which are the right digital marketing channels in a multi funnel and cross device world - gpec...

GpeC – Summer School 2014Selecting Marketing Channels – Which Are Right For My Business?

By: Steffen Heringhaus

August 2014

August 2014

Digital Marketing Channels 1. Setting Up and Tracking Marketing Channels 5

UTM parameters, goals, events, eCommerce Tracking & conversion optimized ads

2. How Attribute ROI to Each Channel 19

Multi-Channel Funnels and the Customer Lifecycle

3. Selecting Marketing Channels and Avoid Common Pitfalls 32

Channel cannibalization, scalability, Exemple din Curs (Brand, Brand-Reseller, B2B, Handmade)

Which Marketing Channels Are Right For Me?

August 2014

How To Select Fitting Marketing Channels?

• Increasing number of marketing channels competes for your budgets

• Size of bubbles to the right correlates with ROI associated

• But: does this chart hold true for your business?

Source: specommerce.com

Evaluating Marketing Campaigns

August 2014

6 Month of Continous Advertising: What Channel Deserves (How Much) Credit?

• Constant YOY growth > 50% in 2014

• What channels were key to succes?

• How much to pay for each?Google Analytics > Audience > Overview

Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome

August 2014

Website URL: Your landing page URL followed by an ?

Utm_source: The outlet or partner, brandname

Utm_medium: the asset: such as Site, Facebookpage, Newsletter, Banner, article, text link, twitter account etc

Utm_term: keyword, if relevant, such as for text ads

Utm_content: the creative used, such as image, CTA, color or size of banner

Utm_campaign: the general marketing campaign such as Summer promo, 30% on first order, Buy 1 get 1 free. etc

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en


August 2014

Track Your Marketing Efforts

• Track campaigns and channels using Google’s URL builder

• If needed: Track clicks separtely with URL shortners such as Bitly

• Do use for:

• eMail

• Social Traffic

• Banner advertising and paid referral campaigns/paid text link advertising

• Do NOT use for:

• AdWords (use their auto-tagging feature)

• Organic Traffic

• Internal site tracking (ex: links in pop-up notifications)




August 2014

Website URL: Your landing page, followed by an ?

Utm_source: The outlet or partner, brandname

Utm_medium: the asset: such as Site, Facebookpage, Newsletter, Banner, article, text link, twitter account etc

Utm_content: the creative used, such as image, CTA, color or size of banner

Utm_campaign: the general marketing campaign such as Summer promo, 30% on first order, Buy 1 get 1 free. etc

Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic (Default view)


August 2014

Click Tracking vs. Visits

• Clicks ≠ Visits (Sessions)

• Often more clicks than sessions in the short term

• If you do not use an adserver, adwords or a similar technology a link shortner can help, especially for social media

Bitly.com > Bitmarks > View Stats (of Link)


August 2014

Click Tracking vs. Visits

• Clicks ≠ Visits (Sessions)

• Often more clicks than sessions in the short term

• Long term: direct traffic will not overwrite for a while tracking parameters of other channels on the long term this will result in more «visits than clicks» which will be attributed to such a source

Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic (Filtered for all visits including „JOY“ in the Source/Medium field


August 2014

Tracking Against Business Outcomes: Goals, Events, eCommerce Tracking

• Define most important business goals and have separate, static «thank-you» pages with dedicated URL for them (after order, purchase, contact request or sign-ups)

If you do not make transactions online: assign average value per lead for them

• Define secondary business goals (add to cart, download of whitepaper, profile update) and create events for them

• If you do transactions online: integrate with eCommerce tracking

Quicksprout.com (Has also a very useful online marketing blog)


August 2014

Setting Goals

• Goals: Versatile way to track the number and percentage of conversions and the conversion rate

• Good for all kinds of conversions such as signup, lead, downloads, checkouts and other actions. Can have values assigned without requiring eCommerce tracking

