Monitoring and tracking online metrics in order to optimize the customer experience has been a priority of technologists since the advent of the internet. Companies like Google have been recording our search queries, visits, clicks, user flows and beyond in order to create a database of motivations and behavior. And now, finally, marketing professionals are also realizing this opportunity. They now see the value in tracking and monitoring cross-channel marketing efforts and more importantly, understanding what, why and how to drive ROI using business intelligence and “big data” – the number one trend in marketing for 2013.

Understanding this trend, Google has seized the opportunity to bring more awareness to this trend and capture more business by creating a series of online videos promoting their analytics suite. What is great about these humorous videos is that they highlight the common missteps that occur during the online shopping experience and what they would look like in real life.

Online Checkout

Site Search

Landing Page Optimization

Contrary to the Ad Age article “Why Metrics Are Killing Creativity in Advertising,” I am a strong believer that inspiration comes from the numbers – that brilliance is taking something complicated and making it simple. This is why we need creative problem solvers in our industry to track, monitor and analyze data in order to translate it into information that is meaningful and actionable. With insight into the customer experience, we will reveal opportunities that augment the customer experience before customers checkout, we will continue to use metrics to inspire creativity in advertising.