the integrated marketing playbook: how to create simplicity from complexity

A fundamental guide for digital marketers

The Integrated Marketing Playbook: How to Create Simplicity from Complexity

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http://twitter.com/?status=The Integrated Marketing Playbook, a free must read http://bit.ly/IMPlaybook %23IMPlaybook via @IgnitionOne

A fundamental guide for digital marketers


3

4 Foreword

7 Chapter 1 The Evolution of Direct Marketing to Integrated Digital Marketing

17 Chapter 2 Setting Your Organization Up for Success

27 Chapter 3 Tools and Technologies for Integrated Marketing

37 Chapter 4 Centralized Data for Actionable Insights

43 Chapter 5 Bridging the Gap: Advertising, Conversion Optimization and Marketing Automation

49 Chapter 6 Optimization: Get More, Do More, Learn More

57 Chapter 7 The Future of Integrated Marketing

65 Chapter 8 Discussions on Integrated Marketing

78 Glossary of Terms

80 About IgnitionOne

4 Foreword

Foreword

Will Margiloff, CEO | IgnitionOne

Digital marketing has the potential to

achieve the dreams marketers have

held for generations: the ability to

directly reach potential customers at

the right time, with the right message, every time.

This dream consists of the extraordinary ability to

track marketing efforts and consumer behavior

in order to optimize budget and understand the

audience and what is most effective, as well as

the innovation and technology to manage all of

this efficiently and easily.

While achieving this dream is closer than it has

ever been, digital marketing has become so

complex due to the multitude of point solutions

that have flooded the digital landscape, each

with their own data sets and their own way

of looking at the conversion path. In addition

to data and tools, the silos set up in our own

organizations end up working against central

marketing goals by putting the focus on the

success of individual tactics or channels.

This structure does not have to be the norm. It

is possible to integrate your marketing. Break

down those silos, break down the walls, connect

the dots and centralize data, tools and efforts.

We have written this guide to serve as a

valuable resource when mapping out how to

approach integrated digital marketing in your

organization. It is our goal to answer some core

issues marketers face:


5www.IgnitionOne.com

INTEGRATED MARKETING

Centralized Data

Site Experience

Aligned Goals

User Behavior

Media

Technology

What are the central challenges to achieving

integrated digital marketing?

How do I set up my organization to facilitate

and take advantage of integration?

How do I centralize tools, data and

measurement to achieve integrated

marketing?

What is the payoff for integrating my

marketing?

Many people assisted in the creation of “The

Integrated Marketing Playbook” and their time

and efforts are thoroughly appreciated. We

would also like to thank our CMO contributors,

Julie Cary of La Quinta Inns & Suites and Peter

McDonough of Diageo for graciously agreeing

to share their insights with us.

We hope that the discussion won’t stop here

and that you will continue to comment and

share your thoughts on integrated marketing.

Please reach out and share your feedback with

us anytime at [email protected] or on

Twitter @IgnitionOne.

Will Margiloff

CEO

IgnitionOne

17

The Evolution of Direct Marketing to Integrated Digital Marketing

8 The Evolution of Direct Marketing to Integrated Digital Marketing

The phrase, “integrated marketing”

now seems as ubiquitous as

“synergy,” “thinking outside of the

box” and of course, “paradigm shift.”

But how many companies are actually moving

beyond the hype and executing the integration

of marketing efforts well? In a survey done by

the Association of National Advertisers (ANA1),

51% of marketers claimed to be developing and

executing integrated marketing programs for all

brands/products/services. This is up from 19%

in 2006. So who are these brands and what are

they doing? Are they any more successful than

those brands not using integrated strategies

and tactics?

Reaching the level of having a unified and

holistic view on digital marketing programs

requires data resources and ways to

analyze them.

Our industry has spent a lot of time recently

talking about how we navigate lots and

lots of data, so much in fact that we’ve just

decided that it’s, well, BIG. Beyond the buzz,

Big Data is about processing, segmenting

and understanding large amounts of data to

be actionable in real-time. In that sense, the

term “real-time actionable information,” would

be more appropriate. Data is meaningless to

a marketer, unless it can be translated into

valuable information. Similarly, a pile of bricks

is not a house.

To be “actionable in real-time” is a very big

statement in and of itself. For years, marketers

The Evolution of Direct Marketing to Integrated Digital Marketing

Stephan van den Bremer, Managing Director, Europe | IgnitionOne

New Data = New Opportunity, New Responsibility

1 ANA Survey 1/2012


have been able to piece together data for

disparate media optimization systems, but

that data is crunched in a third party solution

(often something as unsophisticated as Excel),

and then the decisions made off of that data

are usually delayed as humans determine the

proper action. This is a far cry from making big

data “actionable in real-time”, and it is not really

possible to act in real-time with such disparate

media optimization.

Put simply: If your marketing team is managing

online media and site optimization via a series

of point solutions while attempting to stitch

together big data sets, you are already behind

your competition.

We are already seeing the most innovative

marketers racing to consolidate their online

marketing budgets into a unified Digital

Marketing Suite (DMS).

This is the challenge that this playbook will

address. The innovative marketers we have

worked with to create this playbook call this

The DMS Imperative.

Point Solution Innovation: Our Savior and Secret Enemy

Online marketing has come far in the last 17

years. In such a young field, we’ve seen so

many chapters of innovation as the industry

has matured. From the early days when the

Internet was poised to change every facet of

our daily lives and create world peace, to the

days after the “dot com bust” when people

thought digital marketing would never pan out

- we’ve seen many concepts come and go. But

over time, the establishment and acceptance

of core digital marketing channels has sped

innovation that marketers can, and must, keep

pace with to stay competitive. This innovation

has created huge expectations of the benefits

that new technology, new devices, and

new monetization allow people to connect,

communicate and convert.

In order to keep up with big data, marketers have

added new point solutions, tested new tactics,

collected new data and sometimes created new

metrics. In the beginning, the siloed results were

amazing in comparison to offline methods – you

could see, track and improve upon ROI much

faster. For every marketer who’d ever promoted

a product launch on a billboard, placed an ad

in the paper or bought a radio spot – this was


Companies that are attempting to process

and utilize massive data sets do so with the

intention of making good things better for

companies and the customers they serve.

What we’ve seen so far is that data can either

do very good things or very bad things. And

more data is not always a welcomed thing. It’s

an immense new opportunity, but at times an

overwhelming new responsibility.

Sifting the good data from the bad sounds like

an easy enough task. But in 2004, Facebook

was a mere 1 million members strong and now it

has over 1 billion. Every day, 15 Terabytes of data

are created by Facebook members alone. What

do we know about these Terabytes? A Terabyte

could hold about 3.6 million 300 Kilobyte

images or about 300 hours of good quality

video – that’s 150 movies or 1,000 copies of the

Encyclopedia Britannica. Ten Terabytes could

hold the printed collection of the US Library of

Congress. That’s a lot of data. I’d even say BIG2.

So everyday Facebook alone creates more data

than the entire US Library of Congress. You’re

starting to see the state of affairs that today’s

digital marketer faces.

Let’s bring this back to companies and their

customers. Customer data is growing by

50% every year. Two billion people access

the Internet each day with over 4.3 billion

mobile devices across the globe. That’s a lot

of devices, each creating its own share of

data, resulting in 2.5 quintillion bytes of data

developed every day. More significantly, 90%

of all digital data was produced in the last two

years. This trend isn’t expected to reverse. We

are creating increasing amounts of data each

year. With all this in mind, online marketers

have to be creative and technical while finding

ways to transform this data into actionable

information and remain competitively nimble.

We’ve never before faced challenges like this.

But our history as an industry shows that as

online marketers, we can prosper by adapting

with innovation and technology. That’s the

only way to transform data into information

and shift to actionable information.

1 Day = 2,250 movies

2 http://www.whatsabyte.com/

More on BIG Data Challenges


a major evolution. And this evolution also made

tracking consumer behavior and customizing

user experience on websites a reality.

However, with all of these new methods of

digital marketing, things became very complex,

very quickly. We‘ve now come to a point where

marketers find themselves separated from the

customers that they wanted to reach not only

by a sea of data but now a deluge of technology

vendors. Marketers struggle with separate data

streams that don’t communicate, in addition

to disparate and often competing teams that

suffer from a lack of centralized and shared

goals. The results are silos across the marketing

organization that separate people, data and

budgets, making the attainment of goals ever

more challenging.


How Did Digital Marketing Get So Messy?

This culture of analytics and innovation being

built within silos has failed marketers in a major

way. Click-through rates plunged from around

5% when the dot-com market collapsed, to

about .1% by 2011. In consolidating all the buying

power, local advertising markets went under

with the promise of lower costs.

More recently, low barriers to entry have created

a myriad of these start-ups, applications and

point solutions. They are often funded and

supported by venture capital backing that

looks to solve an immediate problem without

the context of larger issues. And although each

tries to solve a problem (search, mobile, content

personalization, etc) at a micro level, in doing so

they create isolated online data sets, in addition

to existing offline sets. And these disparate data

sets ultimately become the major roadblock

barring the online marketer’s ability to interpret

and act on a macro level.

So with every innovation to solve an immediate

problem, a quieter and more detrimental

paralysis spreads through an organization.

Resource allocation and prioritization is central

in determining a company’s success or failure

and it requires actionable information. But

adding additional separate layers of data can

actually result in less action being taken.

Enter Integrated Marketing

While integrated marketing is not a new thing,

to some marketers it seems like a goal that

moves further away as they run toward it. But in

fact, the attainment of this aspiration is closer

than ever.

By integrating online efforts, marketers are

able to merge all of these silos, eliminating

the complexity that has been created through

individual solutions. By merging resources,

tools, data and measurement, you gain the

unique ability to score all data sets in relation

to each other. It’s the discovery of these

relationships that allows integrated marketers

to categorize, prioritize and act across multiple

channels in a unified manner to achieve a goal.

Once we have taken a step back to see the

forest from the trees, we‘re reminded that in

the midst of solving problems, we’ve lost sight

of the core goal: increasing customers and

revenue. Messaging and efforts must be aligned

and prioritized across teams and technologies

to create a common language that can be

leveraged across channels. The good news

is that this alignment can result in a single

methodology and metric that every team can

relate to, interpret and act upon together.


Fighting Past Isolation for Future Results

As obvious as the solution may seem, many

marketers are sitting in a sea of isolated data,

unable to develop insights and take action

in union. The most common roadblocks are

the bi-products of two antiquated elements

– corporate structure and incentives. Just

like data and reporting are siloed, people are

also forced into arbitrary divisions due to

technology, budgets and goals. We find the

person running lead generation sitting next to,

but not speaking to, the guys running the search

program or the Facebook community manager

not communicating with the Facebook ads

manager. They all might as well be working for

different companies.

Each group is focused on its own narrow area

and in many cases, is hitting its goals in isolation

while unknowingly becoming a detriment to the

company at large. Budgets and goals were set

at the beginning of the year for each channel

and the teams work feverishly in seclusion to

earn a bonus for results within their channel.

Many senior marketers are incapable of

reallocating resources after budgets are set

before the start of the fiscal year. So they find

themselves beholden to a quickly obsolete

snapshot of business while operating in a rapidly

shifting environment.

Where is the Art?

As much as organizational incentives and

collective technology decisions can serve as the

foundation for success, unifying the message

is also critical. The core message should be

consistent across all channels, whether website,

mobile or print (leveraging the unique strengths

of each). Achieving data-centric precision but

communicating a fragmented message may be

the most painful type of failure in integrated

marketing efforts. Marketers should always

know their audience and voice. The key tenants

of good marketing shouldn’t be lost in the midst

of wrangling data and technologies.

Technology, Data and Measurement

In order to properly centralize data, to use

that data to measure a unified metric and

then to use that metric to optimize your

marketing efforts- a clear technology inte-

gration plan is needed.


