Designing and managing advanced analytics implementations for 35+ digital properties, across more than 10 different production teams, is not an easy task. It became even more challenging when the analytics team at Electronic Arts (EA) was required to migrate from Adobe Site Catalyst to Google Analytics Premium to Google Universal Analytics, all within the span of 18 months. Of course, all of this had to be done while still keeping pace with the company’s frenzied schedule for publishing blockbuster games, each of which requires new sites and countless marketing campaigns. See how we used Tealium iQ™ tag management system to achieve our objectives.

1. Taming
Advanced Analytics
Implementations
at EA Scale
#DigitalVelocity15

2. Ani Lopez
Measurement Strategist

3. https://twitter.com/anilopez
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anilopez

4. Pamplona

5. Barcelona

6. Vancouver

7. @AniLopez
• Former Web developer / Project manager / SEO
• Measurement strategist working for agencies or in-house

8. @AniLopez
• Aug 2013 Joined EA’s DI as Technical Solutions Architect
• Feb 2015 Full time employee as Measurement Strategist
Digital
Intelligence
Team

9. EA’s Landscape
Why analytics is so important to our business

10. Gaming Industry was simpler way back

11. Transition from physical to digital distribution

12. Multi-platform
PCs Consoles
Mobile
Devices
Online

13. Multi-device game experience

14. Product publishing cycle has evolved
Revenue = (Units sold x Price) - (Production + Distribution + Marketing) Cost
1993

15. New monetization opportunities
Base Game FIFA + Ultimate Team

16. New monetization opportunities

17. New monetization opportunities
Freemium + In-game Micro-transactions

18. Why Analytics is so important to us
Attract
Engage
Convert
Retain
Advocate
• Measurement tools have become more sophisticated
• We can measure pretty much everything
• Do we have a more accurate picture?

19. •Not in the videogame industry
•Connecting the dots is challenging
•Analytics even more important!!!

20. EA Scale
What we deal with

21. What we deal with
+35 properties 1 e-commerce

22. New
+10 Production & Analysis teams
• Business Intelligence
• CRM / DBs managers
• Campaign Managers
• Producers
• Programmers
• QA engineers
• UX experts
• Ops
• Data Analysts
What we deal with

23. Programmers?

24. +1,300 tags: Measurement, A/B Testing, Heat Mapping, Marketing

25. +5 Billion hits a month sent to GA via Tealium

26. How I feel…
Monday first hour

27. How I feel…
Wednesday noon

28. How I feel…
Friday late afternoon

29. Projects
Let’s get to the meat of the matter

30. 1.Migrate from SiteCatalyst to Google Analytics
2.Global Revenue Attribution Project
3.Migrate from Classic GA to Universal
4.House Cleaning
5.Customer Data Integration
6.Ongoing Standardization
7.Executing and Tracking Semantic SEO

31. 1. Migrate from SiteCatalyst to GA Premium
Issues
• Poor adoption of the tool
• Complicated implementation
• Not flexible enough for our changing environment
• Very expensive

32. 1. Migrate from SiteCatalyst to GA Premium
Solution

33. 1. Migrate from SiteCatalyst to GA Premium
• Optimal adoption of the tool
• Very flexible implementation
• Remarkable amount of money saved
that we invested in brain power
ROI

34. 1.Migrate from SiteCatalyst to Google Analytics
2.Global Revenue Attribution Project
3.Migrate from Classic GA to Universal
4.House Cleaning
5.Customer Data Integration
6.Ongoing Standardization
7.Executing and Tracking Semantic SEO

35. 2. Global Revenue Attribution
Source
Campaign
Medium
+35 websites 1 E-commerce

36. Issues
• GA accounts at franchise sites with no transactional data
• Origin GA account (e-commerce) with no original attribution
2. Global Revenue Attribution
Campaigns
GA Account
Campaign data
No revenue data
GA Account
No campaign data
Revenue data

38. Solution
• Cross-domain tracking from franchise sites towards Origin
2. Global Revenue Attribution
Source
Campaign
Medium Franchise GA tracker Franchise GA tracker
Origin GA tracker
Extended Session

39. Solution
• Cross-domain tracking from franchise sites towards Origin
2. Global Revenue Attribution
Campaign data
Revenue data
Campaign data
Revenue data

40. 2. Global Revenue Attribution
• Much better analysis what
increases revenue & saves money
• No programmers required
all done via Tealium
ROI

41. 1.Migrate from SiteCatalyst to Google Analytics
2.Global Revenue Attribution Project
3.Migrate from Classic GA to Universal
4.House Cleaning
5.Customer Data Integration
6.Ongoing Standardization
7.Executing and Tracking Semantic SEO

42. Scenario
• When we migrated from SiteCatalyst to GA, Universal was in beta
• Universal Analytics got out of beta April 2014
• Classic GA is not an option anymore, Universal is way better
Issues
• Large number of tags to replace
• Even larger amount of JavaScript code in extensions to review
• Legacy sketchy implementations
• Countless hours of QA
• “Non-Stop production” environment
3. Migrate from Classic GA to Universal

43. Solution
3. Migrate from Classic GA to Universal

44. And the patience
of a loving mother
3. Migrate from Classic GA to Universal

45. 3. Migrate from Classic GA to Universal
• All the benefits of Universal Analytics
• No programmers required
More money saved!!!
ROI

46. What I mean by “No programmers”
Before Tealium
• Digital Intelligence sent specifications to programmers
• They implement alongside their regular stuff (more workload)
• QA testing
• DI validated
This means
• Resistance
• Lots of back and forth
• Less time to test
• Higher risk of inconsistent data collection

47. What I mean by “No programmers”
With Tealium
• Programmers do their stuff at their own pace
• DI implements tracking
• DI + QA test
This means
• Earlier integration of tracking in the project
• Agile implementations
• Perfect data collection
• Everybody happy!!
• (Requires certain technical knowledge though)

48. 1.Migrate from SiteCatalyst to Google Analytics
2.Global Revenue Attribution Project
3.Migrate from Classic GA to Universal
4.House Cleaning
5.Customer Data Integration
6.Ongoing Standardization
7.Executing and Tracking Semantic SEO

49. 4. House Cleaning
Everything tends to chaos
After a year and a half
• Are all Tealium profiles active?
• What happens with the marketing tags when campaigns are over?
• Who has access to the tool and what level?

