WebTrends Goes for the Metrics Marketer

The Metrics Marketer trend is continuing to rise. Metrics Marketers is a new, half-hypothetical job description that imagines a marketer at the center of a number of data streams, making multiple decisions through the course of a campaign. Some times these decisions will be large: affecting many customers/prospects (such as changing a landing page), sometimes they will be small, affecting only 1 or 2 customers (such as sending a follow-up email). The image is compelling to a lot of marketers.

I say its half-hypothetical, because the underlying platform necessary for this job is still being built: it's primary element is data and that data is only now becoming a) avaiable and b) actionable.

WebTrends is diving into this world, seeking to bring more of its data to the surface. Analytics vendors are actually very well placed to take advantage of the MM revolution, since they are plugged into the users actions in a way that few others are. As more and more tasks involve digital technologies, we'll have a better and better trail to follow.