Semphonic is getting ready to host it's second annual X Change conference in San Francisco, California. X Change consists of small group conversational “huddles” where participants get to talk and work with leading experts. One of Xchange's huddle leaders will be Dennis Bradley of Charles Schwab. Dennis is the Director of Web Analytics at Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. and is responsible for leading web analytics reporting, analysis and maintenance on Schwab.com. Dennis was also featured in a interview by Semphonic which you can check out below:

Could you describe your role at Charles Schwab?

I manage web analytics from the business side for Schwab.com and several other associated websites. I own the vendor relationship with Omniture and partner internally with several marketing teams (Marketing Analytics, Online Marketing, Paid Search, Media, etc.), technology, and other organizations to best use web analytics to help answer key business questions via operational reporting and deep dive analyses. I also manage our business relationship with SEMphonic, who assist us in our goal to fully leverage web analytics internally.

How long have you been doing web analytics?

I have been actively involved in web analytics for about 3 years; my first exposure to web analytics was attending eMetrics in Santa Barbara 4 years ago. We have actively been using web analytics at Schwab for 2 ½ years.

Can you tell us a little about the technology you’re using – and how that’s evolving – both in terms of web analytics and the online measurement eco-system?

Our initial focus has been 2-pronged: Designing reports to meet basic data needs and answer simple questions & delivering 1-2 analyses/quarter that help answer deeper business questions and suggest actions to improve results going forward. We socialized this data across our marketing organization and began to create both more demand and support for using web analytics to make business decisions. We began to hit the limits of what that tool could offer and have recently begun implementing a more advanced tool that will allow us to deliver more value to our key decision makers.

Your first Huddle topic is Bridging the Gap from Web Analytics to Marketing: What led you to pick that?

This has been a big focus over the last 6-9 months for me and 2 key internal partners, Kevin Chan and Risa Dimacali. To more fully leverage web analytics, we needed the marketing team to build us into their processes and make analytics part of the before, during and after of their campaigns and strategy. We have made a lot of progress but still have a ways to go; we look forward to comparing notes and sharing the successes and failures during this huddle.

You’re also doing a Huddle on “Justifying the need for advanced analytical tools;” tell me a little about that?

This is another topic that has been a huge focus over the past year. We were beginning to bump up against the limits of our tool and we were unable to answer some key business questions. As we made the case to be part of the marketing process from beginning to end, we needed to deliver more value. By clearly articulating what we could deliver to the decision making process with more advanced tools, we made the case to pilot what we hope will be a major success story.

Of the other Huddles at X Change, are there some you’re particularly keen on?

I am very interested in several of Dylan Lewis’ Huddles, especially establishing a web analytics center of excellence and testing strategies on the internet. Also, Ron Pinsky’s Data Collection Huddle and David Yoakum’s Personalization and remarketing Huddles sound compelling.

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing enterprise web measurement in the next year?

A few of the biggest challenges I see are:

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