E-marketers face Web 2.0 challenge

Internet application performance monitoring firm Gomez hosts roundtable on online marketing

Online marketing activities must be based on robust and responsive technology, and draw on data and metrics that are shared by all stake-holders, according to experts at a recent roundtable hosted by internet application performance specialist Gomez.
Participants argued that in today’s Web 2.0 environment, customer expectations are higher than ever and patience with intrusive advertising and marketing techniques is wearing increasingly thin. This is making the task of online marketers and the IT teams supporting them more difficult, they said.

Matt Poepsel, vice-president of professional services at Gomez, said user-generated content and other Web 2.0 developments like blogs had “the power to destroy brands faster than ever”.

“Consumers can find information, create information and share it in a way they never had before,” Poepsel added. “Your products must be popular and work, or you’ll lose your customers.”

Jacques van Niekerk, head of online marketing tools provider Acceleration, said firms often forget the basics when trying to run a web business, such as “using the right technology and making sure you have a lot of people behind it”.

“The more the internet grows, the more our customers struggle to adopt the right technology, and understand how to get the most out of it,” van Niekerk added.

Others warned that unless firms have web sites that are reliable and always available, their marketing efforts will be in vain. Former chief marketing officer at lastminute.com, Niall McKinney, said, “It’s massively frustrating for any firm that’s made a big investment in marketing to have a site go down for two days. You’ve got to have technology that doesn’t break.”

Gomez’s Poepsel also argued that most IT and marketing teams are failing to share the same metrics and goals, which ultimately harms the business. “IT doesn’t care about conversion rates but there are metrics that it can use,” he explained. “We’re starting to see marketers develop personas [to segment the market], and most forward-thinking IT groups also use personas to segment how they deliver experiences to that audience.”