The Origins of Integrated Marketing

During the last century, direct marketing came

out of the realization that someone’s age, income,

education, place of birth, etc., would make them

more or less likely to be affected by certain

messaging. Instead of one message and identity,

suddenly a brand could cater to the desires of

people in unique and meaningful ways.

This was a massive change in how brands

started telling stories and creating desire within

consumers. This simple idea revolutionized

marketing and in many ways was the birth of the

modern day advertising industry.

Online marketing does not go against the

foundation of marketing. The principles of

direct marketing still apply in full. Advanced

segmentation of an audience through online data

allows the long-held vision of direct marketing to

be realized – a one-on-one relationship between

the brand and the consumer.

Understanding that online is not a new

marketing method, but simply the purest form

of direct marketing to date is important. And

while the fundamental rules still apply, there

are two things that have changed – the ability

to experience brand messages dynamically

and the opportunity for consumers to react to,

create and influence them through social. For

the first time, people have the ability co-create

their experience with brands.

Modern Digital Marketing Channels

Today marketers can take advantage of all

channels and tactics that comprise digital

marketing, including: paid search, natural

search, retargeted and traditional display, social,

email, affiliates and site optimization. Each

of these elements is based on the principles

of direct marketing. What differs is how the

brand engages and interacts with that targeted

audience - an important point as one starts to

orchestrate channels to work together in an

“integrated” way.

What makes a channel different is the

experience it offers and where in the purchase

funnel it will be most successful. The purchase

funnel is a useful organizational concept, used

to see where a consumer is on their path to

making a decision. This is especially useful in

digital marketing where it can be easier to track

the progress of a user through the funnel and

interact with him appropriately.


When display ads were introduced they simply

replicated traditional ads until they were

animated and interactive. The same was true

of email marketing — a newsletter was just a

digital version of a hardcopy until the actual

content could be individualized based on data.

Search was the first experience that put

the consumer in control of their own media

consumption. Instead of being the passive

recipient, the individual had direct input to the

type of content and advertising he saw. Then

social changed everything: consumers had the

ability to broadcast their thoughts and feelings

and those messages were able to become

advertisements in their own right.

Bringing it Together

The key to considering successful integrated

marketing is to remember that while all online

channels are based on direct marketing

principles, each interacts differently with

a consumer’s journey. To properly bring

everything together you must understand how

channels interact with the consumer, as well as

each other. This is the only way to allocate your

marketing budget in the most effective way.

• Inspire your organization with an

integrated vision and incentives

• Align your technology and data to

support those priorities

• Unify but individualize your message

across all platforms

• Act and react by allowing the data to

emphasize the experiences needed to

carry the message to result in a conversion

Attract

Engage

Nurture

Convert


How Do You Get There?

In order to achieve integrated digital

marketing, it takes a cross-organization effort

to align resources, goals, technology, data

and measurement. This is not to say that a

marketer will not benefit at all from achieving

partial integration. Marketers should not

lose motivation by the size of the task. Every

step toward integration is a step toward

improvement.

What Will You Get?

By fully integrating digital marketing, it is

possible to achieve a wide range of benefits.

Marketers can work smarter by having

centralized data, clear measurements, and

unified metrics. Transparency of media mix

effects will enable the marketer to allocate

budget most effectively. It will be possible to

work more efficiently by having aligned teams

and unified goals working with a streamlined

and coordinated technology stack. Marketers

can react more quickly and synchronized to

new challenges and be able to truly leverage

the insights gathered to reach and surpass

goals. While there is a lot of work ahead, it is

very much worth each step. Suddenly “big data”

can mean better business, because above all,

integrated marketing will deliver better returns

on your marketing investment.

2Setting Your Organization Up for Success

17

18 Setting Your Organization Up for Success

Setting Your Organization Up for Success

Roger Barnette, President | IgnitionOne

Does this Sound like Your Organization?

Your company spends about the same

amount of money this year as last.

Each channel gets slightly more sales

than the year before. It sounds like it’s

time to celebrate and promote people, right?

Not so fast.

When you think about integrated marketing,

here’s the golden rule for the organization: it’s

not about more channel specific conversions, it’s

about identifying the greatest possible potential

for your spend across all digital channels using

Marginal Return Analysis and then tracking your

trajectory to reach that potential.

Marginal Return Analysis is the process of

identifying the benefits and costs of different

alternatives by examining the incremental

effect on total revenue and total cost caused by

a very small (just one unit) change in the output

or input of each alternative.

This aligns the organization. Marketers should

look forward to optimal holistic potential.

The lesser alternative is looking through the

rearview mirror with the satisfaction that you

aren’t operating quite as inefficiently as last

year. Unfortunately we can spend our budget

only once, so we need to be sure that we spend

it in its most optimal way.

Truly integrated marketing is the end goal for

many marketers. However, there are so many

pieces to link and so many silos to knock down

along the way. While integrating technology and


➊centralizing data to act on is clearly important,

none of that will work without first addressing

the most important (and challenging) piece of

the puzzle: the organization.

There are four key challenges to address for

your teams to succeed:

➊ All channels must be considered holistically

using Marginal Return Analysis for goal

setting.

➋ You must get creative in how you develop

data/performance-focused unity across

your team by eliminating “my channel”

factions and identity distinctions.

➌ Get cozy with IT as your ability to affect

change in digital is dependent upon this

close relationship.

➍ Ensure budget allocation decisions are both

fluid and centralized with allocation based

on performance data.

CHALLENGE #1: ADOPTING MARGINAL RETURN ANALYSIS ACROSS YOUR TEAMS

Marginal Return Analysis supports decision-

making based on marginal or incremental

changes to resources instead of one based on

totals or averages. It is extremely important to

understand this principle and how to apply it.

Without this core piece in place, little else will

result in an uptick in performance. Having a

good framework like this to foster teamwork

toward transparent, logical collective goals

is the most critical element in aligning the

organizational structure.

PROOF POINT

Why is this so important? In a case

study with Center Parcs, performance in

search and display were up by marginal

percentages. But after integrating search

and display they achieved a whopping 54%

increase in revenue. When benchmarking

performance by last year at the channel level

the outcome may have been a gain of 4%

when unknowingly the 50% gain was missed

out on. That is the scary and exciting part for

your organization.


What Often Happens Today in the Absence of Marginal Return Analysis

Today, many siloed department heads are

responsible for creating goals that incentivize

their teams to achieve highly focused

performance. The display team must get an

ROI of 3:1 based on spend and conversion data

related to the display program without any

connection to cross-channel efforts. This means

that no marginal return is being considered

holistically. This is the same in search, social,

email, etc. Unfortunately that measurement

of success does not map to the reality of how

these budgets perform or support the health of

overall business. Many organizations benchmark

against the previous year’s performance at

Marketers seeking to advance their

organization will need to evangelize against

the desire to constantly look behind. Each

person in the organization should consider

what’s possible versus what’s probable.

That simple shift in framing questioning and

rationale will start to change their thinking.

For example, a search team has $100 and sells

10 widgets this year with search ads. At the

beginning of the following year, the manager is

asked how many widgets she could expect to

sell with the same budget. She might respond

that with some refinements and testing that

it’s probable she could sell 12 next year. But

what is the potential of the search team, the

display team and the social team working

together? How do all channels assist each

other to reach a goal? Perhaps if all channels

are optimally aligned, search may directly

produce less than last year as a channel,

but it serves a more valuable role by making

significantly more total conversions possible.

A short-sighted team can tell what will

probably happen based on doing what they’ve

always done, just slightly better. Integrated

marketers need to implore what is possible. It

is possible to move past “what you’ve always

done, plus 1%.” Are you ready to see what’s

possible?

This holistic perspective and the improved net

results are at the heart of the DMS Imperative

challenge and goal.

Start thinking possibility vs probability


➋the channel level. And while every channel

may perform better this year than last in total

number of sales for the same media spend, it is

still possible for overall potential to be harmed

by a significant margin. This seems like a

paradox, but it’s not.

The classic example is if there is land and a

farmer plants a crop, the result would be the

amount of crops planted and the profit you get

from the crop if he sells it. If he buys a tractor

and the amount of farming land remains the

same size, productivity and profit will increase.

But, if he buys another tractor, the profit will not

increase the same as before when he bought

the first tractor. In fact, his profit will decrease.

Looking at tradeoff decisions to maximize the

performance of your digital teams differs little

from the farmer maximizing crops. Everything

is interrelated.

CHALLENGE #2: GETTING CREATIVE WITH ELIMINATING BARRIERS: MARKETING TEAMS ARE LIKE MEXICAN FOOD

What’s the difference between a burrito, an

enchilada and a soft taco? Not much other than

whether the sauce and cheese is inside, outside

or on the side. But people perceive them as

different because they’ve been taught that’s

how things are. The same concept applies for

the marketing organization. Each department

is a part of a greater whole and the sequence

and placement of these parts is what matters,

not the parts themselves. So often people

refer to “the display guys” and “the search

guys.” But nobody prefers to eat sour cream

or cheese alone. Each piece contributes to the

resulting whole.

Make the idea of collective team performance

a fun and inspiring effort. Start by finding ways

to change your language and team metrics.

For example, search conversions and display

conversions should only be referred to when a

single exposure lead to that action. Marketers

can uncover the most critical paths and create

identities around them. For example, if 20% of

Three Keys:

1 Adopt Marginal Return Analysis holistically

2 Stop using last year’s channel-level

benchmarks

3 Strive to look for the greater missed

opportunity of integrated optimization like

Center Parcs


conversions come from a display click followed

by a search click, then maybe one should call

that a disearch. It’s not about the parts, so

marketers should be encouraged to create their

own language that embodies the parts and

makes it fun to break old patterns of thought.

This new vocabulary can drive common thinking

across the team. If that sounds silly to you, then

just take to heart that changing old habits will

require new creative thinking. Simply saying,

“we are one team” won’t cut it.

Today’s model of having a head of discipline

at the channel level will no longer do the

trick in our cross-channel world. While it’s still

beneficial to have discipline specialists and

senior members on that team, any heads of

department should be cross-functional. In order

to make this manageable for an organization,

there can be a number of integrated teams with

a digital head. Instead of having search, display,

social and conversion optimization teams

that focus on campaigns related to multiple

products or promotions, smaller integrated

teams could operate independently. To foster

discipline and excellence, there should still

be educational forums and events to refine

skills and share best practices, but the days of

discipline departments as the primary structure

to which people identify themselves has come

to an end. If you want your team to produce

an integrated mindset and strive toward an

integrated result, then you need to promote the

right team relationships and identity.

If you’re a small company, then by necessity this

may come easy to you in that one person has

to manage and optimize multiple disciplines.

If you’re mid-sized, where there may be 3-5

people managing, then again this should also

be easy as long as there is one person adept

at actually optimizing multiple types of media

to lead the team. The person leading the team

should have hands-on experience in multiple

channels if you’re serious about getting good

results. If you’re a larger corporation or looking

to outsource your digital marketing to an

agency, then the above applies. As the client,

disearch /dis ‘s rCH/DEFINITION

noun the conversions that come from a display click followed by a search click.

e


➌you have the right to know how an agency is

structured and led. Structure reflects strategy.

If your integrated agency is still working in silos,

then it is time to take a deeper look at how

things are being managed day to day.

CHALLENGE #3: WHAT ABOUT I.T.?

With all of this data and technology in the

mix, we haven’t mentioned much about new

necessities and dependencies. Surveys suggest

that the single biggest barrier to a company

embracing Big Data is creating the business

case behind it. This is often tied to the fact that

with all this new data there are increased costs

not just in hardware, but the staffing to make

and keep it working. So with all this innovation

and technology most marketing teams are still

yet to include technologists.

Are Your CMO and CIO Best Friends?

