'Net Features : tealium

Tealium on the Move; Digital Marketers Turn to Tag Management

Michael Garrity — Thu, 02 May 2013 18:08:00 GMT

Enterprise tag management company Tealium has recently established turnkey integration with 500 different digital marketing vendor tags, giving them the industry’s largest ecosystem of technology vendors.

For Tealium’s customers, this means they’ll be able to deploy “nearly any major digital marketing solution” on their websites faster and easier than ever. This can include everything from analytics to search marketing solutions and beyond, which can be embedded right into a customer’s digital platform through a snippet of software code known as a tag.

The real benefit of these tags, however, is that they let marketers streamline complexity and increase agility by implementing these tag-based solutions on their own, without ongoing IT resource requirements. Before the emergence of tags, marketers mostly had rely on their companies’ IT staffs to integrate JavaScript code into their channels, but with Tealium, they’re given point-and-click, drag-and-drop simplicity that allows them to insert the code all on their own, thus moving the whole process along much faster and smoother.

Tealium’s huge vendor marketplace now offers customers “nearly every type of solution,” including analytics, affiliate marketing, optimization, display advertising, email, search marketing, marketing automation, retargeting, mobile and more.

Is Tealium Taking Tag Management to the Next Level?

Michael Garrity — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:05:00 GMT

Tealium, the tag management solution provider, has been working hard over the last few months to help “move the needle” and evolve the rapidly growing tag management space with a slew of new additions to its core product, including mobile tagging, the Tealium DataCloud and a new multi-CDN architecture.

Going Mobile
The first of these initiatives were the company’s new mobile tagging capabilities that were released last November. While the company now enables marketers to manage tags on mobile websites, which work in much the same way as they do on traditional websites, the bigger initiative is the inclusion of a mobile application tagging option that allows marketers to better manage their marketing solutions and analytics without ever having to recertify their apps. All they have to do is implement the Tealium iQ tag management solution into the app.

Mobile app tagging presents users with support for the “most popular” native environments, including iOS and Android, as well as conditional tag loading that allows them to control which tags will load on specific screens within the app and event-based tracking that deploys tracking links and other events in the app. And as a nice bonus, Tealium’s customers never have to bother updating Tealium iQ once it is integrated into the application.

Big Solution to Big Data
Since then, the company has launched the Tealium DataCloud, a new add-on service that will extend the value of Tealium’s tag management capabilities. To do this, the DataCloud will make it easier for digital marketers to manage the exchange of data between third-party vendors by giving them a raw feed of their rich data stored in a centralized location.

This helps marketers uncover what Tealium CEO Jeff Lunsford called the “Holy Grail” of big data, which is “to have one common database with all of their customer information,” making this solution ideal for companies with multiple locations and/or properties. So, with the DataCloud, Tealium customers will be able to create powerful, visitor-level profiles that will ultimately help improve their customer acquisition campaigns.

But that’s not all that the DataCloud does; it also adds the ability to handle non-JavaScript tagging environments (i.e. Google Checkout) that don’t accept the JavaScript tags that many vendors use. In other words, companies can now deploy mission-critical third-party tags across their entire e-commerce environments, whether they support JavaScript or not.

All of the data gathered by the Tealium DataCloud can be imported into various big data platforms, business intelligence platforms or third-party reporting tools, including AgilOne, Anametrix, Tableau Software and Quantivo.

Reinforcing the Foundations of CDN Architecture
Finally, Tealium’s other big announcement was its move to a new multi-CDN (or content delivery network) architecture to provide its customers with optimal performance, thus making Tealium the fastest tag management delivery network currently available.

This new CDN architecture contrasts Tealium’s old single-CDN approach through Limelight Networks. The main reason for making the change was to better service its clients’ tags to vendors around the world by increasing their speed and redundancy rates. To do this, they’ve started to use CDNs from Akamai Networks and Edgecast Networks.

The performance of each Tealium CDN will be monitored across 30 global regions every 10 minutes to show the best and most up-to-date performing networks. Already, this new approach as been able to shave approximately 100 milliseconds off of the company’s CDN performance, a number that Lunsford says shows a “very noticeable difference” for its customers, improving e-commerce conversion rates and time-on-site and page view metrics for content providers.

The Next Big Thing
Tag management is being heralded by some as the next big thing in digital marketing, and it has certainly proven to be a useful tool for those marketers that have already embraced it. With these new improvements, Tealium is sure to help take the industry to the next level. Will this be enough to convert new customers?

Google Tag Manager Released

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 13:41:00 GMT

Google has released Tag Manager, a free tool that replaces the often clunky and extensive number of tags that are placed on a website for the purpose of remarketing, analytics, etc.

By adding a single snippet of code, users can manage every tag (mostly third-party tags) from one web interface, adding and updating independently of editing or rewriting the code (or bothering IT).

Features of Google Tag Manager include asynchronous tag loading (tags load faster without slowing down the user-visible part of the page), tag templates (making it easy to add custom tags), error prevention tools, user permissions and multi-account funtionality. Google is even providing a tag vendor program for technology companies interested in including a template for their own tag.

