Six Questions with John Marshall: The Encore

SES London will be kicking off tomorrow. Last month we brought you interviews with Greg Jarboe and Debra Mastaler, two Internet marketers who will be speaking during SES London.

To close out our series of SES London Q&As, John Marshall, CTO of Market Motive, answered six quick questions. Or six questions quickly. Either way, enjoy!

1. You’ll be speaking on the panel Measuring Success in a 2.0 World. What “cutting-edge” statistics should site owners be paying attention to in a 2.0 world? Have the metrics changed in the new Web environment?

I think the problem is that these cutting edge statistics are getting blunted by the 2.0 world. Increasingly your content exists on websites other than your own, so it’s hard to measure.
2. Search Resources: Building A Better Economic Model is another session you’ll be speaking at. According to the description, part of the premise is that only the measureable marketing activities that prove their worth will survive the chopping block. Have you found that paid and organic search marketing operate with different levels of success or is it like comparing apples to oranges?

You need them both, and neither is headed for the chopping block!
3. Another session you’re speaking on is Landing Page Testing & Tuning. Can you give us a rundown of some of the landing page testing methods that people should have in their arsenal?

With free tools like Google Website Optimizer, the important thing is that you continuously test.
4. You were interviewed here at the Bruce Clay, Inc. blog last May by Lisa Barone. She asked you about the most important metrics to pay attention to, as well as the most overrated. In your opinion, has anything changed since then? Is it still about average time on site (ATOS) and not as much about ROI?

Yes, I’m still a big fan ATOS. ROI is just too complex and prone to problems.
5. What would you say to someone who feels that analytics data is so comprehensive that it’s hard to take action? Are there any reporting solutions available to help this struggling SEO narrow down the actionable items?

If you can’t make sense of ATOS (or its cousin, bounce rate) then you should ignore the web analytics data and survey your customers.
6. While you’re at the conference, what must-see sessions do you plan to attend? Where will other attendees be able to track you down?

I’m really looking forward “Why Does Search Get All the Credit” on Tuesday.

I think John was intentionally coy with his answers so that you, dear readers, would be compelled to attend SES London to find out more. You can also check out his past interview here on the BC blog when John spoke to Lisa in preview of last year’s eMetrics San Francisco. Thanks for stopping by the blog again, John!

Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger.

See Virginia's author page for links to connect on social media.