Archive for the ‘Analytics’ tag
Are You Tracking Metrics That Mean Nothing?
Spend more than 20 minutes with a B2B marketer and you will inevitably end up speaking about metrics. Marketers are constantly looking to measure the impact of their craft and gain a better understanding of overall performance.
While we certainly should take the steps to measure marketing performance, many of the metrics being tracked today are meaningless. Why? Because there is simply no context behind them and metrics on their own provide no insights to the business. As marketers continue to improve and mature, we must analyze the right metrics to better inform us and enable better decision-making.
If you are currently tracking the following metrics, think about what insights they provide, and consider that—without the proper context—metrics are meaningless.
Cost per Lead
Many marketers have become obsessed with trying to drive down their overall cost per qualified lead. (Keep in mind that a lead is not a name that has been received via
web form.) However, the cost per lead should always be compared to the average sales price.
One organization that I worked with was concerned that they were paying close to $300 per qualified lead. However, their concern was unfounded after some analysis showed that they had a 6-9 month sales cycle and an Average Sales Price of $75,000. Spending $300 to get a truly qualified lead to sales was a bargain. The company had a 35% close rate—meaning that for every $900 spent on generating three qualified leads, they were realizing $75k for a 830% ROI. Not bad!
If you are going to measure the cost per lead for your organization, be sure to do it with the backdrop of average sales price and length of sales cycle. Then you will be able to properly benchmark and have the necessary information to determine if you really are paying too much.
Number of Dials
I met with a director of an Inside Lead Development team that was discussing his team’s efficiency. His proof point was the number of dials made per day to responses via inbound marketing. However, when a closer look was applied, the metrics showed less than 1% of these responses were converting to sales opportunities. Quite the disconnect in proving effectiveness!
While telemarketing continues to be a very viable tactic to engage potential buyers, be sure you are focusing and compensating on the right thing. The number of dials made by a telemarketer means nothing; talk time and rate of connection can show faulty metrics. The more appropriate metric would be number of accepted leads and leads converted to opportunities after a call happens. If you want a true read on how effective your tele-lead qualification team is, shift your metrics and compensation accordingly. Dials are not the right metrics to measure.
Number of Leads Generated
This one is sure to get me burned at the stake for heresy! Every marketer should be measuring the number of leads generated—that is one of the biggest goals of marketing year in and year out, right? Well, sort of… but stay with me here.
Too many marketing departments set off on a path of generating leads without a clear vision of how many qualified leads they need to generate to help sales achieve or overachieve quota. This understanding is crucial. Without it, marketing does not understand the real goal or have any the ability to know if they are being successful.
The key is to develop a lead planning process whereby marketing and sales work collaboratively to determine what the targets should be. Beginning with the revenue targets, you should be working backwards to determine the number of deals needed (knowing the ASP and Sales Win Rate is also vital to this exercise), number of Sales Qualified Leads, Sales Accepted, Qualified Leads and Valid Responses. This not only provides targets at each stage, it allows marketing and sales to measure against this number and align around a single goal. Having this process in place is the only way to provide meaning to the number of leads generated.
Number of Impressions, Clicks and Opens
These three metrics are every email marketer’s staple—the holy grail of metrics! Even now organizations run reports on clicks and opens and impressions or web visits. While those can be a top line indicator of engagement, without a deeper look into if those that are clicking are the right buyers these metrics mean nothing.
If you are simply measuring these baseline metrics, be sure to tie them back to opportunities to determine if you are engaging the right audience. You must also look downstream to see if all your top-line activity is contributing to pipeline. If it is not, you need to readjust your focus as impressions, clicks and opens aren’t indicating anything other than engagement.
Database Size
During one of the most contentious sales presentations I have ever given, a vice president of Marketing sat back and asked quite aggressively, “Do you even understand just how many contacts we generate each and every month?” Knowing that I could risk losing the deal answering this, I responded, “I’m sure there is a whole lot, but do you know if these are the right contacts?”
This conversation then led into a great discussion about the need for data segmentation and understanding your buyer. We discussed the potential of actually decreasing the size of their database due to the fact that many of the names that they had were never going to buy from them and were not the right targets.
When discussing the database, size does matter, but bigger does not always mean better. Be sure you have done the work to segment your data based on your ideal account and buyer profiles/personas, and be very targeted . You will get much better results.
As marketers, we are told every day that we are what we measure. There is some truth in that statement. However, the metrics have to count, too. Make sure you provide the right context to your measurements, so they give a view into the business and produce the value and insights you need. Otherwise, you have meaningless metrics… and those don’t help drive revenue!
