Tecnologie per il web marketing

Basic usage of the web and basic web programming (HTML). Basic notions on data analytics: attending the course 426AA module 1 “Decision Support Information Systems” in the same semester is enough.

The Web is the most data-rich environment ever seen, both as for data types and size. Our on-line life continuously produces data crumbs  on what we search for, which site we visit, what we like, who we interact with, where we go, what we buy, what we comment on, and so on. Such a big data is at the foundation of many decisions that business or policy makers take, often in automated way. This course is about marketing decisions, or, how to market effectively, how to being truly connected with customers, how to improve the customer experience on our web sites, how to invest available resources, and how measure success using web marketing technologies. The program covers the basic methodologies, technics  and tools for understanding and using web analytics, search engine optimization and marketing, web advertising, social media marketing.

  The course will be held in English if at least one student is from abroad.

Introduction (2 h)

What is web marketing? Attracting and retaining web customers.

Web analytics (8 h)

Clickstream analysis. Web marketing metrics. Tools: Google Analytics.

Web personalization (8 h)

Web personalization. User profiling using web mining. Recommender systems.

Search engine optimization (8 h)

Architecture of search engines. PageRank and, HITS. Search engine optimization (SEO): site name, keyword research, seo-friendly web site, page ranking,  web site changes. Directories. Practices to avoid (doorway, cloacking, hidden text, keyword stuffing, link spamming).

Web advertising (6 h)

Web advertising: design and implementation. Search engine marketing (SEM): online auctions, allocating slots. Tools: Google adwords. E-mail marketing: privacy, SPAM. Newsletters.

Social media marketing (6 h)

Social network analysis. Information cascades. Opinion mining. Viral marketing.

Other techniques and issues (6 h)

Controlled experiments on the web. Privacy & fairness.  Geo-marketing and location-based services. Sector case studies: consumer electronics, fashion, furnishing, insurance, music, publishing, retailing, tourism, wellness.

Seminars (4 h)

Seminar held by web marketing consultants or company managers.

Selected chapters from:

• Michael Miller. The Ultimate Web Marketing Guide. Pearson, 2011.
• Brian Clifton. Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics. Wiley, 2012
• Avinash Kaushik. Web Analytics 2.0. Wiley, 2010.
• Eric Enge et al. The Art of SEO. O'Reilly, 2010

plus recent articles and web links.

Written and oral exam. Written exam can be replaced by an assignment during the course.