We can see evidence of this in a study titled,

“Why Leading Marketers Outperform3.” It shows

that in companies where CMOs and CIOs worked

closely to build a “system of engagement” — an

integrated and innovative set of technologies

and processes that are born out of marketing

and IT collaboration, performance increases

were significant. As a group, enterprises with

forward-thinking marketing organizations that

engage customers effectively and invest their

marketing spend better have a three-year 3 http://asmarterplanet.com blog/2012/10/20181.html

Three Keys:

1 Get creative in the ways you use language

and internal metrics to reflect your

dedication to being an “integrated team.”

2 Evolve your team structure internally to

reflect your direction in implementing

integrated marketing strategies.

3 Ensure that any agency you’re working

with to execute integrated marketing and

has the right internal structure to make

it a reality.


revenue growth that is more than 40 percent

higher than other companies. And their gross

profit is growing at a rate double that of their

peers. Some highlights include that these

companies are:

33 percent more likely to serve personalized

or targeted offers in at least four channels in

real-time.

36 percent use location-specific mobile

messaging campaigns and ads compared

to the 20 percent without a system of

engagement.

48 percent of the top performers are using or

plan to use, social/local group buying in the

next 12 months. As for the group without a

system of engagement, that number drops

significantly to 31 percent.

According to the study, currently 88 percent

of leading companies engage in attribution

in some way and of that group, 93 percent

have a set process for determining marketing

activity results. Clearly integrated marketers

are getting more and they’re doing it not just

by selecting technologies but by building their

own internal systems.

So How is This Done?

With results like this coming from the partnership

between marketing and IT, it begs the question

as to what it would look like or how it would

work best. As much as some companies have

built highly specialized systems, others just

need a tag placed on the website for tracking

capabilities or a new widget to work within the

homepage of the website.

In order to accomplish day-to-day functions

necessary for integrated marketing, some

basic functions of IT must be accessible and

streamlined. More fluid changes needed for

websites, social media and tagging for analytics

ideally will fall under the management of the

marketing function. Many organizations fail to

understand the size of missed opportunities

and the death of ambition when they face a

six-month queue for any change to tagging. In

order to have a positive relationship between

the CMO and CIO, these more base tasks of

accessibility must be made self-sufficient for

the marketing function. Without the ability to

make basic changes nimbly to fundamental

pieces of the marketing infrastructure, progress

will halt.


➍CHALLENGE #4: CENTRALIZED, DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING + FLUID BUDGETS = SUCCESS

Now that we’ve covered team structure and

the relationship with IT, we should speak a bit

about decision-making and budgets. In using

a data-driven approach along with Marginal

Return Analysis, it’s critical that the planning

and allocation of resources is reactive. This

means that you can’t plan static budgets for

each channel and expect them to work as part

of an integrated marketing framework.

Who’s Your Integrated Decision Maker?

In the evolved team structure, heads of

integrated digital will do the budget allocation.

By leveraging attribution, you will gain the full

ability to correctly allocate this budget weekly,

monthly or quarterly. As there are no heads

of departments, the political fighting over

bigger budgets equaling more staff and more

supposed prestige in a company become moot.

When the budgets are fluid and reallocated

regularly and the person authorized to approve

Three Keys:

1 With more data and technology, the

relationship between marketing and IT

has never been more critical.

2 Companies that have these departments

working in collaboration consistently

outperform the competition.

3 Basic necessities for integrated marketers

like tagging, updating the website and

social media must be able to be executed

autonomously from IT.


the allocation is impartial to channel politics

and making the decision based solely on data,

the organization is free to act efficiently and

in the company’s best interest. We’ll discuss

attribution analysis and budget allocation more

in later chapters. But if you can’t re-allocate

more or less budget throughout the year based

on what the data is telling you, then that is a

major roadblock and making any other efforts

toward success become significantly limited.

Where to Start?

When discussing these broader topics,

marketers often state that they feel

overwhelmed and don’t know where to start.

To overcome this, marketers need to focus and

align budget with testable media. Marketers

should start where they can achieve the biggest

impact and work downward. None of this has

to happen in unison to make a major impact on

efficiency in the near term.

Summary

The alignment of the marketing organiza-

tion needs to change as much as the digital

marketing environment. Before making con-

siderable investments in technology platforms

and partners, the fundamentals of the organi-

zation need to get ironed out. The easiest and

most significant step to take in getting there

is to move to goal setting and budgets based

on marginal return goals. With that initial piece

in place, other aspects will start to more easily

follow. The relationship between the CMO and

CIO will continue to evolve over time as market-

ing and technology become further intertwined

when discussing a company’s strategy.

Three Keys:

1 Allocation of resources needs to be

reactive to data.

2 The person heading an integrated team

should be able to make that decision.

3 The inability to reallocate budgets

throughout the year is a major roadblock

to integrated success.

3Tools and Technologies for Integrated Marketing

27

28 Tools and Technologies for Integrated Marketing

Tools and Technologies for Integrated Marketing

Dave Ragals, SVP Client Services | IgnitionOne

For marketers working towards true

integrated digital marketing, the

biggest obstacle in reaching this goal

is often their technology and tools.

The current arena of marketing management

technologies is oversaturated with single point

solutions with multiple platforms existing for

every aspect of digital marketing. Navigating this

complex landscape is a daunting task and presents

numerous challenges to managing integrated

marketing. What is most frustrating for many

marketers is that the technology they sought out

to make their lives easier actually is the piece of the

puzzle that will hold them back from integrating

their marketing in an effective way.

To get to the next level of integration, marketers

can approach this challenge in two ways –

integrating multiple single-point solutions together

or leveraging a multi-point solution.

The Jigsaw Puzzle

Choosing to go the path of integrating multiple

solutions is a direction that many take, but it

often proves an uphill battle. One initial challenge

is finding solutions that can truly integrate, as a

majority of these systems have been developed

by independent companies. Finding a package of

platforms that all work together in a truly integrated

fashion — and will continue to scale that way– can

prove next to impossible. Most systems have some

form of API integration, which essentially means

they can import or export data: but how they

actually interact with another platform’s data can

be very limited. So just because two systems can

talk to each other doesn’t mean they can have a

productive conversation.

Major insights may be overlooked as integration of

the data is likely to be only surface-deep.


Trying to integrate separate solutions can be

inefficient from a business standpoint as well,

as it means identifying the right solution for

each part of a digital marketing program and

then managing numerous disparate vendor

relationships. Each piece of the puzzle runs its

own risks and challenges and managing them

together can be counter-productive.

Perhaps the biggest risk is that the market

cannot continue to support all of these individual

point solutions long-term. Many of these

nascent providers are backed by VC money and

continue to operate at a loss. Consolidation has

already begun and in a few short years, many of

the names out there will dry up, forcing users of

these products to scramble for replacements.

Simplifying the Chaos

Integrating your digital marketing tools can be

difficult, but the benefits are sizeable. Done

correctly, not only does it allow for a more

efficient use of time and resources, but also

offers the potential for deeper insights and

greater returns on marketing investment.

Our recommended approach is to seek out a

unified, central technology solution that can

bring together all of the digital marketing

needs under a single platform. The goal of

integrated marketing is to consolidate the

many silos that marketing organizations work

in, and this is even more important for the

tools they use. In order to best take advantage

of the benefits of integrated marketing, the

marketer is advised to reject piecing together

individual systems and instead leverage a

multi-point or centralized solution such as

a digital marketing suite (DMS). This type of

centralized solution will allow the marketer to

manage multiple channels, run cross-channel

attribution, view all marketing analytics in a

single place and can include other features

such as on-site optimization and even

proprietary RTB systems. The challenge here

is finding an all-in-one system that has best-

of-breed solutions in each area, or at least

in the areas that are most important to the

marketer. These systems, too, often have API

integrations that allow the platform to tie into

other single- or multi-point solutions to help

round out capabilities or to better meet the

marketers’ needs. As capabilities within these

systems grow and functions centralize, the

need for API integrations will decrease over

time but due to constantly changing needs will

never fully go away.


Marketers have begun to demand these

centralized solutions, and as the market

continues to mature, it will continue moving

away from single-point solutions and toward

truly integrated platforms. Many of the

individual solutions will be acquired by bigger

companies who, in turn, will look to invest

heavily in merging these disparate systems.

This has already begun to happen with mixed

results (Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick and

Adobe’s acquisitions of Efficient Frontier and

Omniture are two examples), and this trend will

likely continue. Others will build single systems

designed and developed organically around the

idea of a DMS.

MediaOptimization

PaidSearch

SmartRetargeting

DisplayOrganicSearch

Mobile Facebook

MEDIA OPTIMIZATION IS JUST ONE PIECE OF THE PUZZLE.


The Payoff

The benefits of integrating technologies are

immense. It is truly a situation where the whole

is greater than the sum of its parts. Some

benefits that can potentially be gained by a

central technology include:

Single Data Source. From a marketer’s

standpoint, it creates a single source of

data which leads to consistency throughout

efforts. The ability to see paid search, display

and social marketing data, for example,

in a single dashboard and with detailed

reporting creates huge workflow efficiencies,

as marketers only need to log into and

understand in detail how to use a single

platform. Whether each channel is managed

by a different user, a separate agency or by

the same team, this continuity in data and

workflow ensures smoother and more reliable

work. It also means not having to switch

between browser tabs or applications to see

data for different channels.

Fewer Errors. Not only is a single platform

less confusing and more efficient, but it also

cuts down on the opportunity for errors

introduced by forgetting which system

someone is working in or how to accomplish

the same task between different systems.

Even little things, like whether you have to

hit “submit” after making a change, can differ

between platforms and can result in changes

a marketer thought they had made never

going through.

True Attribution. A single platform also means

that the data that lives within a given channel

is already de-duped and attributed without

going through a maze of technology, such as

going through an API to a separate system

for attribution against another channel’s data,

which is coming in from yet a third platform,

to be processed and then sent back to the

original system. Unattributed data can be

very valuable for deep dive analysis, but it’s

of little to no use when trying to optimize

accounts in real time. Having this data

together opens the door to innovative ways

to understand users, their actions and the

effect of media on them – such as optimizing

based on engagement levels. A single system

also cuts down on potential points of failure

or lag between disparate solutions as well as

potential for delays or errors in one system

creating problems downstream that then

have to be fixed by multiple partners.

Removal of Silos. Properly-aligned technology

results in a single – and consistent – source for

training, technical support and best practices.


As digital marketing becomes more complex

and integrated, the lines between channels

and solutions blur. If a marketer has a

question concerning the impact to attribution

of paid search on a remarketing campaign, is

that an attribution question, an SEM question

or a display question? With an integrated

technology, all that matters is that it’s a digital

marketing question and the expertise for all

aspects resides with the same partner. It

also cuts down on the wild goose chase that

results from each vendor pointing to another

for answers or fixes.

Provide Deeper Insights and Greater Returns.

By having data coming from a single source,

attributing success across efforts and more

profoundly integrating marketing across the

board, a marketer opens the door to deeper

insights. With these insights, budgets can be

more intelligently, and even automatically,

managed and returns on investments can

reach new heights.

Steering of Marketing Automation. By having

a holistic view of data we can steer better

content and interactions on the website.

This, in turn, will improve user experience

and conversions. Using all this data also gives

us the possibility to create high performing

algorithms for marketing automation and

go beyond merely relying on human-built

business rules. The result is a higher efficiency

through bringing the right message to the

right people at the right time.

What to Look for

Navigating this landscape and selecting

the best solution can be very complex; it is

critical for marketers to understand their goals

before initiating the process. Some important

considerations include:

Which channels and tactics need to be

managed through technology? Feature

sets can vary greatly, so it’s vital to consider

which tools are necessary for managing each

channel. Large, complex SEM accounts may

need bulk editing capabilities, while creative

repositories can be invaluable for Facebook

Marketplace Advertising. Make sure to match

your channels’ needs with the solution you

choose while keeping an eye on flexibility to

handle future requirements that may come up.

Which other efforts, potentially managed

by other partners, need to be reported on

and attributed in the same platform? While

specific channels may be managed directly

in the system, other channels – whether


“unmanaged,” like organic search or managed

by other partners – can still be tracked within

the same platform. This allows the marketer to

see reporting in one place and obtain a more

thorough understanding of how channels

work together. With this knowledge you can

focus on solutions that allow for integration

with these externally managed channels.

How important is cross-channel attribution?

Many marketers are still tied to standard

models like last-click or, even worse, they allow

each channel to be optimized in a vacuum,

without taking into account the interactions

among channels. Integrated solutions

can provide the ability to allocate partial

credit across a range of exposures, allowing

marketers to understand how certain channels

or campaigns feed the funnel. As almost all

marketers are juggling multiple channels and

customer touchpoints, attribution needs to be

top of mind when integrating technology.

What are the plans for growth? Managing

integrated marketing together helps grow

the whole pie with continuous cross-channel

feedback, leading to growth in marketing

programs. By having an idea of long-term

needs, marketers can prepare for success

and choose a flexible, scalable technology

solution.

What are the requirements for accessing huge

sets of data that typically can’t be transmitted

and/or presented efficiently in a Web-

based interface? Even the most advanced

Web-based UI can run into bandwidth or

rendering limitations when trying to deliver

or manipulate extremely large sets of data.

If huge files are necessary, how can they be

delivered and can they be pumped directly

into an internal data warehouse? Understand

your data and bandwidth needs and find a

solution that won’t limit you.

Is the primary goal branding, direct response

or both? Being able to optimize to and report

on performance requires setting specific

goals and identifying the right metrics. These

can differ greatly between direct response

goals, such as CPA and ROAS, and branding

goals, such as acquiring new users, propensity

to convert and session time. It is important to

find a solution that can meet your specific

goals.

Who needs access to the day-to-day

management tools? Who needs access to

reporting? Does management or the client

need to be able to log in to see how campaigns

are being managed or just view reports? Do

reports need to be available on-demand, or

can they be scheduled to run and be emailed


on a recurring basis? All stakeholders need to

be satisfied and armed with the tools to help

them succeed.

What is the level of service needed? Even

the most sophisticated marketer can benefit

from experts who have deep insights into

the challenges they face. It is key to find a

technology backed by top-level service. Talk

to current clients. Ask questions about client

retention and relevant case studies.

How far do we need to link online channels

with click behavior on the site? Linking things

like keywords and display to conversion

actions on the website is mandatory and used

in most tools nowadays. It’s good but gives us

only a one dimensional view of our campaigns.

Campaigns are ranked based on their ability

to convert people, nothing more nothing less.

Advanced metrics like brand awareness and

engagement are not measured if we take

only conversion points into account. With the

analysis of all click stream data we can not

only measure conversion but also potential

future conversion and engagement.

A lot of these questions can only be answered

by involving stakeholders. By seeking their

involvement up-front, marketers can put

themselves in a better position to choose a

platform that best suits the company’s overall

needs and properly manage cross-departmental

expectations.

Pitfalls to Avoid

When attempting to develop the best

integrated technology solution for a marketing

organization, there are many potential pitfalls

for marketers to avoid. If the following are

side-stepped, a marketer will be more likely to

succeed.

Not looking long-term: A common pitfall

in this process is failing to look long-term.

Marketers who consider how they may roll out

a platform across all channels – as opposed

to just looking at, say, paid search for now

and waiting on the others – will find much

greater success down the road. Benefits of

moving to an integrated platform can be felt

almost immediately via easier workflow and

more efficient reporting. But considerable

value comes in the mid- to long-term with

better insights of how channels work together

through attribution, lower training costs for

new employees, business efficiencies through

fewer vendor relationships to manage, etc.


“Switching” costs between platforms can

be extremely high. Implementation, training

and simply becoming comfortable with a

new partner to help manage complex digital

marketing campaigns is a big investment

and not one that marketers want to have to

repeat frequently. Switching can also mean a

disruption in the constant inflow of data from

one system to the next. Companies that move

from platform to platform every couple of

years can find themselves constantly behind

the curve as they start from scratch and need

to get back up to speed on data collection,

implementation and training each time. This

is exponentially true for those changing

solutions for multiple channels.

Failing to think through the impact on data:

Centralizing reporting across channels results

in a common data set used by the entire

digital marketing team. It allows marketers

to de-duplicate orders and use attribution

models to better understand how channels are

working together. It also creates a single set

of digital marketing data that is shared across

teams. This provides operational efficiencies

and cuts down on wasted media spend as

individual channel owners can work together

instead of competing for the same purchase.

By allowing separate data sets in individual

point solutions, the marketer enters worlds

of parallel data which causes confusion and

mistrust between departments. Combining

them into a single source prevents efforts

from working at cross-purposes and allows

the marketer to see how each piece supports

the other to grow the whole pie.

Summary

The technology decision is at the center of

an integrated marketing strategy. The right

solution will best match the marketer’s needs

and create both operational and technical

efficiencies and consistency. It will lead to

higher ROI through better performance and

lower management costs. By merging channels

together, the marketer gains the tools needed to

more effectively manage campaigns cohesively,

cutting down on waste and ensuring that all

teams are working together. It also makes it

easier for marketers to tout the results. From

a cost-saving standpoint, picking the right

integrated solution can make this investment a

one-time cost that pays off over the long run.

4Centralized Data for Actionable Insights

37

38 Centralized Data for Actionable Insights

Centralized Data for Actionable Insights

Dave Ragals, SVP Client Services | IgnitionOne

Big Data is a term we hear a lot about,

but it is easy to forget that bigger

is not always better. Marketers have

become buried under a mountain

of data that comes from a variety of sources

– separate marketing systems, analytics,

reports, vendors, internal teams, etc. We asked

for all this data, we wanted to be smarter,

to understand more. But the data that was

supposed to make us smarter in the end has

only paralyzed us. Having all of this data and

no way to act on it in an instantaneous and

automated way puts us in a situation where we

are data rich but insights poor.

So what do we do now? In order to reach the

goal of truly integrated marketing you need to

wrestle this Big Data and centralize everything.

A single repository for all your information

allows you to actually obtain a clear picture

of your users, how they interact with your

marketing efforts, conclude what is successful

and then automate your optimizations. Let’s

take a closer look at the situation…

The Data Mess

The concept of centralized reporting is nothing

new. Analytics platforms have been around

for years, and many companies also manage a

separate internal data warehouse. These “back-

end” data solutions ensure there’s an archive

of website activity that can, through heavy

analysis, help businesses better understand

their website visitors.

But as digital marketing has evolved, the

granularity of data – and the ability to use it

in near real-time to make effective marketing


decisions – shifts the need for centralized data

up front for marketers to use before and during

campaigns, not just after.

Single-point solutions have helped part of this

problem by providing marketers with in-depth

and instant (or close to it) access to data for their

individual channels. Paid search practitioners,

for example, can use a platform to access all

of their SEM data and pull various levers in

real time based on this rich data. Marketers

can better understand how different search

engines – or display networks or affiliates, for

that matter – work together.

The downside, of course, is this puts deep

channel-specific data in silos. By shifting the

depth and breadth of data back up to the front,

the marketer winds up back where he or she

started – with more actionable data, perhaps,

but still in multiple sources. And there’s no

means to look across channels to understand

how they’re working together or how much

someone is overpaying for a given action.

On-Site• Click Path

Visitor_ID: 18uqzyyfkrmxc

FIRST PARTY (CRM)• Customer ID

• Subscription Info: Renewal date, package, lifetime value

• Demographics

• Anonymized PII: Credit score, etc

EXPOSURES• Display Requests – lost &

won: time, creative, bid, URL,geo…

• Search Click – time, kwd, CPC…

• Site Optimization Interactions

• Other: email, affiliate

Third PARTY• Blue Kai

• Exelate

• Others

TRANSACTION• SKU, Data, package

• Attributed Exposures

• Order ID

• Conversion Events

PROFILE• Interests

• Propensity to buy

• Device ID

• Geo

CENTRALIZING DATA ALLOWS YOU TO FOCUS ON THE USER LEVEL.


Enter the data warehouse. Channel-specific

data can be exported out of all the various point

solutions and stored in a centralized location.

From here, an analytics team can run cross-

channel analysis. But that still can’t happen

until after the fact. And the marketer is back to

where he started.

Break the Silos

The way to break this vicious cycle is to have

data for all channels in a centralized platform,

updated as frequently as a point solution, while

running attribution at the same time. This

creates the best of both worlds – real-time

data, de-duplicated and attributed across all

channels, usable by the marketer and accessible

by all from a centralized system. This way, all

media decisions, optimization and reporting are

performed in the same place using the same

data set.

Attribution to the Rescue

Much has been said about attribution over

the past few years. Most marketers agree that

simple first- or last-click models are no longer

viable and managing and reporting on each

channel in its own silo is completely inefficient.

Whereas with individual point solutions, the

same sale could be claimed by all the marketing

channels in the funnel. In a centralized system,

these can be de-duplicated at a minimum or

attributed through multi-exposure models that

give partial credit across all channels.

This has given rise to an influx of attribution

systems and services. Many follow the same

point-solution approach – a standalone system

that can import marketing data across channels

and run attribution analysis to be returned to

the marketer.

This, of course, is fraught with some of the same

problems as any point solution approach, and

it introduces some new ones. While data is

attributed and housed in a central location and

can be sent back to the other point solutions for

campaign management, it’s far from immediate.

Channel-specific data has to be passed from all

point systems to the attribution system, where

it’s processed and fed back to each platform.


That has inherent delays and creates multiple

potential points for failure. And these can easily

cascade – a communication failure between the

search point solution and the attribution system

has an immediate impact on all the other point

solutions and the teams that manage those

channels. As with anything, a chain is only as

strong as its weakest link.

Not only does this put data at risk, it creates

logistical and resource issues as well.

Coordinating and managing each individual

integration and keeping tabs on these multiple

flows of data can be a full-time job in and of itself.

It also means multiple business relationships

and the risk that if one solution changes its

requirements or technology, it could impact the

rest of this forced alliance.

Centralized Reporting is the Answer

The only sure way to avoid all of these headaches

is through truly centralized reporting.

Once the decision is made to centralize

reporting, the next questions are what and how

to measure. A user’s path to a sale or sign-up

can touch on numerous marketing efforts. So

making sure all of those channels are tracked is

critical. Some obvious and common channels

include paid search, organic search, display and

social media. But there are others to consider

as well.

Marketers with active affiliate programs no

doubt see high numbers reported by their

partners. This makes sense, as affiliates rely

heavily on users who have already made

their decision and are about to take action.

But most of those users were driven through

awareness and interest nurtured by other

channels. So tying all of those efforts – up to

and including that “coupon” or “promo code”

search that got them to the affiliate site – is a

key piece of the puzzle.

paid search display organic search conversion


The same can be true for email, as the user has

likely already engaged with the brand’s site

when they provided their email address. Did that

email blast close the sale, or did it re-engage the

user to the point of interest? Once again, seeing

where email fits in the funnel is important.

And once the user visits the site, what part does

user experience and content personalization

play? Communicating with your audience does

not end with advertisements.

There could, of course, be other channels too,

so having a firm understanding of the different

touch points before starting down this path is

essential.

Another important consideration is that

attribution is a means to an end. Crediting

different exposures across multiple channels

provides the marketer with a better

understanding of how they’re engaging with

their users and getting them to convert. But it’s

what they do with that knowledge that really

matters. Unless marketers embrace this and

use attribution to help adjust their media mix to

increase the overall pie, it will be simply another

bright, shiny object. To keep the luster from

fading, it’s important to know what to measure.

It goes beyond removing duplicates and proving

that each channel doesn’t get full credit for a

single action. This alone can create immediate

efficiencies, as the marketer is no longer paying

double or triple the target CPA for a single

action that came after a paid search click, a

remarketing view and an email blast.

Cross-Channel Optimization

When all is said and done, compiling all of your

data together allows an understanding of what

efforts work together to move you towards

your goals and where to best spend your

money. You begin to see that it is not about a

single campaign, a single keyword or a single

message. Your marketing is a holistic beast and

one that you can now tame.

43

5Bridging the Gap: Advertising, Conversion Optimization and Marketing Automation

44 Bridging the Gap: Advertising, Conversion Optimization and Marketing Automation

Bridging the Gap: Advertising, Conversion Optimization and Marketing Automation

Filip Lauweres, VP Client Services, Europe | IgnitionOne

One of the tasks of digital marketers

– and marketing professionals in

general – is bridging gaps. We

advertise on the Internet to bring

people to our site, and once they land there,

we try to convince them to interact with us

by filling in forms or by reading the content

we have prepared for them to eventually buy

something or to better position ourselves in the

consumer’s mind.

Going from the Internet to your website and

from there to conversion is about bridging gaps.

Every step of the way, people are dropping

out of the funnel and “great marketing” will

convince them to stay.

As a digital marketer, we have tools and data

– “big data” – to optimize our advertising and

website strategy. Moreover, digital marketing

and advertising is providing us with ways to link

campaigns, analyze them and attribute the right

value. Connecting the dots or tearing down the

silos –when done in a proper way – will result in

higher conversion rates.

Of course, there are already prospects ending

their online journey by filling in forms and

starting chats with sales people, for example.

But this is only a very small percentage of all

visitors. We can do more and we can do better.

The next step in bridging gaps is ensuring that

websites deliver concrete performance. Digital

marketing strategies must convey relevant

content and facilitate dialogue with customers

pro-actively without increasing spend.

These trends – personalization and interaction

- will be key.


Active personalization through behavioral

targeting is the first key element. Because of the

near-infinite variety of content available online,

customer engagement becomes increasingly

important. Providing “sticky” content is not

enough anymore; matching this sticky content

to the individual website visitor is becoming a

necessity.

The right content, delivered at the right

moment and to the right audience will be one of

the leitmotifs of the e-future. If you look at the

success of television on demand, web content

management systems and interest-specific

blogs, you will see the huge potential. But …

all of these technologies are based on declared

personal preferences. You have to actively

select your interest in jobs, news, movies and the

website will respond by adjusting its content.

This approach is changing as we speak. More

and more websites are adopting their content

not only in line with the declared interest of web

visitors but also based on their un-declared or

“behavioral” input.

This is done by analyzing the history of the

online behaviors of an individual or a group

of people and by observing their behavior in

real-time. Using this data, websites today can

pre-determine the true, undeclared interests

of the website visitors. This analysis is called

behavioral targeting and is far more powerful

than the current methodologies. If used in

a proper way – in line with privacy laws – this

approach is highly beneficially for the online

audience. Behavioral targeting can be used to

show the right audience a specific white paper,

product information or video. But behavioral

targeting does not end there. It’s also used

to assist with analyzing the vast amount of

data generated with social, search and display

advertising campaigns.

This analysis is called engagement optimization.

Engagement optimization is based on a

combination of conversion and engagement

metrics of a visitor (behavioral analysis) and

was created to empower marketers to move

beyond last-click attribution. This encourages

key decision makers to gain true insights on

how to attribute the correct credit across

search, display, Facebook, email and affiliate

visits before making decisions.

The result of active personalization – when

used in advertising or site optimization – is

generating a much better user experience and

more repeat visits to companies’ websites. In

other words, the results are higher customer

engagement and more conversions.

46 Bridging the Gap: Advertising, Conversion Optimization and Marketing Automation

Cross-Channel Interaction is the second key-

input. Though people do increasingly more

things online, it is the blend of the digital

marketing with the offline marketing – ‘the

clicks and the mortar’ – that really helps

companies get the most out of their websites.

Keeping this in mind and combining it with

technologies such as behavioral targeting will

be the core of successful business websites in

the future. New and smart technologies – such

as behavioral targeting - can be used to blend

online interactions with real-world, human

interactions.

By connecting digital to the right “real life”

interaction channel – a paper brochure, an

instant messaging chat, a phone call – websites

will become what they should be: a business

tool that brings return on investment.

An Example: How a website should work

by Stewart Holt, Sales Director UK

Picture this: It is Saturday afternoon and you

are out shopping. You enter a suit shop. You

were here last week but didn’t really have

the time to browse properly. You tentatively

walk in and start looking around at all types

of suits; grey, brown, black, navy. You decide

that you feel that navy is the route you

want to take, so you start looking at the cut,

price, and size of navy suits. You are not

convinced that you really need or can afford

a new suit, but you are becoming increasingly

interested. Should you try on a suit or walk

away and spend your money elsewhere?

During this time, a sales assistant has been

monitoring your behavior – and he is good.

He recognizes you from your visit last week

and notices that you have been in the store

for some time. He understands that you like

the brand; you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.

He sees that navy suits are clearly your main

interest. He notices that you have some

reservations though. Something is holding

you back from taking the next step. He

approaches you….”would you like to try on

this suit sir….”


15 minutes later you have tried on three suits

and purchased one.

Now, if the sales assistant had approached

you as soon as you entered the shop, it would

have been irritating. You didn’t even know what

you wanted at that point. You hadn’t been

convinced by the brand; you needed time

to browse. Had he waited much longer to

approach, you would have walked out and not

made the purchase. He noticed that you had a

real interest in navy suits but also picked up on

the fact that you had some reservations. He

stepped in to overcome these uncertainties

and made the sale. As a result of his relevant

and timely approach, you are delighted with

both your purchase and the experience you

had within the shop.

A conversion optimization solution is similar

to an online sales assistant. By monitoring

a website visitor’s behavior in real-time,

an individual interest profile is built. When

the technology recognizes that the site visitor

has reached the purchase tipping point, an

interaction is triggered on screen to assist the

consumer in converting. The value of this

online sales assistant? Clients using the

solution regularly see an increase of over 30%

in website conversions. A sales assistant who

ignores the consumer’s buying signals in store

would ultimately be a failure, yet the majority

of marketers are happy for their websites to

operate in this passive way.

If you had a retail store, how would you want

your sales assistants to work? Your website

should be no different.

49

6Optimization: Get More, Do More, Learn More

50 Optimization: Get More, Do More, Learn More

Optimization: Get More, Do More, Learn More

Eric Carlyle, Chief Knowledge Architect | IgnitionOne

The goals for a marketing organization

should always be set in three phases:

get more, do more and learn more.

The first step to reach success is to

get more out of the current situation before

spending more money. To do this there must be

a reduction in waste.

Waste in this case is spending more money on

prospects than is needed to persuade them to

buy. There are a few ways to do this. The first is

to simply reduce the number of exposures and

amount of media spent to see how the results

are affected. For example, if someone sees four

ads and they buy, but would have bought after

seeing just two, then you wasted two ads. It is

important to understand how much overlap

there is and whether it can be reduced with

the same end result. The second way to reduce

waste is to spend less on ads. In addition to

publishing two ads instead of four, is it possible

to buy a retargeted display ad cheaper than a

homepage takeover? The third is aligning the

message in the channel with the message on

the website to drive conversion increase and

streamline the conversion funnel.

In setting goals, marketers should deem waste

reduction their mantra. It’s like an eco-friendly

digital marketing team. The team should be

given a timeframe and a method to run tests

and make the first priority a reduction in wasted

spend in order to increase efficiency.

The secondary goal of growth should be the

focus only after the overlap is eliminated and

the improved ratio can be maintained as the

investment grows. The last and most critical

goal is based on responsiveness to move

budgets in response to change. Fluidity is


vital for integrated marketing success. This

means that marketers have to eliminate pride

and turf wars around budget size. Bigger is

not always better by any means in this case.

Team members should be awarded for finding

opportunities to give their budget to others.

It’s a reversal in traditional thought of greater

success equals more budget. For integrated

marketing success, the more budget that can

be reallocated to a central pot to be used as

best suited in other channels shows a reduction

in waste and inefficiency. Through incentives,

marketing leaders can get their teams excited

to change their mentality. And in many cases

it may be necessary to eliminate channel

owners all together to drive this change. Here

are three best practices in aligning a marketing

organization:

Reduce waste: Bigger budgets are nothing

to be proud of; reduction and elimination

of wasted media should win the highest

accolade on the team.

Reward the best role for media: There is one

exposure that will end up converting the

visitor. If all the different types of media try

to score their attempts may block each other

from getting the goal. Focus on the most

likely converting combinations of media and

strive to increase its occurrence.

Recycle ideas of messaging: The customer’s

position in the conversion funnel will

determine how strong the call to action is,

but the creative, tone and voice need to be

consistent to build the brand. Integrated

markets include both data and art. Reward

consistency in advertising that is appropriate

for the position in the purchase funnel.

Reduce Waste

Reward the Best Role

Consistent Messaging


How We Got Here: Offline, Online, Brand and Direct Response

In addition to structure and incentives for

integrated digital marketing, other distinctions

in the marketing group pose unique questions.

The first one is brand vs. direct response

marketing.

The traditional idea is that two teams can work

together with different goals. Brand marketers

are more concerned with getting the message

in front of the most people (awareness goals)

and making a certain type of impression

(sentiment). In some cases, they are held

accountable to actions measurable, similar to

direct response (such as video plays). But it’s

rare that they are responsible for the end sale.

The core of reducing waste still applies here.

It’s merely a question of how you identify the

waste. A marketer can run less and alternate

sequences of media to see if the total number

of “conversions” is consistently affected or not.

When it comes to brand marketing, the concept

of waste is more difficult to quantify, and it

must be done in the context of your overall

conversion goals.

Some people think that brand marketers are

held less accountable than direct response

marketers. This shouldn’t be the case. All

efforts, whether direct or indirect, should result

in the financial success of the company. Unless

there is a special project mandated from the

CEO to be 100% altruistic in nature, such as an

anonymous donation, then everything in sales

and marketing works toward revenue. With

this in mind, the question of waste can only

be determined for brand marketing when you

can measure and gauge the impact it’s having.

After every TV commercial (often categorized

as brand marketing), there is a surge in online

activity. IgnitionOne has run tests on the

value of a display view by exposing people to

two different ads, one related and the other

unrelated to their brand and seeing how

this affects purchase behavior. The results

indicated clear links: offline and brand can be

measured and this is the only way to reduce

waste across everything.


Optimization: Where to Begin

Once a marketer has established their goals,

determined their targeting, created their

marketing assets, and implemented their

measurement and attribution profile, the

process of optimization can begin. Let’s start

with a simple definition:

Optimization is the tactical process of matching

the returns of a marketer’s assets to the cost of

those assets so as to achieve the stated goals.

This definition is important because it highlights

two vital roles that optimization plays within

the overall campaign:

➊ Optimization brings goals to reality. Obvious

to all practitioners is the fact that at the end

of the day, no matter how fantastic your

strategy, creative and targeting efforts have

been, if you have not paid the correct amount

for your exposures you will not reach your

goals.

➋ Optimization is tactical. Despite the tens

of millions of dollars invested by ad tech

companies in developing their sophisticated

systems and the thousands of media analysts

and managers dedicated to optimization, it

is fundamentally a routine process. Match

your returns to your costs, rinse and repeat.

At its core, optimization is the “blocking and

tackling” of your marketing campaign and is the

raw manipulation of the levers provided by your

media sources.

The line separating good and poor optimization

processes is most often delineated by two

factors: 1) how effective the process is to

finding and extracting value from a set of

assets (is the campaign performing the best

it can be?) and 2) how much time and effort

does it take to maintain the process (how

complicated is the system?).


Optimizing in Silos

Unfortunately, within siloed (or non-integrated)

campaigns, the tactical process of optimization

can be deteriorated across both of these

factors. Muddled or conflicting goals, poor

measurement and attribution, channel ‘tunnel’

vision can result in inefficient optimizations

which sub optimally allocate dollars between

and within media channels. Likewise, the

process of optimization can become time

consuming, prone to channel “turf wars” and

frustrating; ultimately robbing marketers of the

bandwidth for more strategic and high-value

initiatives.

Instead, as is often the case, optimizations

within and between marketing channels often

become heuristically determined. “Hey Sally

Search, your search budget this month is $1m

and I want a ROI of 10:1 and traffic of 5 million

clicks.” “Hey Debra Display, your remarketing

budget this month is $400k and I want a CPA

of $4 and 45 million impressions.” The lack of

common goals and measurement means that

these directives are disjointed across channels

and often conflicting.

Tearing Down the Silos

Integrated marketing campaigns, though, are

much less fraught with these deficiencies. Within

an integrated marketing campaign, optimization

can be effectively simplified and easily

coordinated by focusing on Marginal Return

Analysis. Marginal Return Analysis is the process

of identifying the benefits and costs of different

alternatives by examining the incremental effect

on total revenue and total cost caused by a very

small (just one unit) change in the output or input

of each alternative. Marginal Return Analysis

supports decision-making based on marginal or

incremental changes to resources instead of one

based on totals or averages. Marginal Return

Analysis seeks to answer two basic questions:

➊ What was the marginal return of the last unit

of cost spent?

➋ Where should one invest the next unit of

marginal spend that will lead to the highest

marginal return?

Asking these two simple questions, optimization

can be performed against any media channel

and even between channels.


An example is helpful here:

Imagine two keywords in a search campaign.

Assuming that the keywords are currently at

rank 2, standard asset equalization (keyword

level rule) would attempt to move keyword 1 to

rank 1 to ensure that both keywords have the

same return; thereby resulting in $50 in spend

and 25 actions with a CPA of $2. Marginal

analysis would indicate that one should instead

move keyword 2 to rank 1 as the marginal cost

of each actions is smaller; thereby resulting in

$60 in spend and 30 actions or the same $2

CPA but with 20% more actions.

Within the context of an integrated marketing

campaign across multiple channels, the range of

decisions now mixes across channels, resulting

in dollars being allocated dynamically across

media channels based on where the next best

dollar to spend is.

Rank 2 Rank 1

Cost Actions CPA Cost Actions CPA MC/MR

Keyword 1 10 10 1 30 15 2 4

Keyword 2 20 10 2 50 20 2.5 3

A Working Example

An example of the optimization process is in

monthly channel budget allocation (a process

that is dreaded by most marketers). Within

an integrated campaign, this process becomes

much simpler and scientific.

A requisite of this marginal analysis is the

need for your optimization process to develop

predictions around how assets will respond to

changes. These predictions form the basis of

a marketer’s decision set. These predictions

leverage historical data and technology to

measure the elasticity changes in assets such


as bids, times of days, frequency caps and the

other levers available within digital marketing

channels. It is important that this modeling

takes into account a number of intricacies of

digital marketing channels including:

➊ Cross-correlation effects. Moving the bid

on one digital asset may affect the delivery

of another digital asset.

➋ Constrained supply. For most digital assets

there is an ultimate cap on the number of

exposures that can be delivered even if the

price escalates to extreme levels; you can’t

always buy more.

➌ Declining marginal productivity. For many

types of digital assets, as you increase

the delivery, each new exposure has the

potential to be marginally less effective at

producing return while at the same time

being marginally more expensive.

With millions and millions of assets in the

typical integrated marketing campaign, the

creation of these decision sets is often handled

by technology and specialized systems. With

potentially hundreds of thousands of decisions

daily responding to changes in cost or return

structures, the application and responses to

new data (competitor changes, new products,

promotions) is also best handled by technology

and systems that can be automated. Obviously,

the best scenario is to have an optimization

technology that brings the pieces together and

harnesses both the predictive component and

the automation component.

For conversion optimization, this principle is valid

as well. The ROI of every additional unit spent will

decline as more money is spent. But there is an

additional effect: an increase in conversion rate

will bring the CPA of media down as well, which

perhaps, in turn, makes it viable again to raise

media spend.

The point is not to prefer conversion optimization

above trafficking, but to take a holistic view

as a marketer. Putting media and conversion

optimization in silos will lead to a sub-optimal

allocation of marketing budget. To start with,

there should be one budget, one responsibility

and one integrated technology. Each company

will discover which starting point works best,

whether it is on the media side or conversion side.

57

7The Future of Integrated Marketing

58 The Future of Integrated Marketing

The Future of Integrated Marketing

Chris Knoch, VP Strategic Solutions | IgnitionOne

History Repeating

Our shared history has many

examples of the type of sea-

change we are facing now- where

complexity rises to an apex and

then gives way to innovation and simplicity.

An excellent example of this is Ford and his

assembly line.

Before Ford, parts were assembled piecemeal

and then cars were constructed over time.

The assembly line streamlined the process of

building a car so that they could be built faster

and more efficiently. This not only changed how

cars were made, but also opened the door to

new possibilities. By reducing complexity, cars

were made available to the masses, changing

the shape and fabric of our country, bringing us

into a new age, and putting 15 million Model T’s

on the road in the process. This new method

reduced production time while requiring less

manpower.

The assembly line made the car more efficient to

produce and therefore cheaper, and paved the

way for new opportunities – just as streamlined

technology will open doors for marketers.

Making History

The digital marketing technology industry

faces a similar turning point. We are seeing

an increasing number of marketers turn

away from disparate pieces of technology

that don’t allow the marketer or agency to

streamline the creation, distribution and


measurement of digital media. They are

already experiencing the potential to be

smarter by integrating the pieces.

Marketers often don’t have time to think about

the possibilities of having all of their data

working together because they’re too busy

making all the pieces work at all. They are in

the same place as consumers who didn’t even

know that getting from one place to another in

an hour and not a day was even a possibility.

But not all marketers.

Today, many marketers already buy into the

theories and principles behind integrating their

marketing. Innovation and investment show that

people are placing bets on the consolidation

of tools and teams resulting in the breaking

down of silos and the removal of intermediaries

between the customer and advertiser.

We are positive that as more companies see the

benefits of integrated marketing even more will

follow. Over the next couple of years, we will see

this momentum surge from early adopter status

to status quo. Point solutions will always have

their place in helping to push innovation forward,

but over the last few years, signals from the titans

of software solutions point to consolidation

picking up steam. There’s no reason to believe it

won’t continue gaining momentum.

The Age of Customer Dialogue

But where is this taking us? What is the unseen,

as of yet, benefit of consolidating digital

marketing solutions, and more importantly,

leveraging “big data” in real time across these

solutions?

This question has to be answered in looking at

how people experience and consume media

today, how that may change in the future and

what implications that might have on the ideas

and tactics behind integrated marketing.

The ideas behind direct marketing fifty years

ago were one of the last major shifts in the

fundamentals of marketing. Our industry is

in the midst of its second shift – involving the

disintermediation of media through one-to-one

marketing capabilities. This is especially (but

not limited to) what we have seen in the advent

of social as a marketing channel.

Social has thrown out the old marketing model

of talking at customers, and has enabled a

two-way conversation with consumers. This is

a new standard in marketing. Consumers, and

especially social natives, will inevitably come to

demand this new standard of communication

with brands.


As the rise of social reach and influence takes

hold, the industry will see the fusion of brand

and direct response goals. Awareness and

dialogue created via high quality, memorable

content are increasingly important as people

have the opportunity to become brand

ambassadors via socially enabled media. There

will be no more lazy advertising that talks at

the consumer. The most successful brands

will create content that not only stimulates a

conversation between brand and consumer, but

also between consumers about the brand.

Local & Mobile

No one can know exactly how these things will

evolve, but there are larger implications to the

relationship between advertisers and media

owners as well as consumers. As data and access

to it via mobile devices has become ubiquitous,

purchase decisions are less based on the creative

brand building of the past. Increasing emphasis

is being placed on peer-to-peer consumer

reviews as well as price comparison data.

Building brands will not become less important,

but more emphasis will be placed on building

that brand in a measurable way. As consumers

gain access to price comparison data in-store,

understanding what that brand represents is vital.

But the foundation of that idea must be proof

positive. Due to the social dialogue, consumers

are increasingly a part of building the brand

attributes rather than being told or shown.

With the rise of user-generated content and

access to devices and geo-specific forums,

marketing is becoming hyper-local. Localized

content means finding new ways to hold

to the core principles of your brand while

accommodating the desires of localization. It

is integrated marketing’s responsibility to take

the broadcast and tailor the message within

many different mediums. The future shifts

the importance and emphasis away from the

broadcast and onto the increasingly smaller

audience. This shift comes with the expectation

and responsibility of consumers becoming brand

ambassadors. The content and messaging that

ambassadors create is localized and distributed

across an array of mobile device types. Although

many comment on the rise of social and the shift

of power from brands to consumers, few have

talked about what the implications are for media

planning as we know it.

In fact, let’s get out of theory and speak of actual

future examples.


How This All Comes Together

I am shopping for a television. I do some research

on my own via both professional reviews and

reviews listed by actual users of the televisions

on both third party AV forums and online

retailer sites. I have honed in on a few options,

but I still open it up to a quick discussion with

friends on my Facebook wall.

All that done, I think I know which TV I want to

buy, but I need to see it in person.

So, I search on my phone for the closest

consumer electronics story near me in order to

take a look. This, as many in retail already know,

is called “showrooming”. But I do visit their site

to ensure that they have my desired product.

Not only do I see the TV, I also note that TV is

indeed more expensive than a different online-

only retailer from which I regularly purchase.

But I do see a special offer to download their

socially enabled mobile app to get a $50 gift

card. $50 may sound like a lot of money, but

through a series of third party data aggregators

this retailer is already profiling me on my first

visit, and knows I’m in their target demographic

with disposable income. It’s a real-time offer.

I walk in with almost no intention to buy it

there because I’m conditioned to find the best

price online and get it via free shipping without

paying taxes. Why on earth would I purchase at

an old bricks and mortar store today?

But it’s been a while and the retailer surprises

me. This particular retailer has changed

drastically since I last visited. The store is clean

and uncluttered and incredibly welcoming.

They ask me what I need and direct me to the

TV department. I’m met there by a woman that

greets me with a smile, and asks me which TV I

was looking at online.

How did she know I was already looking online?

Well, aside from me bringing up the TV on my

mobile device, this is a human connection point

I have not had up until this point. I completely

forgot what this was like after all those hundreds

of online purchases. She then reminds me that

if I download the store application, they’ll offer

me a $50 gift card at the store. I don’t hesitate.


I download the app, first connecting via

Facebook Connect, and it asks me which TV

I’m looking at. This retailer’s app does its own

online price comparison search. It also collects

the social and third party data available on me

in milliseconds and knows I’m definitely in the

market and I’m potentially a repeat customer

with some disposable income.

Could this retailer compete with all these

sites on price alone across all consumers? No.

However, by quickly collecting data on my

online behavior and profile, it knows I’m the sort

of customer that they want. By using additional

customer profiling analysis, they know that I am

worth an aggressive discount.

The sales representative is sent an alert on her

mobile device, and she walks over to personally

offer it to me. She also enthusiastically tells me

about the benefits of choosing this brand down

the street from me. The face-to-face human

connection, the real-time discount offer, and

the funny commercial I saw on TV by this brand

over the holiday all culminate in buying the TV

then and there.

Not only that, but I have the store’s app on my

phone and a future propensity to purchase from

them again. With the data they collect on me in

exchange for the $50 gift card, the retailer can

leverage their integrated Digital Marketing Suite

to keep their brand in my purchase cycle for all

future buying. Whenever I interact with their

website, app, or check-in at their store they are

tracking my propensity to purchase again, and

are tailoring offers to and dialogues with me.

Big Data Delivers

Tracking all of these interactions and leveraging

them in real time is a BIG challenge. That’s

a good thing, because it’s actually the best

scenario of big data used in marketing: using

data in real time to know when to communicate

with a consumer with the right message at the

right time – as personally as possible.

$50 off right nowright here

right here$50

right here right now

$50

here

now

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here

$50 OFF RIGHT NOW RIGHT HERE


Marketers Get to Be Creative Again

The irony in all of this is that once we overcome the

technology challenges, like all good technology,

it should move considerably (but not completely)

into the background via simplicity. Then, we

should see a doubling down on the creative

elements of marketing, especially creativity

that stimulates positive dialogue. Creativity will

garner attention, and one-to-one interaction will

bind us tightly to our most favored brands.

Where the influence that people have as brand

ambassadors is valuable, the best and most

cost effective way to inspire them will be with

remarkable creative experiences. This means

more focus on media that allows consumers to

interact so that they feel ownership and can then

promote within their social circles. Personalized

search, social and local review services will likely

start to adopt auction models and metrics that

in some way acknowledge or compensate the

unique qualities of each consumer, making this

customization time-sensitive and more relevant.

The more focus on developing one-on-one

relationships and providing these experiences

directly, the more likely a marketer can avoid

wholly depending on broad sweeping message

and ill-informed auctions-based media.

Next Steps

Do all these multi-channel solutions exist today

in one integrated platform? No. But are there

any integrated Digital Marketing Suites that

understand this challenge, and are seeking

to further integrate even more creative point

solutions into their platform? Yes. Digital

marketers and partners must see the inevitable

move towards digital marketing integration.

They must acknowledge the DMS Imperative

and find partners that fit this new way of doing

business. They must also find partners that take

the time to understand the brands’ own unique

way of doing business. Marketers must now take

the next steps into the future of our business.

8Discussions on Integrated Marketing

65

66 Discussions on Integrated Marketing

QAIO: Tell us a little bit about your role at

La Quinta.

JC: I have the responsibility of all marketing

functions within the organization, so everything

from brand marketing to e-commerce to

loyalty marketing, analytics, PR, social media,

partnerships, and so on.

IO: How would you define integrated

marketing?

JC: One of the things we look at is our holistic

media plan that is online and offline and how

they work together, because they do. Integrating

all of the marketing efforts together for a better

outcome is critical and to understand how they

interact with each other to drive more revenue

is also very, very important. One of the ways

that we moved in that direction was putting all

of the media with one person — so our director

of media handles both offline and online media.

I think that was a really important step to look

at the integration of all the things we are doing.

Discussions on Integrated Marketing

Julie CaryChief Marketing Officer, La Quinta Inns & Suites

La Quinta Inns & Suites has over 800 hotels in the

US, Canada and Mexico and is in the limited-service segment.


IO: So you changed the structure of your

organization. Can you discuss how the

structure works and how it supports

integrated marketing?

JC: The position of Director of Media works with

the folks at IgnitionOne, but she also does all of

the media planning and works with the agency

on media buying for broadcast, radio, anything

that is not online. She also works very closely

with the marketing mix modeling that we do to

understand ROI, so she can see the influence of

broadcast on search. She can see the influence

when we have certain levels of impressions both

online and offline and what the results are for

overall conversion to bookings during a certain

time window. The holistic view is important

for us to make sure that we were spending

our money as efficiently as possible and really

understanding how it all works together.

IO: What are the challenges for organizations

in achieving integrated marketing?

JC: Everybody must be aligned with the same

goal, which is something we do. If people

don’t have common goals, sometimes they

unintentionally work against one another. So

if you are trying to drive acquisitions, and you

want all the money for acquisition and your

ultimate goal is not the most incremental

revenue at the best price, then you don’t win.

Making sure the goals are lined up is one of the

most important things.

La Quinta has the same revenue goals across

the whole team. We have individual goals by

functional area but they all ladder up to the

number one goal and what we are trying to

accomplish.

Unifying these goals was critical given the media

interaction was even greater than we thought.

Quantifying some of the work we did with our

mix modeling was also a learning process for us.

We looked at the effect of broadcast on search,

the effect of banners on search and then we

looked at the overall effect on paid search.

That interrelationship is big and very important

to driving revenue.

IO: How do you manage this tidal wave of

data that comes at you every day?

JC: It is a lot, and I think that because we are in

hospitality, we get more information than most

industries about our customers – we get their

name, address, phone number and sometimes

their email so we really have big data. We have

lots of different data points that we pull together

from the online experiences to the database

that we have about guest stay behavior. The


amount of data can be very overwhelming.

But we make data a part of everything we do,

which is most important. We have invested

pretty significantly in tools, from reporting to

analytics. And people in the roles have to have

that acumen as well, so they understand the

whole process. We continue to grow and learn

how to apply the tools to all we are doing.

Most recently, we have begun taking our data

to a new level by continuing to peel the layers

of the onion. We have a digital performance

marketing initiative – banners and search. We

charge our hotels a fee if they get a booking

from one of those channels. Now, we are

looking at those customers and asking if they

are new or repeat, and the frequency of their

stays, so can we pay less on repeat and more

on acquisition. We want to understand how we

can shift our media strategy to get more of the

customers we need at the time without losing

the loyal guest.

IO: How does technology factor into all of this

for you?

JC: Technology isn’t where it needs to be yet

in terms of cookies and tracking. Having that

tracking technology that can differentiate

between the customer we want vs. the one we

don’t will be critical to the evolution of current

technology. Spending less on impressions to get

the right person is how the technology is going

to have to evolve in the cookie/ tracking space.

Database systems that simplify holding data

have helped. The reporting tools are evolving and

growing and have made accessing data easier.

The ability to retarget and the role technology

has played in that has been great.

IO: You’ve done quite a bit in integrated

marketing. Are you satisfied with the level of

integration you have achieved at this point?

Are you planning moving beyond?

JC: We are never satisfied: we are all always

trying to find a better, cheaper, faster way to

do something. We will continue to do that and

we will continue to use the next layer of the

data onion to better understand our marketing

activities including what customers we are

getting and at what price. We will continue to

evolve to get more incremental revenue at the

lowest cost that we can.

La Quinta has the same revenue goals across the whole team. We have individual goals by functional area but they all ladder up to the number one goal and what we are trying to accomplish.”

“


IO: How is the travel vertical different from

other verticals in terms of marketing?

JC: For us, it makes online marketing a little

bit easier because we get so much data about

our customer, and our database can be such

an important insight tool. When I worked in

packaged goods, we knew where the product

was sold – we could get scanner data – but we

didn’t know directly who was buying: where

they lived, their zip code, whether they had

bought the same product before. The level of

information that we have about our customers

in the travel vertical is significantly greater than

a lot of other industries. That gives us more

data to help us understand our activities and

our results.

IO: What advice would you give to marketers

looking to improve their online efforts?

JC: Try to be able to measure lots of things and

determine what’s really important. Sometimes

you don’t know what’s important until you

measure a bunch of things to figure out what

that might be. Always have a test and learn

environment and never be afraid to try new

things to see if they can work for you.

IO: How do you balance direct response with

brand goals?

JC: It’s easy to focus on ROI, which is critically

important, but, brand building is tougher to

measure in terms of immediate impact – it

takes longer. We have done online studies to

look at the perception changing ability of some

of the online advertising and it has been really

helpful for us to look at those things and brand

engagement as well. Brand engagement is

important but it is relegated to the number two

spot behind direct response.

IO: How do you figure out that balance?

JC: If you have good messaging then you are

still building the brand while driving ROI. We

know there are tactics where the ROI is so low

we just won’t do it at all even if we know it would

be a nice place for the brand to be. You have to

balance metrics or set a goal. If you know this

is an opportunity to reach your customer, take

it with the right messaging and the willingness

to accept a lower ROI.


IO: What do you see in the future for

integrative marketing in terms of innovations,

changes in the industry’s landscape?

JC: I envision an evolution of using data to better

personalize the media and the experience for the

customer so that the interaction with the brand

is on a one-to-one basis. Most people come to

our website to view our hotels and a lot of them

book there, but not all of them. Some of them

call the hotel and some of them drive to the hotel

and book. Understanding the experience and

giving them the best personalized experience to

help convert them based upon what you know

about them through data is where I see the

future evolving to in marketing.

I also see an evolution of the skills we are going

to need as marketers. We have functional

experts, yet because there is so much combining

of what used to be called direct marketing to

online marketing to broadcast and messaging, I

see roles converging more. Figuring out what

those skills need to be to manage big data, drive

insights and form the marketing efforts will

make for an interesting evolution in marketing.


IO: Tell us a little bit about your role at Diageo.

PM: My title is Chief Marketing and Innovation

Officer for Diageo North America. I oversee

brand management as well as new product

development for the region. Originally we had

a chief marketing officer and an independent

chief innovating officer, which was my prior role,

and we made the decision to combine both of

the roles. This was largely to create stronger

linkage between the role that new product

development was playing in brand strategy.

There is a much more integrated approach now

where our innovation work streams are focused

in support of the brand strategy as opposed

to being viewed as opportunistic ways of

capturing more consumers.

IO: How would you define Integrated Digital

Marketing?

PM: For the last couple years, we’ve evolved our

overall approach to marketing. For us, it’s not

about designing programs for specific channels

and figuring out how to integrate them into

the digital space. It’s about what is the most

effective path for marketing in a digital age. We

QADiscussions on Integrated Marketing

Peter McDonoughChief Marketing and Innovation Officer, Diageo

Diageo is the world’s leading premium drinks business with brands that include Johnnie Walker,

Crown Royal, J&B, Windsor, Buchanan’s and Bushmills whiskies, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Ketel One

vodkas, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray and Guinness.


live in an era where consumers have more power

than ever before. Social media, in particular,

can build, or in some cases, diminish a brand,

so we develop programs that connect with

consumers in meaningful ways and give them

the ability to engage and ultimately share. We

refer to this concept as Participative Marketing,

knowing that participation drives engagement

and advocacy, which are paramount to building

and sustaining our brands.

IO: What are the challenges for organizations

to integrate their marketing?

PM: It all starts with having the right insights

and getting collective alignment upfront. If

we get the insights right, the planning and

development process can and should be a

highly collaborative and fluid exercise. But

there is some old baggage about industry

practices. As brands think about their next

communication or participation platform, it

often begins with the thought of, “What is the

next advertising campaign?” In the traditional

model, a brand would have an agency of record

which tended to be an advertising agency that

was focused on developing television creative

to bring the communication to life. In today’s

model, I believe that television has a role just

like out of home or radio or Facebook page or

online advertising has a role, but it is no longer

the primary driver of creating the consumer

engagement or of communicating the brand’s

story. The challenge is breaking away from

the mindset that says, “Let’s first develop a

television campaign and then we’ll figure out

how to support it.” That’s the model from 25 or

15 years ago – but in today’s age it’s really more

about thinking about what is the message and

the story you want to tell and then say, “How

does this come to life in a social media footprint

or in a video format, which can be placed on

television, YouTube or spread virally?” It’s

stepping back and approaching the work

differently, which is, for some people, a bit of a

challenge. And for some agency relationships,

it’s a bit of a challenge because their business

model still hasn’t fully evolved to move away

from their primary revenue source: television

production.

IO: How do you make those different channels

work more closely together rather than as a

waterfall from television?

PM: That gets into teaching the brand teams

right up front to stay focused on first articulating

the idea that you want to communicate, and

then creating a participation platform. If you

think of a large circle, and in the center, a bull’s


eye is the idea itself and then you can break

up segments of the circle that surrounds it

and say, “This is how the idea comes to life in

various mediums or activities or experiential

programs,” and it forces them to think from

the beginning how to bring the idea to life as

opposed to how to transfer the idea from TV to

additional mediums. And that’s where the real

powerful engagement platform is focused on

trying to create consumer engagement, so it’s

an engagement platform.

IO: Would you consider this to be a

unified goal that each of the channels are

participating towards?

PM: It’s a unified understanding for everyone

that works for me. What I’m not trying to do

is make sure that you have equal participation

of every channel. What I’m trying to do is say

think about the idea and then think about what

is the best way to bring it to life. Because there

are some programs that don’t require TV at all.