• Can be used to evaluate channel performance for business outcomes

• Can visualize the whole funnel until conversion happens

• Requires usually dedicated thank-you page to be set up

Google Analytics > Conversions > Goals > Overview


https://yoast.com/setting-google-analytics-goals/


August 2014

Defining Events

• Events: Good way to define single actions or «mircoconversions» which do not have (or need) their own URL

• Downloads

• Signup

• Login / Logout

• Add to cart

• Live chat

• Click on buttons or links

• Video plays

• Form hits

• Can be used to define goals if no dedicated URL is available (see slide 17)

• Tool by Raven to help define event codes Google Analytics > Behavior > Events > Overview


http://gaconfig.com/google-analytics-event-tracking/


August 2014

eCommerce Tracking

• Suitable for all eCommerce sites which finalize transactions with monetary value online

• If implemented, it will track single transactions, items/SKUs and their respective values

• Let’s you analytize the monetary value assigned to each channel

• Several plugins for common eCommerce software available

• Good Guide to single features

Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Overview


http://www.optimizesmart.com/e-commerce-tracking-works-google-analytics-ultimate-guide/


August 2014

AdWords Auto Tagging

• Make sure you use auto-tagging for your AdWords campaigns. As manual tagging with utm_ parameters it will pass data about the campaign to Analytics

=> more convenient

=> carries more data than utm parameters (Ad group, match type, placements, clicks vs sessions, CTR, costs, cpc, conversion rates etc)

• => Can also calculate margin and other financial KPI

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033981?hl=en&ref_topic=1308612


August 2014

AdWords Conversion Codes

• Create conversion codes for main conversion

=> To be used for AdWords conversion optimizer feature (automatically optimizes your campaign so you have more conversions;

becomes available after gathering 1 – 3 weeks worth of data)

=> Try to limit to most important conversions otherwise it will be hard to distinguish them in the AdWords interface

=> most stable if used on static pages

• Also available now: import goals from Analytics (webinar here; ~ 1 hour)

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1722054?hl=en

http://adwords.blogspot.ro/2013/06/combined-power-of-adwords-and-analytics.html


August 2014

Facebook Conversion and Other Conversion Codes

• Same, as with Google AdWords conversion tracking codes you can set Facebook ad campaigns to be optimized for conversions

=> Create tracking pixel, add it to your thank you page, then create a Website conversion campaign

=> works also well with dyanmicaly created pages and targets

• Likewise, you can add tracking codes for your affiliate agency, the AdServer of a publisher or other PPC providers such as Etarget.ro

Facebook > Ads Manager > Conversion Tracking > Create Pixel

https://www.facebook.com/help/435189689870514/


August 2014

Common Obstacles and Workarounds

• Web server does not accept URLs which are tagged with parameters such as utm_source (error page or redirect to homepage)

=> Hosting/Server administrator can fix

• CMS/Website archietecture does not have or allow special URLs for goals

=> Try to create a static HTML page which automatically redirects after 1 – 5 seconds back to your main website. After your business outcome has taken place, redirect to this page.Use this static page as goal URL

=> use an event based goal

=> For non-AdWords conversion codes: Set a flag in the Database and serve the code once for the next pageview

Google Analytics > Admin > Account > Property > View > Goals > New Goal

http://analytics.blogspot.ro/2011/04/new-google-analytics-events-goals.html


August 2014

The Limits of Conventional (Conversion) Tracking

• Analytics sotware attributes to each channel and source conversions, actions and values

• Model ≠ Reality

• Model is based on the implicit assumption: the last click which has brought the tracked conversion does not interact or rely on other channels

Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic

Attribution In A Multi Channel World

August 2014

Closer To Reality• Several interactions across different

channels for most businesses until

conversions occurs

• Also: different devices before

conversions occurs

• Video: Multi-Channel Funnels in

Google Analytics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz4yHOKE5j8




August 2014

Multi Channels & Assited Conversions

• Default overview: top 3 intersecting marketing channels

• In example top converter direct traffic intersected in 7.88% with both referral traffic and organic search



August 2014

Overlap Between Two Channels

• If reduced to two channels the intersection between Direct & Organic Search grows to 22%

• You can add up to four channels to see how large the amount of intersection is

• The effect will be different for diffrent business models


Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?

