Shelby Thayer Answers Key Questions About Web Analytics and Measurement

This October at Converge 2015, our focus is to bring the best and brightest together to revolutionize higher education. In this series of blog posts, Content Marketing Intern, Mikayla Wilson, asks our speakers key questions. Read on to find out more about our passionate speakers and the importance of their topics.

Name: Shelby Thayer

Institution: Penn State World Campus

Session: Effective Marketing Measurement

Date & Time: Thursday, October 22 | 2:30-3:30PM

Summary: Measuring the effectiveness of our marketing is essential, but it’s not only about slapping a tracking URL on a banner ad and seeing if someone clicked through. If that’s all we’re measuring, there is a 100 percent chance we’re wasting money. Shelby will talk about measuring beyond the click-through. She’ll touch on campaign tracking, email measurement, lead generation, content measurement, attribution and more.

MW: Tell us more about yourself.

ST: I started dabbling in web analytics around 2000 at a former job when someone I worked with pointed me to a computer in our server room and showed me WebTrends. I remember waiting hours for reports to run, but I was so interested in understanding what was happening on our website. At that point, we were looking at the real basics – page views and visits were very exciting.

I am also a proud former Lady Lion basketball player at Penn State – let’s go State!

MW: What is new and next in web analytics and measurement?

ST: For digital analytics, I think the next big thing is tying everything together more easily. There is so much to do first, though, pushing beyond the basics. For example, with almost 20-30 percent of our users now viewing on mobile, how do mobile users behave differently? Do we need to worry about attribution and dive into the different models, getting out of GA and exploring other tools that give us other types of information? There’s so much we can do now.

MW: What challenges have you seen in higher education in web analytics and measurement?

ST: I’m very lucky I work for a department and university that values and understands the power of digital analytics. I talk with many people at conferences who are struggling to get buy-in to get the resources needed to really improve their websites and marketing efforts. As we all know, this cannot be a once-in-a-blue-moon or only-when-I’m-asked-for-a-report thing. To truly get anything out of it, we need to dedicate time and resources. There are many schools that value digital analytics, but it’s still a struggle for many others. The great news is that there are many resources (free and paid) available online – outside and within higher education. This is a great time to be working in the digital analytics space in higher education.

MW: What are you most excited about for Converge 2015?

ST: I’m excited to meet new people and catch up with others. It was a great conference last year, and it looks like it will be even better this year. I’m really excited to meet many of the speakers and talk to people about best practices and common challenges.

MW: Attend Converge 2015 to hear Shelby and many other great speakers. We hope to see you there!