Posted by Andrew Edwards on March 24th, 2011 at 7:03 pm

Yesterday I attended the OmmaMedia Analytics conference in New York. Typically this event draws lots of ad-tention from ad people on M-ad-ison Avenue and this year was no exception.

In the past this conference only served to point up the gulf between web analytics (or more broadly, digital analytics) and what the Madmenandwomen think is important to know about their hugely expensive on line activities. There was (in years past) talk about how "analytics is hard" and "not really that useful" and how Comscore is the equivalent of all things knowable under the noonday sun. It seemed as if the big media agencies saw measurement of those huge spending campaigns as the merest piffle. Or that the on line space was SO COMPLICATED that no analytic effort could hope to tell a story from which a client might get any use.

This year it sounded hopefully different.

There continues to be an unwarranted amount of concern over "not knowing what to measure", but that is because so many folks controlling ad messaging have never spent much time with web analytics analysts. But, all things considered, there was little for an analytics maven to feel self-sorry about this year.

The speakers included Andy Fisher of Mediavest who said (roughly) that there was never a better time to be in analytics and that he is very bullish on the industry. Alex Yoder of WebTrends declared web analytics to be "dead" but I think the message really (in less fatal terms) was that web analytics now includes mobile, ipad, facebook, twitter and other social media tracking and analyzing. Agreed!

Comscore was Comscore--Josh Chasin was funny and engaging but that does not mean that Comscore is anything like web analytics (because it isn't). But that is a long-ish story and another post or article.

In the end there was a robust embrace and even a healthy understanding of what web analytics is (machine gathered data about site usage that helps you target your on and off line marketing decisions); and why "getting it right" (accurate, timely, meaningful) is critically important.

As the economy creeps towards improvement and with digital analytics providing spend-justification and Madison Avenue at last seeming to understand that the careful measurement of meaningful site activities can lead to real dollars and cents, I would hasten to agree with Mr. Fisher in a general feeling of bullishness about analytics.

And as Madison Avenue folks whisper in the ears of the great commercial emperors/empresses about the dollars perhaps waiting for them at the end of the analytics rainbow, that may result in a new richness of engagement for analytics mavens looking for people who want the truth about on line activity.

Time to rejoice? Maybe. But you may indulge that longing to invest in a party hat.