There are numerous companies offering tag management solutions - From Tagman to Tealium. With such an enormous Webmaster community and a free product however, it's hard to imagine that any enterprise could compete - but count on the fact that they'll most certainly try.

The Perks of Tag Management

Michael Garrity — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:00:00 GMT

There aren’t many ways to simultaneously improve the efficiency and performance of your marketing, analytics and tracking systems. That is, unless you’re one of the growing number of Web companies adopting a tag management system (TMS) to implement and maintain the data collection instrumentation of modern analytics and marketing execution.

The pace and volume of tag management requirements have increased considerably and often threaten to stretch a businesses time and resources past its limits. Fortunately, a TMS can consolidate tag execution and maintenance into a single management application with added efficiency, flexibility and page-load performance benefits.

A recent study by Forrester, “Understanding Tag Management Tools and Technology,” highlights these advantages in a survey of 76 TMS users. What it found was that these systems are great for businesses with complex Web environments that are constantly changing, leverage tags for a variety of purposes, resist external support in favor of internal resources and/or lack rigorous processes, relying primarily on ad hoc tag additions and maintenance.

According to the report, 50 percent of the respondents are recent adopters, using their current TMS for under a year. (Another 29 percent have had theirs for less than two years.) And while tag management is usually associated with Web analytics, these companies have found creative ways to utilize it.

Nearly 88 percent use their TMS for Web analytics, but many also use it for search marketing (64 percent), ad serving (62 percent), affiliate marketing (59 percent), behavioral targeting (50 percent) and much more. Interestingly, 38 percent of the respondents said their marketing departments were responsible for tag management, while only 28 percent left it to their Web analytics group.

Forrester found that many TMS users “have high expectations for tag management systems,” such as condensed cycle times for adding or changing tags, faster page-load times and reduced technical skill requirements for managing tags. It seems to work, because after deploying a TMS, their ability to implement or revise tags jumps from 18 to 80 percent in a day.

This improved efficiency reduces the effort, resources and time required to add, edit and remove tags from sites. The majority of users (53 percent) said that it takes them less than an hour to implement revise a tag using a TMS, but just eight percent could do it that fast before they got one. In fact, most (52 percent) said it took them between several days and several weeks to add or edit tags until they got a TMS. Luckily, there has been an explosion of specialist and enterprise tag management vendors entering the market.

This includes major software names like Adobe and IBM, who use TMS capabilities to expand their product lines, manage data collection for their product suites and improve the manageability and cohesiveness of their solutions. As established vendors, they appeal to firms that are already deeply invested in their products, because for the most part, their tag management systems lack independence.

Some systems are considered “pure plays,” meaning they focus solely on offering highly functional and easy-to-use tag management systems. These include names like BrightTag and Tealium and are ideal for younger, analytics-led organizations still developing their support and infrastructures – and credibility.

Finally, Forrester identifies TMS marketing platforms like DC Storm and TagMan that develop solutions that support marketing capabilities. A TMS marketing platform provides broad, marketing-oriented perspectives that are great for advertisers or publishers.

Forrester does want businesses to look beyond basic features to find the important differences between vendors. This means looking at capabilities on three different levels. The first is their technical foundation, which consists of the underlying design, operation and delivery of the system, such as its infrastructure, deployment method, implementation method and support and services. Next is the application feature set, or the key components beyond functionality that drive efficiency, such as its partner ecosystem, workflow and user administration capabilities, usability and native reporting features. Last, but not least, is extensibility, which lets users leverage TMS features in multiple environments, so companies should look at environment support, platform extensions and application programming interface.

Ultimately, Forrester’s study seems to definitely point toward using a TMS to the benefit of various aspects of your Web business. Marketers continue to feel pressured to keep up as digital channels become central to customer experiences, and they’ll (likely) find that a good TMS will deliver on its promise of efficiency, helping them save time and resources normally allotted to the exhausting task of adding, editing and removing site tags. However, it is important to look closely at the vendor options available. Businesses have a wide selection of prices, feature sets and technical options to choose from, so they must find the TMS that will best meet their unique requirements.

Would You Benefit from a Tag Management System?

Michael Garrity — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:15:00 GMT

Ask any online professional about analytics, and you may spend hours hearing about their vital importance in the pursuit of Web success.

One secret to garnering especially meaningful analytical insights is by breaking down data into different divisions to see more accurate reports of specific content categories. This process is achieved by using tags.

Tags are metadata keywords assigned to a piece of information or content on the Web that describe the item and make it more easily found when users go browsing and searching for it.

Tags are most common on blog-based or other content-heavy websites as a way to group, manage and track similar information. The problem, especially for less savvy content publishers, is that after a while, sites and pages will end up cluttered with unorganized tags, which sort of defeats the purpose. Because of this, analytics researchers are met with a mess of disorganized data thanks to duplicate, outdated or non-functioning tags that can give marketers and site owners inaccurate information, and that’s no help to anyone.

