The Friday Five catches you up on the weekly big stories in the worlds of Tag Management and Web Analytics. We summarize, and you enjoy.
The Month of June Brought Us:
Millions of Myspace and Tumblr Credentials Stolen – As the list of websites plagued by stolen credentials continues to grow, Myspace and Tumblr have now added their names to the companies affected. With over 64 million Tumblr and 360 MySpace accounts now breached and on sale within the dark web, data governance importance and implementation has once again been brought to the forefront of the digital landscape. More information on the breach, such as the most popular passwords used, can be found at http://goo.gl/uNxO3I
First Malware Summit Held to Combat False Impressions – Malvertising, a method by which malware is spread through online advertising, has generated billions of false ad impressions indiscernible to marketing pixels. With these false impressions in mind, the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) held the first Malware Summit in New York city, which brought together both digital advertising industry leaders and representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security. Within a post on their blog, TAG said, “By bringing together the brightest minds and most influential companies in the industry, TAG leverages their knowledge and experience to create industry-wide programs to tackle difficult issues.” More information about the meeting can be found at http://goo.gl/H8lYWz
Study Validates Real-Time Technologies – Metamarkets, the analytics platform provider, released its study on Wednesday entitled, “Interactive Analytics: How to Unleash the Power of Programmatic Data.” Given that 67% of the marketers interviewed were unsatisfied with their current campaign management and analytics solutions, the implementation of dynamic, real-time technologies to manage data, such as tag management systems and other interactive analytics solutions, will allow companies to manage campaigns in real-time and with fresher data. The full Metamarkets study can be downloaded at https://goo.gl/4CTw2p
Microsoft’s Board Emphasizes Faster Shift to Cloud – Afraid that the traditional software solutions of the company are falling behind, Microsoft’s Chairman John Thompson, alongside his fellow board members, has expressed a desire to not only continue Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella’s efforts to develop Cloud delivered solutions, but also to grow that segment of the company’s portfolio exponentially faster. With Cloud solution developments for business analytics, data visualization, and enterprise data management in mind, Mr. Thompson said, “The Board is examining whether Microsoft has invested enough in its complete cloud lineup. It’s not just about developing better cloud technology – it’s a question of how the company sells those products and its strategy for recruiting partners to resell Microsoft’s services and build their own offerings on top of them.” For more information, visit http://goo.gl/7Oispx
Meeker’s Internet Trends Report Affirms Mobile Shift – A Wall Street securities analyst now turned venture capitalist, Mary Meeker released her annual 200+ page Internet Trends report this week. Highlighting how mobile is fueling both online advertising acceleration and information consumption, the report coincides with recent tag management industry mobile developments, such as Google’s efforts to expand the capabilities of both Tag Manager 360 and Firebase for a more unified, mobile platform. The full report can be found at http://goo.gl/q5mKcj
Talking Tags at Email Marketing Summit – On Monday, the rising impact of omnichannel strategies and integrations was discussed by email marketing professionals at the Email Marketing Summit on Amelia Island, Florida. Emphasizing the increasing role marketing technology plays in enterprise functions, Visa’s Vice President of Global Innovation Marketing Mary Grundy explained how Visa now utilizes tracking pixels within its email marketing to identify users on social networks for retargeting. “We’re trying to figure out where all the data will live and how we can have these connection points that will allow us to be smarter,” said Mary Grundy. For additional insights from the summit, visit http://goo.gl/CdgNo6
Web Tracking Threatened by Adblockers – With Adobe’s recent 2016 Mobile Adblocking Report citing 90% global growth in mobile adblocker use since last January, web tracking strategy is in question across industries. Media outlets, such as the New York Times, are developing ad-free channels and subscriptions for consumers, thereby threatening the efficiency of marketing tags to accurately track consumer patterns across sites. Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, read the report and said, “Any channel of consumption is at risk at this point.” The full Adobe report can be found at https://goo.gl/Z7ptPg
Data Breach Study Stresses Data Governance – In partnership with IBM, The Ponemon Institute released the 2015 Cost of Data Breach Study. With the average total cost of a data breach increasing from 3.52 in 2014 to 3.79 million in 2015, the average cost of one lost or stolen record increased to $154. This has resulted in heavy costs for companies such as Myspace, Tumblr, and LinkedIn whom have seen massive amounts of credentials stolen. Once again, the importance data governance has been brought to the forefront of the industry in light of the study. For the full study, visit http://goo.gl/oPHAVa
30% of Online Marketing Budgets Spent on Fraud – At the beginning of the week, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) disclosed that almost 30% of online marketing budgets are being spent on fraud across the internet. Expected to result in 150 billion dollars by 2025, malware generated traffic has been generating millions of false impressions untrackable by marketing tags. Moreover, the issue was discussed at the Malware Summit held last week between company executives and the leading minds in digital security. More information on the impact of these false impressions can be found at http://goo.gl/FSu3vi
