Instagram
[fts_instagram instagram_id=256737344 super_gallery=yes image_size=100px icon_size=50px space_between_photos=1px hide_date_likes_comments=yes center_container=yes image_stack_animation=yes type=user]
Twitter
[fts_twitter twitter_name=elliance]
Like a mythical search for a leprechaun’s pot of gold, marketers must often undertake a circuitous route to evaluating ROI. First, there’s the bravery test. Post-recession marketers now find themselves defending every penny in an otherwise tight budgetary environment. Those who can muster the courage to tie marketing and ROI together will always have a compelling and competitive edge. Second, there’s the wisdom test. One of the conundrums that we frequently see in analytics is the desire to measure everything. But that my friends is a quicksand from which there is no escape. While we can measure just about anything these days, the wiser question is “should we?” I’ll admit to the guilty, geeky pleasures of drilling down into the latest Google Analytics report, following one thread of a thought process, then mining further for other facets in search of an explanation. Who hasn’t? The point is that it’s way too easy to get distracted by those threads when you … Continue reading
Leave a comment
Visitors to a website can come multiple times using any combination of direct, online search, ads, emails, etc. as sources before they convert. In previous versions of Google Analytics reports only the last touch point for a conversion was reported on. With the introduction of multi-channel funnel (MCF) reports, prior touch points which led to a conversion can also be reported on now. As I talked about in my previous post, Google Analytics (GA) campaign tags can be used to get information which otherwise is lost due to web protocols. Reports under the Acquisition tab in GA provides information on sources of website visits such as direct, search, referral, social, newsletter, banner ads, etc. as shown in the screenshot below: In one of my previous posts, I showed how to identify and tag various marketing touch-points, which otherwise show up as direct visits. As a follow-up to that, our next step is to measure the effectiveness and contribution of these … Continue reading
Taken the dive into “Big Data” yet? If not, take heart. It’s not the amount of data that you accumulate that’s important. It’s more important to collect the right information. That takes thoughtful planning. Our tendency is to review performance data after we launch a campaign or blast an email broadcast out there. However, traffic metrics are a poor substitute for revenue analytics and conversion metrics. De facto data reporting isn’t a great long game though, if you’re trying to make a case for the next round of marketing investment. Most digital marketing agencies and in-house marketing teams know how much time they put into developing a major creative campaign. Do you know how much time you spend planning for ROI? Or is it merely an after-thought? Let’s be a bit more intentional and deliberate. Consider developing an ROI Strategy. And put your heart into it.
Posted in: Digital Marketing
Landing pages and vanity websites are an integral part of digital marketing. These are mostly single HTML pages and come in a variety of flavors from simple text to more complex media rich pages. The latter may contain any combinations of image & video galleries, flash-driven elements, download resources, ajax elements, gadgets etc. Visitors interact with these objects without leaving the page. For example, Google Analytics (GA) tracking code will not track any of the following interactions from the visitors to the media rich page: How far down the page visitors are scrolling after landing on the page? How much time are they spending on the page? What resources on the page are they interact with? How many visitors are filling out the form? If there are videos on the page, which videos are they watching and for how long? Which content pieces on the page are most effective and engaging? And so on… Without enhanced data-collection techniques, the default … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics
Since New Years is a traditionally a time to take stock, here are five thought-provoking thoughts on marketing ROI from a few of my favorite experts on the subject (not ranked in any particular order). 1. “Choose no more than five key metrics. It’s hard to put organizational focus on more than that, so choose wisely.” Paul Albright, Chief Revenue Officer, Marketo 2. “The proper use of marketing ROI measurements is capable of comparing investment options as diverse as a direct marketing campaign, a dedicated sales force, a retail distribution channel and an Internet marketing campaign. Marketing ROI analysis can scale from the incremental value of a tagline on an envelope to the implementation of a multimillion-dollar enterprise CRM marketing initiative.” Jim Lenskold, President and Founder, Lenskold Group 3. “A new breed of “Super-Quant” will emerge in the near future having both the necessary statistical acumen and the required knowledge of interactive marketing. They will accelerate the ability of … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Digital Marketing