Enter tag management systems. These services come in and clean up the clutter created by disorganized, user-generated tags. Using a management system allows content publishers to collect all of their campaign’s tags into one container tag and then manage and maintain them in a single application.

According to TagMan, the benefits of such a system include greater accuracy in analytics results, more efficient tag management with a user-friendly interface, more control over all of a site’s tags, improved performance in page load times and serving tags to visitors, and greater flexibility in adding and testing new tags.

Unfortunately, it seems that many website owners tend to undervalue the worth of tag management; but for prolific content publishers (anyone from enterprise-level ecommerce companies to very busy bloggers), tag management systems are the easiest and perhaps most effective way to keep track of the performance of various content categories.

Many major companies have come to terms with the usefulness of tag management systems, however; currently, TagMan works with brands like Travelocity, Virgin Atlantic, Subaru and Kellogg’s, among many others.

Department store group Debenhams turned to TagMan while in the process of switching analytics providers. The site’s infrastructure was supplied and hosted by IBM, making any code changes a “delayed process.” To resolve this concern, Debenhams implemented the TagMan tag management system into its website so that it would be able to apply new online marketing technology without having to wait on code changes from the back-end infrastructure.

The single container tag used by services like TagMan replaces all on-site tags used to manage and track online marketing technologies; instead, these tags are stored in a tag management system that allows site owners to make immediate changes in a single, user-friendly, browser-based interface, never altering the code on the website. Ultimately, this allows content publishers to more effectively manage and track existing technologies and instantly install new ones. This improved efficiency saves site owners time, while giving them more accurate and insightful data from analysis and greater control over the way content is categorized on their websites.

In addition to TagMan, there are a number of tag management systems available, including UberTags, Tealium and Ensighten.

Self-service Tag Management with Tealium iQ

Linc Wonham — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:45:00 GMT

Tag Management solutions provider Tealium has announced the launch of Tealium iQ, a new self-service product that enables marketers to manage and deploy their digital marketing solutions without having to burden IT resources.

Tealium iQ’s new point-and-click user interface allows marketers to add, remove or modify the various Web page tags associated with the vast majority of today’s digital vendors. This means that digital marketers can launch online campaigns faster, measure more accurately and more easily swap out and test different marketing vendors before making a buying decision.

Web page tags are used for everything from data collection and measurement to behavioral targeting and online optimization. Tealium estimates that up to 90 percent of today’s digital marketing vendors – Web analytics companies, retargeting vendors, email service providers, affiliate marketers, etc. – use some type of JavaScript-based tag that needs to be implemented on a client’s website.

“The goal of tag management is to give marketing and measurement professionals direct control over their digital measurement infrastructure, and to eliminate the need for costly and time-consuming IT cycles,” says Gary Angel, president and CTO of the Web analytics and measurement consulting group Semphonic. “Tealium iQ does a superb job of that.”

With the proliferation in the number of website tags that must be managed today, Tealium iQ provides a single ‘universal’ tag that enables companies to manage and deploy all their different digital marketing solutions from one Web console. Most tag management solutions still require IT involvement and JavaScript knowledge, but Tealium iQ allows marketers to manage the tagging themselves through an intuitive new interface and instant integration with all major digital marketing vendors from Facebook to Google Analytics.

Users can click on a vendor, set some rules and hit publish to implement their tags automatically. They can do everything from adding a Google AdWords conversion code to their confirmation page to launching a banner retargeting campaign. Tealium customers include Cisco, Dreamworks, Advance Auto Parts, Orange, Classmates.com (now MemoryLane.com), Nicole Miller, FingerHut and Big Fish Games.

Social Media Mis-Measurement

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:09:00 GMT

Web analytics provider Tealium believes that businesses are "grossly" under-counting their traffic by not meausuring "view-through" traffic.

According to the study, only 20 percent of visitors to websites from social media and public relations are the result of a direct click. The remaining 80 percent are from "view-through," which measures traffic from Internet users who come to a site after viewing a piece of social media or online PR content that either did not contain a direct link to the site, or did not acquire the user as a result of a direct click from the content.

The problem that Tealium hopes to solve through its analytics platform is only being able to measure clicks from social media outlets, and its solution is to measure traffic where links that are not clicked on, but which still generate interest for a future visit, and traffic from content that does not provide a link, sending users in an indirect manner and emerging as a view-through. How do they do it? Tealium uses browser-based tracking to measure historical browsing behavior. To implement, Tealium clients must only embed a JavaScript tag to website pages - no hardware or software required.

Tealium Social Media is easily integrated into all popular web analytics solutions, including Google Analytics, Yahoo! Web Analytics, SiteCatalyst, WebTrends, Coremetrics, NetInsight and others. The integration lets marketers get an apples-to-apples comparison of results from their social media marketing, online PR, and other marketing channels such as pay-per-click and banner advertising.

"The study shows that marketers measuring the impact of their social media marketing and online PR based on existing analytics tools are under-reporting their performance by 80 percent," said Ali Behnam, Tealium co-founder. "View-through reporting provides marketers with a true measure of social media and PR success."