August 2014

First Question To Put: Time Lag

• In this example > 85% of conversions happen on the first day

• Short decision making process

• Last click attribution covers most of the cases

• Still: Revenues and conversions can be improved by going further

Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Time Lag


August 2014

First Question Put Differently: Path Length

• Same website

• 77% of conversions happen on the first visit (1 interaction) nearly 92% within 2 visits

• Still 8% of conversion value make an additional 380,000 EUR of conversion value in this example

Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Path Length


August 2014

Path Length: In Most Cases Several Interactions Preceed a Conversion

• A more common example: only 22% of conversions happen within the first (tracked) interaction while the remainder of conversions happens after more than 2 interactions (visitis)

• 24% happens even after 12 or more interactions

Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Path Length


August 2014

Top Conversion Channels

Impulsive/ Short Term conversions

• Short conversion paths

• Few channels involved

• Examples: Lead generation / quotations / purchase of well known, branded products at official supplier

Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Top conversion Paths


August 2014

Top Conversion Paths: A More Typical Scenario

Rationale / Medium Term Conversions

• Longer conversion paths

• Many channels and/or subsequent visits involved

• Typical for most products where different vendors are compared, transaction is final and different opportunities are available



August 2014

Top Conversion Path: Source Medium View

Change Views to explore exact source and medium pathways

• First contacts are often made in discovery mode

• Soft objectives/KPI such as «brand awareness» become tangible and show how «direct traffic» can be build up

• However: typically there are tens, hundrets or thousands of conversion paths like this – for these cases this is anectodatal evidence at best

=> good to explore, hard to make final decisions for assigning values to single channels



August 2014

Model Comparison Tool

• Consolidating anecdotal evidence

• Example: Comparing three models: Default (last) click attribution vs. First click attribution vs. Linear (equal contribution over time) click attribution

• First vs. Last click: two extremes, real proportions are speculative or at least different depending on the business model

• Details, definitions and different models


https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1665189


August 2014

Model Comparison Tool

Change Views to explore exact source and medium pathways

• Direct traffic does not fall like manna from heaven – it is typically initiated by other channels

• Email traffic, which is much as direct traffic a sign for an already engaged customer typically loses as well. This makes sense, bacause email subscribers usually found your website trough other channels

• Same holds often true for organic traffic, which contains a large proportion of branded search

• Outbound channels such as Display and PPC typically gain value



August 2014

Conclusions

Keep tracking your channels but be aware of the interdependencies

• Define a maximum cost per conversion for all traffic which must not be exceeded

• Take differences in ROI into account but adjust with Multi-Channel Funnels and some gut feeling

• This is not the end of the story: Though Universal Analytics is here, we still have many obstacles to overcome until having a view on what is happening in Multi online and offline channel, as well as a cross-device world

Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic

Further Ressources

August 2014

Reading and Resources

• Avinash Kaushik : Occam’s RazorMulti-Channel Funnels – Part I Multi-Channel Funnels – Part II

• Analytics Help Center:Conversions & Attribution Modelling

• Official Google Analytics Blog:Latest product updates & news

• Econsultancy: Industry reports, best practices, templates and tutorials (paid)

• Analytics Sollution Gallery: Download & share pre-configured, custom reports)Gallery Start

• Gaconfig.com: By Raven ToolsCreate event tracking codes & UTM Tracking

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/multi-channel-attribution-definitions-models/

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/multi-channel-attribution-modeling-good-bad-ugly-models/#attributionchallenge


http://analytics.blogspot.ro/

https://econsultancy.com/

https://www.google.com/analytics/gallery/#landing/start/

http://gaconfig.com/

Selecting Marketing Channels

August 2014

Channel Cannibalization

Growing on channel on the cost of another channel

• Example shows how Google traffic dropped as Facebook traffic beginns to rise

• Good if: larger audience is reached and more content is consumed or cost is reduced for same outcome

