Web Engagement

Web Engagement is the ideal introduction to understanding the key concepts necessary to engage, and ultimately retain, your web customers. This book explains proven strategies that allow you to understand what your customers need and how you can use your website to meet those needs. Detailed case studies and examples illustrate what other web businesses have tried -- successfully and unsuccessfully -- what they have learned.

The book answers new and important business questions, such as:

• What is "personalization" and what does it mean for your customers and your company?
• How can you use personalization and customization in a business-to-business web engagement?
• How can you use web server log files and browser cookies to understand what customers are doing on your website?
• How do you divide customers into segments and groups so that you can better meet their needs and increase sales?
• What are your web business objectives? How can you tell whether you are meeting them?

With this book as your guide, you will learn how to build a web business model, and an accompanying website, that connects your business more directly to your customers. You will also learn how to instrument your site so that you can change it as your market changes. Web Engagement helps you gain a working knowledge of the core issues, key technologies, and essential business models that will help you devise a winning e-business strategy for your organization.

Table of contents

Foreword

Preface

The Problem

The Book's Purpose

Who Should Read This Book

How the Book Is Organized

B2B and B2C

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Chapter 1 Becoming A Web Business

Objectives of This Chapter

Build It, They Come, They Leave

Promise: New Growth from the Web

Perplexity: Running a Web Business

Surprise: Seeing the Web Business as Others See You

A Continuing Story

Lessons from CPS

Web Engagement

Key Ideas

Chapter 2 Getting The Big Picture

Objectives of This Chapter

A Few Basic Questions

Where Do Log Files Come From?

What Is in a Log File?

The Content of a Log File Record

Records Associated with the Initial Request

Some Implications

Following the Actions of a Single Visitor

Questions about Visitors

Where Do They Come From?

Referrer Information in Log Files

Search Terms Used to Reach Your Site

Other Log File Extensions

Summary

Key Ideas

Further Reading

Chapter 3 Answering The Basic Questions

Objectives of This Chapter

Putting Log File Analysis to Use

Focusing on Key Questions

How Much Use Is the Website Getting?

What Parts of the Site Get the Most Use?

How Do People Find Out about the Site?

Is the Site Functioning as Expected?

Summary

Key Ideas

Chapter 4 Getting More From Website Data

Objectives of This Chapter

Visits

The Visitor's IP Address

Pulling In Other Information

Referrer Information Used to Reconstruct a Visit

Other Approaches to Constructing Visits from Log Files

Use of Cookies

Registration

Operational Considerations

Overview of the Log File Analysis Process

Implications

Summary

Key Ideas

Chapter 5 Identifying Questions For Your Business Model

Objectives of This Chapter

Different Kinds of Web Businesses

Closing Sales on the Web

Selling Access to Visitors

Supporting a Non-Web Business

Mixes and Blends of Web Business Models

Summary

Key Ideas

Chapter 6 Using Cookies

Objectives of This Chapter

There's Something about Cookies

Stateless

Cookie Communications

A Cookie Example

What Is in a Cookie?

The "Secure" Field

The "Name" Field

The "Value" Field

Some Sample Cookies

The "Domain" and "Path" Fields

The "Expiration" Field

Collecting Information across Sites

Summary

Key Ideas

Further Reading

Chapter 7 Privacy And Customer Engagement

Objectives of This Chapter

Anticipating and Responding to Privacy Concerns

Cookie Defense

Netscape Navigator 4

Microsoft Internet Explorer 4

Cookie Management Tools

Privacy Policy

Privacy and Engagement

Other Approaches to Maintaining State

Summary

Key Ideas

References in This Chapter

Further Reading

Chapter 8 Personalization: Using Customer Data

Objectives of This Chapter

Putting Customer Data to Work

Personalize or Perish?

A Personalization Success Story

Learning by Example

The Customer at the Center

Beyond Customer Choice

Lessons from National

The Three Basic Approaches to Personalization

Summary

Key Ideas

Further Reading

Chapter 9 Responding To The Customer

Objectives of This Chapter

Personalization Controlled by the Customer

First Things First: Identifying the Customer

Profiles

Profiles for Content

Profiles for Presentation

Profiles for Business Rules

Personalization and Customization

Calculating Costs and Benefits of Personalization

Dynamic Delivery

Dynamic versus Static

The Trend Toward Dynamic

Choosing a Delivery Mechanism

Personalized Information Storage

The Self-Describing Marketplace

Privacy

Summary

Key Ideas

Chapter 10 Customers As Members Of Groups

Objectives of This Chapter

Focusing on the Group

Recommendation Engines

How They Work

Performance and Forming Groups

Integration with Different Information Sources

Integration with Marketer Input

Reasons to Use a Recommendation Engine

When Recommendation Engines Aren't Useful

Selecting the Right Product

Tools for Marketing

Market Segments

Customer Segments

Applying Recommendation and Segmentation

Summary

Key Ideas

References in This Chapter

Further Reading

Chapter 11 Building Personalized Engagement

Objectives of This Chapter

Assembling the Pieces

The Processes

Collection

Association

Delivery

The Information Sources

Customer Information

Business Information

Content Information

A Staged Development Plan

Engaging the Individual Customer

Engaging Customers in the Context of Groups

Growing the Engagement over Time

Stages, Summarized

Summary

Key Ideas

Index