Adobe on Tuesday announced a $1.8B dollar acquisition of Omniture. At the outset, the acquisition seems odd. I think of Adobe as a software company for creative types; and Omniture as the top dog in analytics. Both have different business models and very different customers.

But as you start peeling the onion layers, the acquisition starts making sense.

• Advertisers and ad agencies want to understand which video content is performing the best i.e. measure the CTRs for online ads that use flash. With both companies under the same umbrella, Adobe hopes to sell more of Omniture’s products to its existing customer base. One analyst noted during the Q&A that “all Omniture customers are probably Adobe customers, but not the other way around,” leaving a large customer base to which Adobe can push its wares.
• But that’s not all. Imagine if every flash player that is used for rich media apps or social media content also starts tracking and reporting usage. Will Adobe embed a tracking cookie into each flash player to create a new measurement standard? Given flash’s usage and dominance, we will have a universal cookie tracking each user’s online activity and allowing more behavioral targeting.

Well, the “privacy police” will certainly be watching.

Some other interesting reads on this

• Thoughts on Adobe + Omniture
• Adobe devours analytics firm, is your data the dessert?
• Adobe Analysis of Omniture: pass the cigars, its a buy
• Was the Adobe-Omniture merger a bad idea?

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/guptanitinonline

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We discussed some engagement metrics in my previous post: level of exuberance or bonding or conversations with the customers. While engagement metrics are very important for measuring Social Media, NO marketing campaign can be sustained or successful without getting an adequate return on the dollar. We need to look at other quantitative metrics in addition to the ones we discussed earlier to measure the Return on “Investment”. To calculate return, we need to see:

• Increase in repeat business from existing more satisfied customers
• Revenue generated through new customer acquisition
• Revenue generated through customer referrals
• Decrease in support costs as problems get identified earlier
• Decrease in sales and marketing costs due to reduced customer turnover

But are quantitative and qualitative metrics alone sufficient to measure the success of your Social Media strategy?

I was at a social media event earlier today hosted by Acxiom and got introduced to a new definition of ROI: Return on Insight. Webster defines “insight” as the act or result of apprehending the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively.

Metrics measure past events. We have all heard from financial advisors that past stock market behavior is no indicator for future performance. By focusing solely on metrics, you may miss out some customer conversation that will lead to the next big innovation for your company. You can gain valuable insights and feedback on product features and design (or service components) that will bring you closer to consumers and ultimately lead to a bigger market share.

So, I am proposing a new mantra for measuring Social Media: Return on Investments and Insights (ROII). And the first “I” should be Investments, to keep the focus on MONEY. But let us not lose sight of INSIGHTS.

What are your thoughts? I would love to hear what monetary and non-monetary metrics you currently use…

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Continuing on the topic of monetizing social networks, one of the problems in the industry is last touch attribution.

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