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De nieuw(st)e cookiewet: expliciete toestemming van de baan
Deze week publiceerde het Ministerie van Economische Zaken haar voorstel tot het (opnieuw) wijzigen van de cookiewet. Verschillende Kamerleden hadden kritiek geuit op de pop-up-terror en cookiewalls….
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Making Smart Use of Data
It starts with knowing why you’re collecting it — understanding what matters. That drives you to figuring out why the experience hits the mark. Increasingly, by experience we mean the full Monty — multichannel and multi-touch, if you’ll indulge me in buzzword bingo.
Most compelling data
By far, the most compelling data, the kind of metrics that appeal to people byond the marketing suite, is data about self. Because it’s tied to identity, and value.
Behaviors are one of the components that shape identity, along with
context. A source of feedback that allows someone to tweak how they’re
doing based upon data points ends up igniting a couple of key components
of personal drive: mastery, and purpose. There is no limit for better in this system.
Doc Searls has been on a roll lately and this post on what people can do with data that companies can’t tops it. One application for retail, where I’ve been spending a lot of time recently, thinking about facilitating experiences across environments — online, in-store, and on the go.
Think of what you could do if you had all your spending in electronic
form, and not just on paper receipts and invoices, or buried ten clicks
deep on Web pages You could look for ways to spend less money, or spend
it more wisely.You could share back some of that data to retailers
whose loyalty programs wear blinders toward what you’ve bought
elsewhere: intelligence that might get you more favorable treatment from
those retailers, while also providing them with better market
intelligence.
It appeals to me.
While one on hand I’m a market of one, I don’t know anyone who would push back at better offers and treatment. Do you? It’s a give and take — and you start with the giving part. I’m shocked to see how few do it.
Why does Lufthansa not know me every time a book a flight? I use the Miles and More program. They must not know me, or it would be incredibly rude to not award me miles when I submitted vouchers its staff gave me to three sites! Dumb systems, aren’t they?
I know where I am better than their back end system.
Best predictor of success
Test, test, test. Then test some more to optimize the experience.
Hypotheses are just that, theories. Go get yourself some proof by looking at the data after figuring out which data matters beyond right here, right now.
If you’ve been the victim of premature cancellation of a program, you know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen your competitor sail by and take the lion share of sales.
It’s a mistake not to disprove assumptions. Take a look at this example on pricing models published at Jason Cohen’s blog. Counter-intuitively, sometimes the best approach is right in the middle.
When it comes to pricing, people’s valuations are based upon their own systems and anchors. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you would have paid (almost) any price to figure something out? That’s what I’m talking about.
Learning from history
This is a very important point with data and query sets. We forget so fast. Remembering helps us not repeat the same mistakes — see how we learn vs. education system-ic#.
no one on the inside has any clear idea about how to change the way our
institutions work while leaving our benefits and privileges intact
Social is not exempt. We’re still talking about people, after all.
+++
Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at
conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a
speaking engagement click here.
Pinterest vernieuwd! Ingrediënten, analytics, mentions & meer
De Pinterest crew zit niet stil. In de afgelopen tijd heeft het visuele sociale netwerk een aantal veranderingen ondergaan, waaronder enkele belangrijke en zeer nuttige. Daarnaast nemen de mobiele…
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Analytics and Testing: 3 tips to optimize your testing efforts
The past can teach you a lot about your customers and where opportunities for testing and optimization exist in your sales funnel – if you take the time to look.
Looking to the past to guide current marketing efforts 
was one the key takeaways from Adam Lapp, Associate Director of Optimization and Strategy, MECLABS, and Benjamin Filip’s, Manager of Data Sciences, MECLABS, Industry Deep Dive session, “Hoverboards and DeLoreans: Taking your optimization from 0 to 88 mph,” from MarketingSherpa and MarketingExperiments Optimization Summit 2013.
“If you’re just starting out in testing and optimization, looking to the past [performance] is a great segue into brainstorming ideas for future testing,” Ben said.
Today’s MarketingExperiments blog post features three tips from Adam and Ben’s session you can use to aid your testing and optimization efforts.
Tip #1: Look to your historical data
According to Ben and Adam, a good way to mitigate some of the classic struggles of testing and optimization (money, time and drain on resources) is to first look to your historical data as your guide to where opportunities exist.
“Historical data is the only way to determine where to start,” Ben said.
Tip #2: Analyze your sales funnel
Adam and Ben also explained how looking at your historical data in combination with a funnel analysis can show you what people are in your funnel and where the big drop-offs are taking place.