Do you need Google Analytics 360? – With the announcement of the Google Analytic 360 Suite in March came the unveiling of multiple end-to-end solutions, whether that be Analytics 360, Data Studio 360, or others. Andy Gibson, the Head of Vertical at InfoTrust, took a look at the new Google Analytics 360 Suite and discussed the new features of the new Analytics 360 solution. For the full breakdown, visit http://goo.gl/GCMHZq
Snapchat Improves Tracking with Oracle Partnership – Having recently undergone a new round of funding, Snapchat announced its partnership with Oracle to more effectively track the correlation between in-app digital advertising and store sales. The Oracle Data Cloud, which will help advertisers validate and improve marketing campaign effectiveness, has recently released new research stating that 92% of Snapchat ad campaigns have driven a positive lift in in-store sales. The full press release can be found at https://goo.gl/g533Ao
GitHub Accounts Compromised – “This appears to be the result of an attacker using lists of email addresses and passwords from other online services that have been compromised in the past, and trying them on GitHub accounts,” explained GitHub’s VP of Security Shawn Davenport. With data governance at the top of the agenda within the digital community, high-profiles such as LinkedIn, MySpace, and Tumblr have all suffered massive breaches of personal user information. GitHub, having potentially suffered from these other breaches indirectly, advises all of its users to practice regular password protection routines in light of the growing list of companies compromised. The GitHub blog post can be found at https://goo.gl/YcXNjf
Impact Radius Acquires Forensiq – Impact Radius, which provides a digital marketing platform and tag management solution, has announced its acquisition of Forensiq this week. An industry leader in preventing advertising fraud, Forensiq and the implementation of its ad fraud detection solution within the Impact Radius platform will allow marketers to analyze marketing campaigns without the pollution of fraudulent data. More information on the acquisition can be found at http://goo.gl/O16fRm
Do you Need Data Studio 360? – Andy Gibson, the Head of Vertical at InfoTrust, has been breaking down the multiple end-to-end solutions that came with the new Google Analytic 360 Suite announcement in March. This week, Andy took a look at Data Studio 360’s uses, features, and whether you need it. For the full breakdown, visit http://goo.gl/hFzuah
Indochino Utilizes Qubit Platform – Indochino, a menswear retailer based in Vancouver, announced its efforts to leverage Qubit’s cloud platform to more effectively create engaging customer experiences both online and in-store. For example, Qubit’s platform, which includes its very own tag management solution, will provide Indochino the functionality to send out regional in-store invites to online shoppers based on their geo-location. The full article on Indochino’s use of the Qubit cloud platform can be found at http://goo.gl/tNKZib
Google Analytics Implements New Security Alerts – With Safe Browsing alerts having already been implemented within Google Analytics, Google is continuing these same efforts to combat malware distribution and phishing attacks by adding notifications about potential 3rd party compromises. In these cases, Google Analytics will now include alerts that not only flag the compromised domain within the Google Analytics UI, but will also provide resources for resolving the issue in order to protect personal information. For the full security feature update, visit https://goo.gl/jLUzAQ
Search Marketing ROI Validation Eludes Enterprises – Clutch, a source of enterprise research on design and marketing companies, released a report on Thursday entitled, “Enterprise Marketing Survey 2016: Search Marketing Results.” Within the report, 18% of the participants cited “Proving return on investment” as the top challenge to search marketing given the complexity of SEO web tracking. Dave Rohrer, founder of NorthSide Metrics, said, “With TV advertising, ABC can tell us how many million viewers a program will have and what its demographic is. With paid ads, we can pay a certain amount for clicks and see what percentage are converted to a lead or a sale. SEO is harder to measure and, as a result, harder to get a budget for.” For more information on the report, visit https://goo.gl/Ak65Lz
Mobile App Tracking: Firebase Analytics or Google Analytics 360? – Having been released to the public last month by Google, Firebase Analytics has been the source of many questions in its relation to Google Analytics, whether that be their respective features, benefits, uses, and much more. It is with these questions in mind that Andy Gibson, Head of Vertical at InfoTrust, wrote a product breakdown of Firebase Analytics and how it compares to Google Analytics 360 for mobile apps. The full breakdown can be found on our blog at http://goo.gl/u89GSa
FCC Regulations Under Fire for Potential Blind Spot – Closing for public comments on July 6th, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) proposal of new privacy regulations for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) is under fire for its omission of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other online enterprises from the privacy rules that will be drafted under the new regulations. Many cite this as a potential shortcoming and inconsistency in the new regulations, especially in light of the ever evolving technologies that consumers will use in the future and the incredible data collections possible. The full breakdown of the proposal can be found at https://goo.gl/Y9PTUk
InMobi Pays Price for Illegal Consumer Tracking – A mobile advertising platform founded in 2007, InMobi illegally disregarded millions of consumer privacy preferences for the purpose of geo-targeting. Now, InMobi will not only have to pay for its actions with a fine of $950,000, but will also be forced to delete all the information collected illegally. With this case in mind, many enterprises within the analytics and web tracking industry are reevaluating and reviewing their own respective privacy policies and consumer disclosures. More details about the case can be found at http://goo.gl/AmzkPt