• Harmful if: costs for same outcome increase or overall result/consumption decreases

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/the-facebook-effect-on-the-news/283746


August 2014

Channel Cannibalization

Most obvious example for eCommerce Marketers: Organic search vs. PPC or eMail vs. Direct traffic

• Occurs for branded bidding or bidding for keywords which are also organically present

• Makes sense if: overall result is bigger as both channels if operated independently and there are no other traffic sources around to invest in (or a competitor forces you by bidding on your brand)

Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic (Applied Avdvanced Segments: Paid Traffic – blue vs. Organic Traffic - orange


August 2014

Scalability

Do not limit your profits by keeping CPAs or other costs to low – but also do not be fooled by succes based on low numbers

• Optimization is not about local optima and reducing costs per individual conversions (let alone clicks or impressions)

• As long as you yield a positive return on investment and overall profit grows a channel is worth further explotation

• However: make sure it really scales up

• If you have a large budget, no time pressure and and a lot of confidence in the future: try the life time calculation tool

Source: Google presentation

20 ct CPC

37 ct CPC

https://life-time-value.appspot.com/


August 2014

Examples – B2C & Brand

Typically largest competitive advantage: yourbrand

• Search for low-hanging fruits such as brandedtraffic (Direct, organic & PPC, social media andeMail)

• Boost your brand with well thoughtscampaigns

Source: Comparethemarket.com ad


August 2014





• Consider letting other players (online distributors, affiliates) do the job ofperformance marketing channels for you (andlet them take the risk of all the algorithmicchanges attached as well as the cost ofadditional organizational overhead andfriction)

Source: Comparethemeercat.com


August 2014





• Consider letting other players (online distributors, affiliates) do the job ofperformance marketing channels for you (andlet them take the risk of all the algorithmicchanges attached as well as the cost ofadditional organizational overhead andfriction)

• DONT‘s:

• do not allow affiliates and distributors to useyour brand name for traffic acqusitionpurposes


August 2014

Examples – B2C & No Own Brand But Selling (also) Branded Products

Competitive advantage: leverage brandreputation of products sold while building yourown brand

• Low hanging fruits: SEO for brand names + item types / categories, PPC same: + remarketing for engaged users

• Social, especially for lifestyle products

• Affiliate: beware of channel cannibalizationand growing new competitors

• eMail

• Piggyback on Okazii, Amazon, etc.

=> build brand around your USP and becomeeither niche leader or efficiency machine(McKinsey) just being one of many who sell also brand X is not enough in the long run(Amazon = Efficiency machine, Zappos = nicheleader ‚delivering happiness‘)

Source: Zappos.com


August 2014

Examples – B2C & No Own Brand, Unbranded Products

1. Build a brand for what makes your budiness or

service stand out

2. Google and Facebook are not the internet

Websites as Amazon, eBay or Groupon havemassive traffic with transactional intention andfitting categories

• Handmade Fashion & accessories : Try Breslo, Okazii, Etsy

• Participate in relevant communities

• Try to get press coverage by providing usefulcontent

• Build followers

• Gifts: Try Okazii, eBay, Zumzi

• Leverage social media‘s viral potential bycreating sharable content

• Try to get press exposure by providingastonishing or suprizing content

Source: Breslo.ro


August 2014

Examples – B2B

Often small relevant audience, complex buyingcycle

• Content marketing

• Social: LinkedIn and specialtyblogs/communities

• PPC with a lot of attention to negative keyword lists to distinguish B2B from B2C intents

• Remarketing lists to keep prospects close

• PR

• Newsletter

• Direct Marketing

Source: FiberVision.de

Thank You

August 2014

Thank You

Steffen Heringhaus

CDO

Ringier Romania

Bd-ul Dimitrie Pompeiu nr. 6

Novo Parc, Building A

Sector 2. Bucharest

eMail: [email protected]

LinkedIn: /in/steffenheringhaus

mailto:[email protected]