven culture in a company. Feel free to email me if you have any questions about WAA Finland, especially regarding to membership - and if you have suggestions about topics you want to hear in upcoming events. : )

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Local WAA organization in Finland

WEB ANALYTICS TO HELP MARKETING OPTIMIZATION

Web analytics can help companies to measure and optimize marketing and overall business performance. Especially during the downturn, it is absolutely important to measure, analyze and optimize any marketing activities, outcomes and return on investment. With web analytics intelligence companies can learn how customers react and behave cross-channels.

Web Analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage. The Web Analytics Association leads and supports the members by educating, developing standards and best practices, conducting research and advocating for issues that advance the industry. The WAA Finland branch is the first non - US local organization branch in the world to form its own collection of dedicated board members.

WAA Finland continues the tradition of organizing its main events, Web Analytics Wednesdays, for informing current issues and networking all the players in the field including practitioners, consultants and vendors. Chairman and country coordinator of WAA Finland is Petri Mertanen, CEO of Naviatech Solutions. Other members ofthe board are Kalle Heinonen (Omniture) responsible for events and membership, Leevi Kokko (Fruugo) responsible for standards, Vincent Kermorgant (Nokia) responsible for education, Esa Peltonen (Sanoma) responsible for marketing and Henry C. Morales (Trainers' House Analytics) responsible for privacy and advocacy.
"I can proudly say that I brought WAA run and vendor sponsored Web Analytics Wednesdays to Finland. The WAA Finland has risen in prominence to one of the most active countries in the Nordics. I hope that Petri will continue this legacy and take the web analytics message forward in Finland and rest of the world", says former country manager Kalle Heinonen.
"We have excellent examples and cases how to benefit web analytics, but still there are lots of companies which don't know how to collect and use data from different sources and take the best out of web analytics tools. Our first goal is to raise overall awareness, get more members and activity with analytics people", thinks Mertanen.
"Web Analytics is getting more and more important role in companies by being a central system of marketing optimization. So the "old" web analytics is pretty much dead. Companies have had a strong will to take advantage analytics in website and marketing development, but the fact is that in most companies analytics has been just reporting and watching figures, not really using the data for developing services or controlling marketing costs.

For example, what benefits would broker get from company's financial system if he or she couldn't act based on good or bad data. This is why many companies bring their consulting services to market for web analytics process and optimization. Vendors are bringing optimization systems to market so that software can automate actions based on company's key performance indicators which are defined together with consulting companies", continues Heinonen.