DV 2016: Mission Possible - Building a New Analytics Framework

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Mission Possible: Building a

New Analytics Framework

Oleg Kalenichenko, Cox Communications


Oleg KalenichenkoDirector of Digital Analytics, Cox Communications

13 years @ Cox

Managed ecommerce, content, product marketing, sales

2x “Cox Innovator of the Year” award winner

Adobe Reports and Analytics Implementation ACE Certified

Live in VA

SonnyTeddy


How the world sees my job….

Boring, uneventful, reporting,

crunching numbers…

How I view my job….

Modern-day Gold Rush, exciting,

rewarding, innovative!


Digital “Gold Rush” success factors

• Implementing robust analytics through Tealium. Lessons learned.

• Two use cases: innovation through Tealium using data.


Analytics Implementation


Background

• “Took over” Tealium at Cox in Jan 2015.

• No prior knowledge of Tealium. Attended Tealium University and DV2015.

• Not a programmer. Part of Cox Sales team.


Analytics prior to Tealium

• Hard-coded outdated implementation

• Locked in IT release cycle (2-3 month turn-

around).

• Unstable analytics code. Things constantly

break.

• Outdated solution design. 75% of analytics

variables are irrelevant or/and broken.

• Beyond repair. Needed a complete re-do.


Step 1: Business Requirements

• Partnered with

WebAnalyticsDemystified

• Begin with the end in mind. What

business questions are you trying

to address with new analytics?

• 269 business requirements from 13

different teams

• Expensive “change orders”


Step 2: Solution Design

• Translates business requirements into a set of eVars/events/props

• Outlined what each variable does

• Tied each variable to the business requirements


Step 3: UDO

• Each UDO variable supports solution design variables

• Tip: pay attention to variables vs. arrays in the UDO! Matching any sets of

variables – use arrays! The syntax is different – alert your technology team

or it will be missed!

• Tip: if you use any concatenated values, use separate variables in the UDO

and combine them via Tealium vs. having concatenated values passed to in

the UDO

• Tip: provide consistent patterns and examples for each UDO variable


Step 4: Tell your IT how to implement Tealium and UDO

• Use Tealium’s technical guide

• UDO as early on the page as possible


“If anything in the UDO can be misinterpreted, it

will be misinterpreted. If you think it can’t be

misinterpreted… well, you will be surprised.”

Oleg K.

The Law of UDO Misinterpretation


Step 5: Technology team implements UDO

• The toughest part of the implementation (80% of time was spent on this step)

• 100+ rounds of revisions

• “Hands off” approach does not work. Work closely with the programmers.

• Programmers need to understand the logic behind the variables

• Incremental vs. state values of variables


Step 6: Tealium implementation

• Worked with world-class Tealium engineer (Justin Fitzgerald)

• 100+ custom extensions to handle 269+ business requirements

• Multiple Adobe tags in multiple environments

• Used Tealium library to get better multi-track development and version control

• Complicated. 9 on the scale from 1 (simple) to 10 (complicated)


Step 7: Test and launch!

• Multiple reporting suites for dev and production

• Testing all scenarios was very challenging and time consuming


Final thoughts on the implementation

• Learn your tools. Google Chrome dev tools (console, network, sources)

• CodeSchool and Google have a free course http://discover-

devtools.codeschool.com/

• Learn basic JS. Even if you don’t write your own extensions, you need basic JS to

understand utag.js, JS extensions, scope, and troubleshooting

• Use your Tealium support hours!

• Record screen sharing sessions with Tealium engineers


The Grid


Customize Your Offer – Sep 2015

• Offer prices are shown only after the visitor

clicks

• No way to compare the offers

• No way to determine which combination is

the best deal

• Data showed visitors navigating back from

this page, not forward


The Grid Test – Dec 2015

• Untested new concept to sell product

combinations

• Visual channel lineup

• Channel lookup tool

• “Best Deal” badge


Responsive mobile version

• No degrading functionality


Tealium role in the test

• Ultimate flexibility – could capture all critical

data points:

• Offer click path (behavioral analysis)

• Added TV channels to the filter and

consequent actions (product

marketing)

• Removed TV channels

• Offers selected and ordered

• utag.link firing on various actions user

takes

• Allowed us to dig deeper into various

patterns due to the new data

• Quick turnaround time

• Opened up multiple other ideas to test!


Results

• 23% increase in conversion

• 25-40% increase across multiple

categories of multi-product offers

• Multi-million $$$ impact on revenue

Launched country-wide in Jan 2016


Page Load Time Dashboard


New cox.com CMS

• Launched in Sep 2015

• Sluggish site performance – pages load

slowly

• Need to quantify or no action will be taken

• How does it affect different

segments?

• How does it affect mobile vs.

desktop?

• How does it affect sales?


Used Tealium to capture key

Page Load metrics

• Used browser’s built-in performance.timing

object

• Captured the difference between several

key time stamps

• Created Tealium extension scoped to

analytics tag

• Created a new data source variable to

capture the load time

• Mapped to analytics, tested, and launched

Turnaround time: 2 days!


Created a report for Page Load

• Used Adobe Report Builder

• Recurring daily report

• Page load performance by segments and

pages

• Replaces expensive site performance

systems

• Integrates into analytics – can be used for

various break-downs and reports


Summary/ Key Takeaways

Get creative! The limits only exist if you

think they exist.

Use Tealium to test new concepts and

ideas!

Build a KILLER new analytics system with

Tealium – flexible, accurate, and robust

Use data to innovate and experiment.


AUDIENCE Q&A


Thank YouOleg Kalenichenko

https://www.linkedin.com/in/olegkalenichenko
