SEMphonic and Eric T. Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified “shook hands†to form a strategic alliance that aims to offer companies a complete web analytics solution.

“Our two companies address different aspects of the web analytics field. Web Analytics Demystified can help a business understand what they need to do to make web analytics a competitive advantage. SEMphonic can help many companies execute on that vision,†Peterson says.

“We are just flat out excited to be working with Eric,” SEMphonic’s President and CTO, Gary Angel says. “Maybe the best part of a partnership like this is the opportunity to learn from each other.â€

Clients can engage Peterson and his firm to develop a web analytics strategy and then engage SEMphonic to execute on that vision. Meanwhile, SEMphonic clients can engage Web Analytics Demystified to help build better processes to support their web analytics efforts.

I like the spirit of this partnership. It’s one of mutual understanding and mutual learning – a boon for clients of both companies. I’ve spoken with both Gary and Eric and they are both pros that bring a lot to the analytics table. Combining the knowledge of both these firms is a win for everybody.

eBay market researcher Terapeak is offering a free eBay research package that offers members complete reports on keywords or products, including information on the best times to sell, pricing, listing formats and features that maximize sales, and keyword and title recommendations to help online auction sellers increase profits for their businesses.

This is pretty cool stuff from a web analytics perspective. Think of it. You can’t determine much of what happens on the auction you list – beyond that cheesy people counter. Real-time feedback and suggestions on which keywords will help boost conversions is welcome.

Terapeak.com also offers advanced research tools to help eBay sellers find
the hottest products, research their competition, and analyze sales around the world for up to two years back. For those who do lots of business on eBay, these tools are worth checking out. From the web analytics enthusiast’s perspective, it’s just neat to see folks use stats to boost conversions – no matter the venue.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) today announced that Internet advertising revenues reached a new record of $4.9 billion for the first quarter of 2007. The 2007 first quarter revenues represent a 26 percent increase over Q1 2006 at $3.8 billion and a 2 percent increase over Q4 2006 at $4.8 billion.

“The continued growth of online ad revenues clearly illustrates marketers’ increased comfort with the extraordinary vitality and accountability of this medium,” said IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg. “It reaches consumers with an unprecedented level of efficiency and measurability that provides marketers with actionable data. And the ever-changing landscape of new platforms and technologies that enrich interactive advertising guarantees that this growth trend will continue.”

“The recent results are particularly impressive when the size of the advertising revenue base is taken into account,” said Peter Petrusky, director, PricewaterhouseCoopers. “Given these results, we may expect continued strong revenue growth buoyed by an expanding broadband subscriber base, which could translate into more users spending more time online and offers a platform for rich media and video ads that dial-up connections can’t render.”

“The continued growth of internet advertising, on top of the record growth of 2006 and despite advertising’s traditional sluggish first quarter, demonstrates the growing significance of interactive advertising to the overall advertising and marketing industry,” added David Silverman, partner, Assurance, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

I always love to see these reports, but are advertisers getting a return from their investment, or are they just throwing money into the Internet pool with great hopes. There’s a saying in advertising that goes something like this: “I know half of my efforts are working. I just don’t know which half.”

Web analytics is helpling companies track their online adveritising efforts. This is part of the ROI-driven approach that we push around here. Of course, there are latency issues involved. That means the customer may have clicked through your ad on Tuesday, but not bought until Friday or even next month. That’s a little tougher to account for, and that’s one place where folks miss it in their quest to calculate conversions.