Looks like Bango are moving away from url redirection mobile analytics to page tags.
".... Bango Analytics currently focuses on campaign tracking where we use link redirection technology to accurately identify and record individuals clicking on your mobile ads and marketing campaigns. In the next couple of weeks we will launching our page tracking technology which uses a simple image tag to track site navigation....."
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/webanalytics/message/18267
Wow I wonder how this will affect people who have deployed their page redirection technology into their websites (in order to implement Bango you need to 'modify' your content).
I'm sure they aren't going to dump it straight away - but this looks like they have made the decision that they are giving up on url redirection (which I always thought was a clumsy way to implement mobile interaction with your mobile websites).
So basically this leave 7 or 8 vendors using page tags for mobile analytics (which has a whole set of issues for some mobile browsers anyway) and Amethon's Mobile Analytics, which is the only vendor using Wireline Capture. Whilst it does require a dedicated server within the data center network its the only solution that doesn't require any modification to the mobile website content.
For those of you who haven't checked out http://www.amethon.com/Content_Common/pg-Mobile-Analytics.seo Wireline Capture is basically packet sniffing. It's the only way to see 100% of the http packets travelling to and from the handset browser to the mobile webserver content.
Interesting to see how the market handles this announcement.
Cheers,
Dean
Hi Dean,
ReplyDeleteBango is not moving away from url redirection as a tool for data collection - it is still the most accurate way to measure ads and mobile marketing campaigns.
We are introducing an additional mechanism that accurately identifies and records unique visitors to pages on your site - what we are calling Page Tracking. This is a familiar image tag technology that has been enhanced to include our unique visitor ID.
Full details can be found at http://blog.bango.com/2008/07/09/tracking-sites-and-campaigns/.
Hope that helps.
Andy.
Bango
Hi Andy,
ReplyDeleteWhy would you run 2 different technologies on a single website?
I'm sure you are not going to 'dump' url redirection tomorrow (I think I was balanced in what I wrote), but it just doesn't make sense to run two technologies side by side.
What exactly is the advantage of URL redirection over page tags in the first place? and if it's better - why implement page tags at all?
Happy to post in full your reply (obviously as you can see above).
Cheers,
Dean
Page Tracking is a general data collection tool, while Link Tracking, or URL redirection, is a precision marketing scalpel that records individual clicks - the decision point ahead of any results or pages being displayed. It records the path being entered rather than the view at the end of it.
ReplyDeleteMy favourite use of url redirection is to point to landing pages I don't own. So counting clicks from my site to a partners site to see which partner is getting the most referral traffic.
In addition url redirection does not depend on browser referral information which as we know can be unreliable on mobile devices. It can also pass back live visitor information letting you personalize the landing page for each visitor.
We think it's worth keeping it around :-)
Regards,
Andy.
Bango
Ahh but if you used wireline
ReplyDeletecapture you’d be able to do all of that already ☺ AND Not need to go through the hassle of modifying your website layout or have to tag each of your pages.
Cheers,
Dean Collins
www.Amethon.com
For those agencies, marketers and brand managers that would rather purchase, install and maintain wireline capute hardware than add some image tags to their pages, I agree your solution makes perfect sense.
ReplyDeleteAndy
bango.com
Yes we do require a dedicated server within the data center serving the mobile content - which is the only negative to Amethon (but it's been published everywhere so it's hardly a 'company secret' :)
ReplyDeleteHaving said that - most of our clients are companies that running 1 additional server is no big deal.
But yes if you are running a website with 10,000 hits a month or less than maybe Bango is a better solution, though most of the time people who call me up and dont have the resources to run an additional server I send them to Admob or Mobivity so that they can make some additional revenue by running ads on their websites at the same time as capturing analytics.
Cheers,
Dean