Here were a few questions they suggested marketers try to answer when undertaking a funnel analysis:
- Where are my biggest leakage points in the sales funnel?
- Where are people going?
- Why are they exiting the site?
- Are people visiting specific places on the site more than any others?
Tip #3: Determine where opportunities exist
Another interesting (albeit somewhat counterintuitive) insight Adam and Ben offered on discovering new opportunities for testing was that leaks in a sales funnel don’t necessarily mean an opportunity for testing exists.
“You want to try and invest in the tools that will have the greatest impact on your ROI,” Ben explained.
Instead, they suggested marketers always build profit analysis models to determine which testing opportunities will offer the greatest potential ROI.
Related Resources:
Marketing Optimization: Are you tracking website optimization ROI?
Online Marketing Testing: A research manager’s view of balancing risk and reward
Non-Descriptive Labeling Can Hurt Your SEO & Site Usability
Those who work in the B2B sector have probably seen non-descriptive labeling used on just about every site they’ve worked on. Such labels may include title tags, URLs, H1 tags or navigation labels. Aside from irritating users, poor labeling practices will also hurt your site’s SEO. The…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
[Infographic] In a Mobile World Customer Reviews Matter More Than Ever Before
The Internet world is indeed a mobile world. There is no longer proof needed for that to agreed to amongst any marketers.
What that mobile world has created, however, is a brave new world for the consumer who now wields more power than ever. That power comes mostly in the form of reviews of a business’ products and services. It all leads to a customer who can voice great joy or great dissatisfaction with a business and that is power.
According to Gib Olander, CEO, Local Viewpoints,
Word-of-mouth advertising has long been recognized as the primary factor behind 20% to 50% of all purchasing decisions; in today’s mobile friendly, digital world, consumer testimonials and online reviews have become the default way within search results for consumers to judge the viability of a business to meet their needs.
The folks at Local Viewpoints put together an infographic to help further explain this reality of today’s online world.
Here it is.
The importance of the review is hard to deny for sure. What is even harder is to deny is the general disarray that the local review space is in. You can’t flip over a rock without hearing complaints about Yelp or Google reviews. Olander continues
Reviews have become the go-to decision-making content when performing local searches. Studies show that 90% of people use online reviews to make buying decisions. It’s become evident that there aren’t enough reviews on enough businesses.
So what are you doing to control your reviews, get more reviews and ultimately impact your bottom line? It’s an important question that demands an answer in the brave, new mobile world.
Editor’s note: If you are looking for a strong company to create infographics for your business, check out our friends at Avalaunch Media who created the above infographic. This was not a paid ad or anything. Just a heads up to our readers. Carry on.
Ticketfly unveils ‘first of its kind’ products to identify and reward top fans
Ticketfly wants to reward you for seeing live music.
Today this hot ticketing startup released Fanbase, a suite of customer analytics products that founder Andrew Dreskin said is a first of its kind. Venues and event promoters can use Fanbase to identify their top fans and offer them rewards for loyalty.
Dreskin’s claim to fame is “being the first guy to sell tickets on the Internet.” He founded a company called Ticketweb which was sold to Ticketmaster in 2000. Around 2007, he saw that the main problems in event ticketing were still not being addressed and started building Ticketfly.
Ticketfly does not only sell tickets. Dreskin describes it as a “holistic technical solution” for events and venues. The platform provides events and venues with tools for ticketing, cross-channel marketing, and analytics that serve to streamline operations and drive sales.
“Historically this industry had a lack of innovation,” Dreskin said during an interview at Ticketfly’s offices. “There were no integrated technical systems, nothing was connected, and there was no understanding of how tickets were bought and sold and who the customers are. We were the first to bring social ticketing and an integrated platform to this industry, and with Fanbase we are continuing the theme of doing things first.”
Fanbase was inspired by the discovery that seven percent of customers drove thirty percent of revenue. The team saw an opportunity to harness the power of these users by incentivizing their loyalty. The technology behind Fanbase is based on twelve different criteria that generate a ranking for each customer. Factors include how often a customer visits a venue, how much money they spend, their social media following etc… Venues can adjust the criteria based on their preferences and reward their top users with perks like VIP access, pre-sale tickets, merchandize and drink tickets.
“Going to live events used to be an anonymous process, even if you went to the same venue 40 times a year,” Dreskin said. “Fanbase is about encouraging top fans to market on behalf of the venues and promoters, this has never been done before in the industry because no other provider has access to this data. We are uniquely positioned to do this because we power all the technology for our clients. The industry is yearning for next generation tools and Fanbase is a great example of that.”
50 venues and promoters used Fanbase during beta testing and the feedback was “overwhelmingly positive.” 92 percent of the clients said they would use Fanbase multiple times a week and emails sent with Fanbase offers to fans were twice as likely to be opened.
Dreskin told me to imagine that my favorite local venue offered me a VIP table for an upcoming show or gave me early access to shows that I might like. What’s not to like?
“It would be disingenuous to say that people solely buy tickets because they like a venue,” he said. “Of course the driver is the artist, but we are seeing more and more that people are developing great affinities for venues and promoters. If it’s a band they kind of like at a venue they love, they will go, and when they walk through the for, they are no longer a nameless, faceless person.”
Since launching in 2008, TicketFly has grown to 105 employees and 1100 clients. Last year, the site sold tickets to 26,000 events and revenue growth continues to accelerate. Every ninety days, Ticketfly signs agreements to sell a million new tickets and Dreskin projects it will do 250 million of gross transaction volume in 2013.
Ticketmaster is the startup’s main competitor, but Dreskin said it has major issues with technology and customer relations, not to mention alienating promoters by merging with event promoter Live Nation. Today’s releae is the first iteration of Fanbase and the platform will evolve over time as more people use it.
Ticketfly has raised $37 million in venture capital and is based in San Francisco, California.
Check out this video about Fanbase.
Filed under: Business, Lifestyle 
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Distimo opent buitenlandse kantoren
Het Utrechtse mobile analytics-bedrijf Distimo opent verkoopkantoren op vier grote buitenlandse markten.
Vier jaar na de oprichting van Distimo in het midden van het land zet het de stap naar het buitenland. De meeste klanten bevinden zich daar al en nu zetten de ondernemers de stap om de klanten op een paar grote markten ook lokaal te gaan bedienen.
Er komen lokale verkoopvertegenwoordigers in New York, San Francisco, Londen en Singapore. Ze moeten de analyticsproducten bekender gaan maken in hun respectievelijke regio’s.
De mobile analytics-producten worden al veel gebruikt voor ontwikkelaars, grote bedrijven die hun eigen apps exploiteren en mobiele operators die willen weten wat hun klanten bezig houdt. Met de Nederlandse tools kunnen zij hun eigen producten uitgeven, benchmarken, salesfunnels doorwrochten en analyseren wat de beste prijsstelling in welke markt is ten opzichte van de concurrentie.
Een jaar geleden werd al een vertegenwoordiging geopend in Tokyo in samenwerking met een Japanse digitale marketingconsultant.
*) Lees ook: Lunchinterview met Vincent Hoogsteder (Emerce magazine, maart 2012)
Foto: Francois Karm (cc)
4 Steps to Move from Insights to Action
This post is presented by Marketing Pilgrim’s Analytics Channel Sponsor WebTrends. It was written by Stephen Eide, Training + Development Specialist at Webtrends.
If you’re like most digital marketers, you track a set of website metrics—measurements such as site visits, time on site, referring sites and the all-important purchases, conversions or downloads. While tracking and reporting on these metrics is fairly straightforward, do you know how to use them to make improvements?
While it can be challenging to move from reporting on results to driving action, it’s a critical transition. It can help transform your organization and put you on the path to marketing glory.
Here are four steps to get you started:
Step 1: Focus on Results
For each metric that you track, brainstorm what you can do to move that number. If you’re measuring customer loyalty, what actions can be taken to improve that? If you’re measuring how often people complete a form, what methods will help you drive traffic to the form? Make sure that your metrics align to the all up goals of your organization.
Step 2: Develop a Plan
You now have a list of performance indicators tied to possible actions. Any metric that doesn’t have an action tied to it should be dropped. Compile your list of actions into a comprehensive plan and prioritize based on resource availability and potential impact. While all these theoretical actions are nice, who is actually going to do them?
Step 3: Build Your Team
That leads to your next step: build your team. To get the job done, you will likely need to enroll people from other teams who have the necessary skills to complete certain tasks. Figure out who those people are and assemble them around a common goal. For example, you may need to collaborate with someone from the IT department to optimize your landing page. Initiate discussion among your peers to determine what is feasible for your new team to accomplish.
Step 4: Execute
Finally, work with your team on implementing the plan. Meet regularly to discuss results and address any barriers with stakeholders. Review your plan frequently and check for alignment between results and business goals.
A little planning goes a long way. By starting with a list of actionable goals, you avoid wasting time on metrics that won’t move the needle.
Read our whitepaper to learn more about advancing your digital marketing strategy with analytics.
This post represents the thoughts and opinions of the author and not necessarily those of Marketing Pilgrim.
