Digital marketing yields data. Lots of it. Click through rate? Check. Time on site? Check. Bounce rate? Check. Cost per acquisition? You get the idea.
Numbers never tell the whole story. It’s the interpretation, careful consideration and presentation of the data that leads to true insights and refined marketing campaigns.
I’m constantly surprised by what other agencies routinely pass off as analytics. Sure, data tables and calculations have their place, but they’re rarely insightful. I find more clients than ever are simply frustrated with standard reporting. They deserve deeper insights and a more creative approach throughout the analysis and reporting process.
What clients rightfully complain about is too much data, too little insight. Here’s a good rule of thumb: Pretend your client doesn’t have Excel. Clients like dashboards and visualizations because these tools help bring the data to life.
Where raw data meets responsibility.
Dumping raw data at the client’s doorstep may generate buzz about unacceptable bounce rates and declining time-on-site results, but it’s not in any sense a responsible thing to do with campaign metrics.
I’ve found that responsibility means taking that raw data and analyzing it in a way that helps clients return smart value to customers via more targeted and responsive communications that make sense to them.
Example: If you want to market to a niche target audience, it makes infinitely more sense to use a data-based approach — let’s say, create a profile of the target and explore unique ways to reach them — rather than target a broad group of customers in hopes you’ll find your target audience within.
We’ve had great success by using recent purchase history at the product level to develop follow-up emails to customers highlighting related accessories. Responses are far above average. Relevance matters.
Using data responsibly tells customers you’re not going to squander their time and interest in your brand. It says you’re intent on building a relationship based on their needs. Developing that trust with customers is critical. It opens up more opportunities for us to collect data and build continuous improvement into our marketing efforts.
Being responsible also means you can’t look at results in a vacuum and be satisfied with a story that ends in the customer’s last action.
Connecting the dots.
We look at everything that ultimately influences a customer’s digital behavior. Without accounting for all actions — connecting the dots, if you will — clients are getting an incomplete analysis that ultimately doesn’t add insight or help improve their campaigns.
Our team measures everything that happens prior to an action — pages viewed, blogs read, items rolled over and videos watched, as well as the impact of traditional advertising on the digital environment. It helps us develop a more holistic idea of what influences factored into a customer’s decision to buy, apply, search, download or whatever.
If you don’t examine those interactions, you’re going down a fuzzy slope of flawed logic that anoints the customer’s last action as the telling metric. Not only does it undercut marketing efforts, it’s old thinking that lacks insight.
Open eyes and minds with visualization.
When we help clients make sense of data, it frees their thinking to consider new possibilities and opportunities.
Think of data visualization as a shortcut to insights. Smart visualization techniques like heat maps, dashboards and custom analytics programs help clients recognize key performance issues faster, as well as move forward with a clear and well-informed consensus.
When we visually represent data as an insight, we bring the client one step closer to measureable success. For example, if we can visually show a wildly efficient or inefficient click distribution map, we can quickly gain consensus about how to respond, then move on to another point of optimization. When visualization speeds consensus, optimizations quickly follow.
Setting a standard.
Unfortunately, there’s no real industry standard for quantifying the time people invest in digital marketing channels. We know that people engage with brands online, and there’s tremendous value in that engagement. There’s simply no accepted way of measuring and reporting it.
What are we doing about it? We’re busy developing engagement metrics based on client goals. We look at abandonment without action. We track time spent on the site or with the ad unit. We look at actions. Then we weigh the factors that are most important to the client and craft a unique framework from which to make subsequent moves.
Engagement tracking is the new frontier, and we continue to work on developing deeper tools for measuring it. Minus those tools, we’re marching forward with the knowledge that all data spawns insights. And it’s our responsibility to uncover and share those insights, not just throw numbers into the fray.
Article by, T3 Consumer Insight Group