Digital (i.e. web+search+social+mobile) has changed everything in the world of marketing. Digital is doing to marketing what quantum mechanics did to newtonian mechanics. Let me share five indicators of a tectonic shift taking place right under our feet: 1. Communications models are now based on themes, not on THE BIG IDEA. The evidence of this is all around us. Think of your favorite brand and see how it is speaking differently to various audiences in different channels. Interestingly, a richer multi-dimensional argument has replaced cartesian coordinates stemming from a single point. Google, with its smart semantic and natural language processing capabilities, is able to understand themes and is creating winners by serving up theme leaders via Google search. 2. Iterative experimentation is replacing getting it right the first time. Analytics/testing are being used to narrow winning messages and weed out losers. Marketers are increasingly relying on A/B testing to guide message refinement. Intuit-Write-Measure-Adapt loops are replacing the traditionally linear research-write-measure … Continue reading
Posted in: digital communication, Digital Marketing
I love ROI. You can probably tell from my Twitter handle: @LuvROI. Yet, we marketers don’t often push our metrics far enough to effectively measure ROI. I’m not talking about impressions, frequency, clicks and other traditional campaign measurements. Not at all. Rather, we should view marketing outcomes through the same revenue-focused lens used by senior management in any organization. Digital, social and mobile media (with related analytics) offer increasing opportunities to measure what’s really important to Boards, CEOs, CFOs and other senior executives. Sample Revenue Metrics Number/percentage of new prospects generated online? How engaged are prospects (using blogs, galleries, video, mobile apps, social sites and other measurements)? Percent increase/decrease? Number/percent increase/decrease in gifts made via web? Mobile? Social? Number/percent increase/decrease in average size of gift made via web? Mobile? Social? All this, and more, is possible… When I was a client of Elliance, one of the simplest (but most meaningful) things I ever did was share the “Hottest Prospects” reports … Continue reading
Posted in: Marketing Strategy, philanthropy marketing
Email is one of the most widely used digital marketing tools in the communications landscape, and every email marketing platforms has built-in tracking to report on metrics such as email delivery, bounce, open, click-thru and un-subscribe rates etc. However, this integrated email tracking systems can’t provide insight on activities and behaviors of email referrers on the website. Useful information is missing from most tracking systems. For example: What content email visitors are viewing after landing on your website? How much time they spent on site? What technology they used to access email/website? How many repeat visits do they have? What share of events, goals conversions, revenue etc. can be attributed to this channel? Which email list is most engaged/effective/profitable? Visitors landing on a website as a result of clicks from email links generally end up as ‘Direct’ traffic in analytics reports. Segment intelligence that can help make better decisions is lost. However, if links to the website in your emails … Continue reading
Posted in: email marketing
Comparing last four months of pre-launch and post-launch analytics data of recently launched responsive website for a client, revealed some interesting insights. Website traffic remained unchanged Share of Mobile traffic increased Share of Direct traffic increased Shift in Desktop traffic to Mobile Overall, for the new website, traffic visit numbers remained relatively unchanged. However, the share of desktop users dropped giving a huge boost to visits from mobile users — increasing their share from 7% to 25% of total site traffic. As shown in the chart below, the old site was not friendly to small mobile device users as majority of the mobile visits were from tablets. With the new responsive website, non-tablet mobile traffic growth was significant and for the first time it was almost twice of the tablet users. It is evident from the following chart that the new responsive website is a huge success. Now with significant traffic coming from Mobile devices, it was natural to compare … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Search Marketing
In our experience, measurement, collection and reporting of website data are usually not a well-defined piece of a marketing plan for many businesses. One such area where marketers often struggle with Google Analytics (GA) reports is related to campaign attribution. Due to technicalities and nature of the internet, it is not straightforward to know the details of all inbound links to your site. However, appending inbound URLs with parameter/value pairs helps assemble the additional information. The following simplified example illustrates how to reclaim some valuable data by including GA campaign related parameter/value pairs in links inside emails, banners, social media, etc and get meaningful insights utilizing various reports. Often easy to remember URLs are used in print and banner ads. Take the following custom or vanity URL as an example: http://www.yourdomain.com/short_name Let’s say this URL redirects visitors to the destination page as follows. http://www.yourdomain.com/pagename In doing so, the action is recorded as a direct visit to the ‘/pagename’ and crucial … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics