Analytics, Search, Social Media, Optimization:

Why Has Marketing Gotten So Geeky?

presented by: Kate O’Neill

CEO & Founding Partner, [meta]marketer

Paging Dr. Drucker:

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation.Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.”

Traditional Marketing Path

AwarenessAwareness PreferencePreference PurchasePurchase LoyaltyLoyalty

What’s changed?SearchSocialAnalyticsTechnologies

not to mention…customer expectations of

relevance, usability,

portability, etc.

Let’s look at the landscape >

How do you plan for all this?

Let’s Talk About Search.

What’s changing in

the Web landscape?

Remember the Pre-Search Web?

And then...

Google changed

everything.

The Consequences of Google

Emphasis on ranking high in the ‘One True Search’

led to Emphasis on inbound links at any cost

which led to Creation of web litter, spam sites, bogus articles, spam blog comments, questionable endorsements, an industry of “experts”, etc

The Audacity of Google

Facebook

Facebook Moving In On Google’s Turf

It’s (Almost) a Post-Search World,

Baby

But we’re a changed user baseBringing the mindset of shady SEO to social media (unfortunately) - manipulate results, rank high, add junkWe’ve got hundreds of “experts” early in the game. Really?

How Many ‘Experts’

Are There Really?13,00013,000

??

36,00036,000??

It All Comes Around Eventually

Twitter lists take us right back to the

manual link-building,

curation modelEmphasis on

“friendsourcing” vs

“crowdsourcing”

So: what’s changing in the Web landscape?Google > FacebookSearch > SpontaneityFindability > Trustability

And let’s not forget “the Cloud”

Data portabilityMobile apps & mobile webLocation-based apps & gamesAugmented realityContext relevance takes on geography and proximity

The “Burden of Proof”

In a digital world, everything is potentially measurable

Business insights need data and validation

Marketing has the opportunity to move from the hot seat to the driver’s seat with the tools to inform the business

Analytics: With Great Power Comes Great

Accountability.

Analytics Process at a Glance

Determine KPIsWhat factors will determine success? What’s actionable?

Establish a baselineWhere are the pain points?What’s the range?

PrioritizeWhat’s most critical?What’s easiest?

ValidateForm a hypothesisTest

AnalyzeCompare with baselineExtrapolate to ROI

source: Omniture SiteCatalyst Basic User Training Workbook

What’s measurable?Traffic

Sources (finding methods)Composition (visitor profile)

EngagementNavigationContent

Conversion

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not

everything that counts can be counted."

- Albert Einstein

What’s meaningful?

“Where in the site are visitors most often deciding to leave?”

“Where do visitors most often go after using the internal search?”

“Do visitors who come in on blog posts actually visit the rest of the

site?”

“What search terms are used by the people who are most likely to

purchase?”

In other words:

start with a good question.

Planning is Key to Analysis

Anticipate

Implement

Modify

Data collection begins!

Incremental data only

Conversion Metrics

Conversion Rate (Orders or Leads per Visit)OrdersRevenueLeads Generated Offline Sales Completed

Model the Siteidentify actions / events, content hierarchies, products

(e-commerce), and potentially interesting characteristics

Types of Reports

Metrics TrendingPathing

Next Page / Previous PageFall-out

Dashboards

Trending

helpful in spotting anomalies in patterns

Funnels

helpful with path fall-out visualization

Page Flow

helpful in spotting

content & navigation problems

Dashboards

helpful in reviewing KPIs at a glance

Traffic: Who’s coming to

the site?

Examples of Traffic Metrics

VisitsPage ViewsTraffic SourcesUnique Visitors

Wait... what’s the difference between ‘absolute unique’ and ‘daily/weekly unique’?

Visitors: aren’t we all unique?

Mon: Joe, Jane, JeffTues: John, JackWeds: James, JillThurs: Jeff, Jason,

JackFri: Jay, Joel, John

How many visits? at least 13How many visitors? 13

How many unique daily visitors? 13How many unique weekly visitors? 10

Engagement: What’s happening once people get

there?

Examples of Engagement

MetricsReturn VisitsTime on Site / Time Spent per VisitBounce Rate

Are You Ready for the Social

Web?

Defining Social Media

•publishing power to the masses

•participation

•conversation

•accountability, transparency, measurability

What do we mean by social media?

•Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, blogs

•but also

•YouTube, Ning, Flickr, Vimeo, Bebo, Last.fm, imeem, Plaxo, Tumblr, etc.

Social Media Measurements

Traditional Marketing Path

AwarenessAwareness PreferencePreference PurchasePurchase LoyaltyLoyalty

Social Marketing Path

Reach / Reach / Exposure / Exposure / AwarenessAwareness

EngagemeEngagementnt InfluenceInfluence Goal ActionGoal Action

Social Marketing PathSelect Measures

# of Visits# of Visits# of Visitors# of VisitorsCommentsComments

Click-throughsClick-throughsDurationDuration

Repeat visitsRepeat visitsRegistrationRegistration

RetweetsRetweets

Purchase Purchase ConsiderationConsiderationLikelihood to Likelihood to RecommendRecommend

PurchasePurchaseAttend eventAttend eventTell a friendTell a friend

ContactContact

Reach / Exposure / Awareness

Reach / Exposure / Awareness

EngagementEngagement InfluenceInfluencePerformance

of Goal Action

Performance of

Goal Action

What are Ideal Measures?

Reach

Clickthroughs

Purchases

Awareness

Unprecedented Technologies: A

Look at Optimization

How are most design decisions

made?

HPPO

HighestPaidPerson’sOpinion

Not irrelevant, but not comprehensive.

By Committee

“I need my department to be featured on the home page!”

“Can we use something other than red for the Buy buttons? I hate red.”

Designer’s Aesthetic

Flash!

Prettiness over performance

Finger in the Wind

What seems to be trendy

What someone mentioned at a party

What’s reported in the news

In other words...

in a vacuum.

How should design decisions be

made?

You need user input.

You are not your audience.Even if you are.

You need data.

Users lie.Aggregate data doesn’t.

HPPO

Data trumps opinions.

Even highly paid ones.

Use conversion-related metrics to determine executive-relevant

strengths and weaknesses of the site.

Committee

If it isn’t interesting to the user,

ditch it.

Use engagement metrics to determine what keeps users on the site.

Design for Design’s Sake

Think users like your design?

Prove it.

If your creative success can’t be measured, it may not be valued.

Finger in the Wind

“Great idea! I’ll add it to the

testing roadmap.”

Trendy ideas are worth knowing about.But they may not work in your situation.

Balance objective and subjective

input

what people think or feel

versus

what people do

Balance qualitative

and quantitative input

what you can intuit

versus

what you can measure

Gathering Balanced Input

focus groups

A/B or MVT results

usability studies / interviews

surveys

analytics data

What to do?

‣Balance subjective & objective testing(And know that you may get it wrong)

‣Find the story behind the story(But know that you may get it wrong)

‣Look for a narrative in onsite testing(But know that you may get it wrong)

‣Look for the unobvious AND the obvious(And know that you may get it wrong)

If you’re still going to get it wrong,

why test?

Because you can not only measure lift when you’re right...

(Woo hoo!)you can also contain risk when you’re wrong.

(And it just might save your job.)

In short, test your way to greatness.

Customer Expectations Are

Changing

What Customers Have Come to

Expect:Interaction: Through social channels, click to chat

support, etc.Responsiveness: Replies to complaints on Twitter

and elsewhere, fast fast FAST turnaroundCustomization: Ability to set up custom levels of

interactions, or even better, learn without them telling you

Relevance: Specific, targeted messaging and experiences

Respect: Nothing foisted on them, no invasions of privacy or security

Q&A

Follow me?

•Twitter: @kateo@metamarketer@corpidealist

Facebook: facebook.com/kateoneill

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kateoneill

Blogs: metamarketer.comcorporateidealist.comEmail:

kate@metamarketer.com

kate@corporateidealist.comkate@honeybowtie.com