So how was your winter?  I hibernated, holed up in a cave studying the interactive attribution category.  Like a freakish, human Punxsutawney Phil, I emerged – but unfortunately I saw my shadow and hit the snooze button. According to tradition, this means that we are subjected to more cold days ruled by the "last click" measurement standard.  And we're still stuck in those cold days:  even among marketers we surveyed who work with an attribution provider, 28% indicated that they still rely on "first click" or "last click" to assign value to their interactive marketing activities.

Now for the good news:  the thaw is coming and we’re optimistic that it will be permanent. I’m excited to announce that The Forrester Wave™: Interactive Attribution Providers, Q2 2012 is now available to help you select the right partner and learn more about attribution. In it, we discuss how momentum is accelerating for the interactive marketing community to dismiss "last click" and employ advanced attribution, the measurement of the partial value of each contact that contributed to a desired outcome.

So it appears that the progress of SOPA and PIPA is grinding to a halt, largely due to the massive online backlash inflamed by the influential new generation of digitally focused companies like Google, Amazon.com, and Facebook.  For interactive marketers, this is a good thing.  But protecting content creators from online piracy is fundamentally important and the movement is funded by deep pockets.  If SOPA and PIPA are dead in their current incarnations, they’re certain to resurface in another form.  The new question for interactive marketers and the online community is whether that new form will be more realistic, fair, and effective in terms of enforcement and compliance.

As a refresher, the twin online anti-piracy bills in the U.S. legislature sought to give copyright holders and U.S. attorneys general the power to stop foreign-based websites from linking to or displaying copyrighted content like movies and music without permission.  But the bills are extremely far-reaching and complicated and could potentially up-end the operations of any website that allows users to post content or has links to other sites – which is basically every site out there.

Why are SOPA and PIPA bad news for marketers?  They would potentially:

The collection and use of consumer data in digital channels continues to evolve at a fast pace.  I want to highlight two recent reports that address key areas of this topic that matter for interactive marketers.  Earlier this week, I published a report that details data collection best practices for interactive marketers.  The second one, Personal Identity Management, is a must-read courtesy of Fatemeh Khatibloo, who serves customer intelligence professionals here at Forrester.

In her report, Fatemeh introduces Personal Identity Management (PIDM), which has two primary components: 1) personal data lockers for consumers to hold their information, and 2) authorization management that ties data silos together, lets users update and manage their personal data, and enables consumers to approve requests for their data and share their data with marketers.

PIDM is in its early stages, but it could add another layer of complexity to consumer data collection and use if the digital ecosystem embraces it.  As an interactive marketer, PIDM would alter how you:

• Acquire personal information for marketing and analysis.  Fatemeh’s report describes five areas marketers will need to focus on to unlock consumer data: privacy, security, transparency, portability, and economy.  Communicating your value proposition to consumers will become much trickier.
• Develop interactive marketing environments.  Your team – including your internal and external partners – will need to adapt its processes, policies, and capabilities to account for consumers’ new data gatekeeper role.

This is my first official blog post as a Forrester analyst, and I’m extremely excited to be a part of the community. So who am I? Before joining Forrester, I was an interactive marketer, a “traditional” marketer, and also a strategy and analytics consultant on the service provider side. Most recently, I served as director of relationship marketing at the National Basketball Association, where I focused on acquiring, engaging, and monetizing fan relationships through digital channels.

My background centers mostly on interactive marketing and CRM/database marketing, and my research will concentrate on that intersection. Currently, I’m readying reports on innovations in email marketing and developing interactive marketing dashboards. Looking ahead, my research will cover topics such as identifying and targeting influencers, the future of online messaging, converting social media followers into customers, and calculating the value of digital marketing assets.

To help jumpstart new research about data collection best practices for interactive marketers, I’m soliciting feedback through two opportunities:

1. Take this quick 8-question survey about your data collection practices. We’ll share the results with you.
2. Join us for Tuesday’s tweet jam to talk about the challenges faced when collecting data for interactive marketing programs.