50. @tomomichu
4. House Cleaning
Solution
• Hired extra brain power for a short gig
• Audited all profiles and removed
orphaned tags, load rules, and data layers
• Reviewed / revoked user permissions
65 users now, very few publish to Prod
• Audited privacy practices and updating
profiles to meet compliance
• Developed governance and user guidelines

51. 4. House Cleaning
• Less margin for errors
• Tighter governance
• Privacy policy enforcement
• Money saved!!
ROI

52. 1.Migrate from SiteCatalyst to Google Analytics
2.Global Revenue Attribution Project
3.Migrate from Classic GA to Universal
4.House Cleaning
5.Customer Data Integration
6.Ongoing Standardization
7.Executing and Tracking Semantic SEO

53. 5. Customer Data Integration
“Full customer journey” but how do we get to know the customer*?
Stitching the pieces
• Before we know customer at a personal level
• When they register and give us their details
• whether they buy or not
• In-game data. How, what, when they play
• Campaign evaluation
• Product quality / User satisfaction

54. 5. Customer Data Integration
Solution
Encourage then to register

55. 5. Customer Data Integration
Solution
Facilitate log-in
Automated cross properties

56. 5. Customer Data Integration
In Tealium
• CRM makes it available on our properties after login
• It’s passed to Tealium’s Data Layer
• Mapped to tags that attach info to the rest of the data they collect
Outside Tealium
• Data exported from different tag vendors
• Data captured from other sources like Social Media
• Warehoused / Mix and match

57. • Better understanding of
customer cycle / ecosystem
• Increases revenue and saves money
ROI
5. Customer Data Integration

58. 1.Migrate from SiteCatalyst to Google Analytics
2.Global Revenue Attribution Project
3.Migrate from Classic GA to Universal
4.House Cleaning
5.Customer Data Integration
6.Ongoing Standardization
7.Executing and Tracking Semantic SEO

59. 6. Ongoing Standardization
Issues
• Entropy
We already know everything tends to chaos already
• Frantic production rhythm
There is never a good moment to come up with standards
• Teams change / technologies / business models evolve
There is never a unique standard
• Lack of buy-in from stakeholders
“Best” is often times trampled by circumstances or egos

60. 6. Ongoing Standardization
Solution
• Learned from errors
• Introduced standardization during:
• Migration from Classic GA to Universal
• House cleaning
• Got decision makers involved, educated
and presented with evidence

61. 6. Ongoing Standardization
What did we standardize?
• Best practices around implementing measurement strategies
• Code in extensions: GA function wrappers
• Naming conventions
• Tealium elements: Data Points, Load Rules, Tags, Extensions
• GA elements: Events, Custom Dimensions

62. • Less margin for errors
• Easier deployments
• All that saves money
ROI
5. Customer Data Integration

63. 1.Migrate from SiteCatalyst to Google Analytics
2.Global Revenue Attribution Project
3.Migrate from Classic GA to Universal
4.House Cleaning
5.Customer Data Integration
6.Ongoing Standardization
7.Executing and Tracking Semantic SEO

64. 7. Semantic SEO
What is got to do SEO and Tealium?
The EA Content Service is a flexible, API-driven mechanism that,
in conjunction with a model that defines different content types
and elements, allows content to be published on any platform
and consumed on any device.
Aaron Bradley
@aaranged

65. 7. Semantic SEO
How we tell better to Search Engines what our site is all about?
They now read “JSON for Linking Data” or JSON-LD

66. 7. Semantic SEO
Learn more > http://www.seoskeptic.com/json-ld-big-day-at-google/
EA Content Service

67. 7. Semantic SEO
Consequence: “SERPs domination”

68. 7. Semantic SEO
• More and better organic traffic
• Deeper content analysis
• Significant increases in revenue
ROI

69. Wrapping Up

70. How Tealium Helps
• Centralized control
Who does what and where (Dev, QA, Prod)
• Performance
Tasks separation, everyone focus on what they do best
• Agility
Ability to react quickly to last minute changes
• Scalability
Marketing campaigns growing across
products / properties / territories

71. What I’ve learned
• Taming chaos is your job
Don’t chicken out of it!
• Everything evolves including measurement strategies.
Don’t panic, question everything and adapt
• No tool is perfect
But support and commitment should. Be demanding
• No tool, or set of them, is going to provide a 100%
complete vision of the customer journey
• No tool is going to solve the biggest issue
Lack of measurement strategy

72. ROI

73. What we deal with (recap)
• +35 properties
• 1 E-commerce (across several platforms)
• +10 Production teams
• Quite a few Data Analysts, BIs, DB managers
• +1,300 Measurement and marketing tags
• +5 Billion monthly hits via Tealium (only Google Analytics)
• Advanced tracking implementations
• How many people required to manage all that?

74. All this chaos wrangled by only one guy and

76. No programmer
was harmed in the making
of these implementations

77. Thanks