There are some that can be brought to life virally

through a presence focused on social media.

There are others, depending on the nature of

the story that you want to tell, are best brought

to life starting with an emphasis on very rapid

broad-based reach through television and then

the other channels will be secondary. It really

depends on the message and the story you are

trying to tell behind the brand. The role of the

different mediums will be driven by the best

way to bring the idea to life.

IO: How do you use digital marketing?

PM: I use it the same way I would use out-of-

home or radio or television or print in the sense

that I think that digital is simply another way

to engage consumers. But it happens to be

one of the more robust ways versus the other

mediums that I mentioned which are more one-

way communication mediums whereas digital,

and more specifically, social media, allows

the chance to have dialogue. The other thing

about digital is that it allows you to become

more refined in your targeting. A banner ad is

essentially no more effective in my mind than

an out-of-home or a transit board, except for

the fact that you can be much more targeted in

terms of who you try to create the impression

with. That is more difficult with the out-of-

home or a transit board. The static nature of

the message isn’t a whole lot different, but the

ability to be more refined in your target certainly

is. Importantly, the social media piece is where

it really gets powerful because that’s where you

can engage in a dialogue as opposed to a one-

way channel.


I don’t think of digital, per se, I think of

different aspects using digital technology to

communicate the message. Sometimes it’s via

one-way broadcast, sometimes it’s engaging in

a conversation.

IO: Have you had much success in taking

integrating different digital marketing tactics?

PM: Smirnoff had a very holistic approach to

bringing the idea of Master of the Mix to life.

Master of the Mix was all about trying to make

Smirnoff more relevant in nightlife, specifically

urban nightlife targeting African American

consumers. So what they did was consider

who the key influencer was in that context: the

DJ; they guy who sets the music and creates

the theme of the party. So we created a reality

television program as a way to bring the

program to life and inserted Smirnoff into the

brand program itself. As the DJ is the hero of

the story, we were in nightlife locations where

drinks were being served so we had bartenders

interacting with DJs and talking about the

drinks they were making. In conjunction with

that, we set up a digital radio station where

consumers could go online and download the

music tracks that the DJs were playing. This

created followership through the various DJs

that were contestants on the show and who

were tweeting to their followers. We also set

up a Facebook page for the entity itself, and

tied in the Facebook pages of the various DJs

who were competing in the contest. It was a

fully integrated program that went across all

channels. This is the best example I can think of

where we have taken an idea and then brought

it to life. We basically created touchpoints in

every medium that was relevant based on our

consumer target.

IO: How did you measure success for that

campaign?

PM: We have brand tracking studies and we

track on a quarterly basis how consumers

respond to our questions. We would look back

over a certain time period and then break into

segments. And you could see the change of

the consumer perception of the brand’s image

through that kind of brand tracking study. There

is a list of about ten questions on the study

that center on how the consumer feels or the

frequency by which they are drinking the brand

or their comfort for being an advocate for the

brand and recommending it to friends. We also

track market share while we deploy these kinds

of programs. What are we seeing in terms of

offtake in a retail environment — are we selling

more product? Is that associated with the time


period in which these ideas were coming alive?

And then we track it through conversations with

our distributors and with our retail partners.

What are they hearing and how do they sense

the brand is moving within their retail aisles.

There is a variety of metrics that we would put

in place related to audit data, tracking, sales

and market share performance. But importantly

is the brand tracking study that has a quarterly

pulse for us in how consumers view the brand.

However, we’re still working on the various

metrics to understand which one was more

influential than another in terms of shaping

perception. We’ll ask a question about

advertising awareness and then ask, “Where

do you see messages from the brand?” I would

be wrong to say that we have a sophisticated

analysis set up to assert that the performance

is led more by what we did through Facebook

versus what we might have done through

search versus what we might have done through

display versus TV etc.

That said, we certainly have the ability to track

the responsiveness online better than any other

place. What I am still trying to figure out is how

to go back and track it to a sale. Because at the

end of the day it starts with creating consumer

engagement but the real mission is consumer

purchase. Advocacy and engagement doesn’t

do me a whole lot if I’m not getting sales out of

it. I’m having this conversation pretty regularly

with brand teams that are all excited about

growing their Facebook page from 200,000

fans to 1 million and I say, “That’s great. Talk to

me about what your sales have done in that

associated period and if you’re sales aren’t

increasing then explain to me why you’re so

excited about these fans that we’re gathering.”

There has to be a linkage here that we can track.

IO: Do you think that in the near future there

will be a technology in metrics that will allow

you to understand this better?

PM: I think there are an awful lot of people

trying to prove that. It’s not a new challenge.

Every advertising medium that has come out

over the last 100 years has been trying to

create that correlation and we have engaged

in studies where we have done exposures

through Facebook with Nielson to understand

how the home panel cells react differently

that had exposure through a brand marketing

campaign using Facebook versus the home

panel cell that had no Facebook exposure and

is there something different about the market

basket purchases in one cell versus the other.

We are working to try to do that. I’m sure that


you know folks at Facebook and Google are

trying to set up that correlation. Today, to my

knowledge, no one has had a conclusive study

that proves it, though I know there are sound

bites out there and discussions that fans are

twice more likely to participate in a category

than non-fans are. We know from our Facebook

study, there was a small cell exposure that we

had double digit lift in terms of a market basket

side but it was a small cell test so we are now

trying to replicate it on a larger scale to see if

we can in fact replicate those results.

IO: How is your marketing organization

structured? How do the teams work together

towards combined goals?

PM: We have five teams that sit within the

marketing organization: Innovation, Brand,

Consumer Planning, Portfolio Strategy and PR.

When it comes to developing campaigns our

Planning and Brand teams work together to

design those programs. To help influence and

guide the process we have capability experts

that apply broader viewpoints such as our

PR, Multicultural and Digital strategy teams.

Through these broader planning sessions the

teams collaborate and share data and insights

to align our goals and determine the best

approach. We also bring our media team and

partners into the fold early on so that we can

develop the right programs for the appropriate

communication vehicles.

IO: How do you balance multiple goals – such

as brand and direct response goals or online

vs. offline goals?

PM: Whenever a campaign or program tries

to tackle too much it can often fall apart. We

believe the best marketing approach is when

we have a clear goal to address. We don’t have

specific offline vs. online goals. We develop our

programs and campaigns around an idea and

then determine if that idea is the right approach

for achieving our goals. If not, we slowly pull the

idea apart and rebuild it so it answers our need.

Based on what that idea is we then determine

where and how we to best communicate it.

Marketers need to stop thinking about advertising in terms of channels. That only emphasizes limitations. Consumers don’t operate in silos. There is no offline vs. online. Everything we create can end up anywhere. Think about your objectives, make sure you have the right insights, ground your campaigns in a solid idea and then figure out the best communication vehicles. Once you’ve mapped that out, make sure you have the right support in place. Make sure you have the social platforms needed to amplify your message and drive advocacy.”

“


IO: How do you manage the enormous

amount of data that is generated every day?

PM: We are very specific in how we handle

consumer and market data. Primary research

data is obviously used to help generate insights.

Broader consumer data regarding industry,

category, brand and/or program sentiment,

among other things, is captured according

to our compliance policies, ensuring we only

review information from those of legal drinking

age. Without bias or judgment, our planners

sort through the data until we find the story;

not the marketing story, the insights story.

They search for what are the key findings that

will help us answer a consumer need or a brand

problem?

IO: How has integrated marketing benefited

your brand?

PM: Our brands are social by design. This

dynamic alone challenges us to always think

about where the conversations are taking place.

We want our consumers to participate and

therefore we need to ensure that our marketing

efforts are present in the right areas and can

help drive the conversation.

Marketers need to stop thinking about

advertising in terms of channels. That only

emphasizes limitations. Consumers don’t

operate in silos. There is no offline vs. online.

Everything we create can end up anywhere.

Think about your objectives, make sure you

have the right insights, ground your campaigns

in a solid idea and then figure out the best

communication vehicles. Once you’ve mapped

that out, make sure you have the right support in

place. Make sure you have the social platforms

needed to amplify your message and drive

advocacy.

IO: You have said “Consumers no longer

differentiate between phones, tablets,

computers or even television and the

winning brands will be those that succeed in

integrating their message in relevant content

across all media.” How do you imagine brands

doing this well?

PM: By being grounded in core insights and

telling the right story. We use different vehicles

to deliver different aspects of the story, but in

the end, it’s the same story. It has to all hang

together. We can never lose sight of that.

78 Glossary of Terms

Glossary Terms Definition

1st Party Data Data that is created or owned by the marketer.

3rd Party Data Data acquired by data aggregators, other than the marketer. Sources consist of publishers, retailers, e-commerce sites, and offline data providers.

Attribution Understanding which channels or tactics deserve credit or partial credit for a conversion or brand engagement increase. Attribution allows marketers to gain the full ability to correctly allocate their budget to the channel-schema that works most efficiently for their objectives.

Big Data When the collection of data sets are so large that they become difficult to process or manage. The challenge is to be actionable in real-time, which can allow the marketer to communicate with a consumer using the right messaging at the right time.

Centralized Reporting Reporting on media from one source rather than gathering attribution data from multiple sources and attempting to make sense of it all in silos.

Cross-Channel Attribution

Allows marketers to take into account interactions among channels, providing the ability to allocate partial credit across a range of exposures, enabling the understanding of how certain channels or campaigns correlate and feed the funnel.

Digital Marketing Suite A centralized solution that allows the marketer to manage multiple channels, run cross-channel attribution, and view all marketing analytics in a single place. A DMS can include other features such as on-site optimization and even proprietary RTB systems. A Digital Marketing Suite allows you to integrate your marketing mix, allowing for seamless management, optimization and reporting on media.

Glossary of Terms


Glossary Terms Definition

DMS Imperative The need for innovative marketers to consolidate their online marketing budgets within a Digital Marketing Suite in order to compete in today’s marketplace.

Integrated Marketing Aligns resources, goals, technology, data and measurement in order to achieve higher levels of efficiency and performance.

Localization/Local Advertising

A refined way to target consumers based on their location.

Marginal Return Analysis

The process of identifying the benefits and costs of different alternatives by examining the incremental effect on total revenue and total cost caused by a very small (just one unit) change in the input of each alternative.

Optimization The tactical process of matching the returns of a marketer’s assets to the cost of those assets so as to achieve the stated goals.

Purchase Funnel A useful concept to gauge where a consumer is on their path to making a decision or conversion.

Same Point-Solution Approach

A standalone system that can import marketing data across channels and run attribution analysis to be returned to the marketer.

Showrooming Visiting a brick-and-mortar retailer to see an item considered to purchase and then converting online rather than in the store itself.

Social Reach Demonstrates the shift of power from brands to consumers.

User-Generated Content

A recent shift from professionals publishing content to amateurs being able to publish their own content.

80 About IgnitionOne

About IgnitionOne

IgnitionOne is a digital marketing solutions

company providing world-class proprietary

technology and expert services to

improve digital marketing performance.

IgnitionOne’s integrated cross-channel Digital

Marketing SuiteSM (DMS) helps marketers

centralize, manage and optimize digital media,

and understand cross-channel attribution while

helping to optimize conversions on a marketer’s

website. On top of this world class marketing

technology, we provide services that help

marketers manage paid search, display and

Facebook advertising together, because digital

marketing is not only simpler when it’s integrated,

but it is also more effective. At the core of what

we do is our proprietary Engagement Scoring

Algorithm, which determines the value of a

user in order to deliver the right message, at

the right time, at the right cost to a marketer’s

users on and off their website. Our solutions

are backed by cross-channel attribution

and analytic capabilities to drive actionable

insights. IgnitionOne Advisor teams provide

media buying, bid optimization and media-mix

modeling expertise for online advertising across

every channel.

Visit us:

www.IgnitionOne.com

Follow us on Twitter:

@IgnitionOne

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Contact us:

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