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Hubspot Gives Analytics Its Due With Performable Acquisition

Posted by Joseph Stanhope on June 17, 2011

Change is the only constant. This truism is one of the reasons why web intelligence is so much fun to cover at Forrester Research. Web analytics, site optimization, mobile measurement, and the online marketing suite are constantly evolving, which is not only fascinating but will - one would hope - lead to increasingly productive and relevant marketing. 

The market moved again yesterday, as Hubspot announced the acquisition of Performable. You can read the official Hubspot announcement here and the matching Performable announcement here. I had the opportunity this morning to speak with Hubspot's Kirsten Knipp to learn more about the transaction. The terms of the transaction are undisclosed, but clearly Hubspot is feeling empowered in the wake of their recent funding round. The entire Performable team is staying on board, and it appears to be a very collegial meeting of the minds; Performable CEO David Cancel and Hubspot CTO Dharmesh Shah have known one another for several years. 

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Identifying Your Online Marketing Suite Requirements

Posted by Joseph Stanhope on June 15, 2011

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The online marketing suite has been a major focus of my writing and speaking engagements in 2011. I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to dive into this exciting and important topic from a variety of angles. Since my first blog post on this topic in February, we have published The Road To The Online Marketing Suite to define a development road map and maturity model for the online marketing suite and How The Online Marketing Suite Affects the Marketing Technology Playbook to look at the long-term implications of the online marketing suite on the marketing ecosystem.

In the wake of these reports, we found that the online marketing suite resonates strongly with Forrester's clients. Organizations definitely have an appetite for a framework to coordinate the content, execution, and analytics that comprise interactive marketing. But time and time again in client meetings, inquiry calls, and at events I've heard the same set of questions: What technologies, skills, and processes does my company need? Which approach should my company take to the online marketing suite? Where should my company start on its online marketing suite journey? 

These are topics we will continue to explore, and to get started we published How To Identify Online Marketing Suite Requirements this week. This research provides a needs assessment framework designed to help organizations craft their strategy for implementing the online marketing suite.

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A Love Gone Bad: What Can DVRs Teach Us About Customer Intelligence?

Posted by Joseph Stanhope on June 2, 2011

  • 248 Recommendations

Do you remember your first digital video recorder? Most of us probably started with Tivo, or perhaps a box provided by our cable company. The DVR forever altered how we watch television and introduced the concept of "time shifting" to the media world, much to the consternation of TV networks and advertisers.  

The DVR arrived in my home in 2003, and things haven't been the same since. I'm a busy guy - I have a young family, I travel a lot, all the normal stuff - so the freedom afforded by the DVR from the tyranny of network schedules immediately transformed my TV viewing experience. At first it was enough to record my favorite shows and then watch them at my convenience. But it became so much more: I could easily search for and discover new shows and films, I could record and store my favorite shows and films for a rainy day, and I no longer had to watch commercials! I learned to curate video content, much as I manage my music in iTunes; it's just another stream of media to consume.

(Side note: anyone out there have younger kids who have grown up with a DVR? It's fascinating to take note of their conditioning; my children have never known a world without DVRs and are completely used to watching whatever they want when they want it, and are utterly mystified by the concept of commercials during a program.)

Perhaps the biggest impact for me was the change in how I watch sports. I enjoy sports, particularly NCAA basketball and football (go Illini!), NFL (go Bears!), Formula 1, tennis, golf, and I'm occasionally drawn to obscure sports in the middle of the night such as the Scottish Caber Toss or Australian Rules Football. With the DVR I could watch NCAA basketball games in . . . just 40 minutes, not two hours! I was now immune to insufferably long NFL games, chock full of TV time-outs, halftime show pageantry, and constant holding penalties. 

Life was good.

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