Multichannel Marketing Metrics
with Akin

The great Eric Siegel is going to speak in a webinar on March 31^st on the topic of predictive analytics for online applications using web analytics and other data as input.

In web analytics we always think that predictive analysis is the natural next step and will do great things for us. But most of us, when asked, have a very hard time explaining what exactly predictive can do. Avinash Kaushik in his (otherwise groundbreaking and highly recommendable) book Web Analytics 2.0 (and earlier on his blog) almost downright discourages predictive analysis on web data.

But, this is one area where I think Avinash’s opinion is not as balanced as it should be.

Predictive analysis folks such as Neil Mason and Eric Siegel and myself have made various recommendations in articles and posts in the past to showcase opportunities from predictive analysis. Of course, Eric Peterson too has aimed to describe the possibililties in his paper “The coming revolution…” 

But come and see the webinar with Eric Siegel so you can make up your own mind.

… 

P.S.: I highly enjoyed Avinash’s web analytics 2.0 book though and will hope to post a critique  in coming weeks.

Tags: Direct Marketing, multichannel marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics by akin
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In part 1 of this series I summarized the crossroads at which digital marketing has arrived in 2010. Then part 2 explored the surprising advances that turned database marketing into a digital marketing discipline.

Now it is time to look at online marketers.

Back in 2006, my colleagues and I at Unica were still joking about our web analytics competitors’ understanding of multichannel marketing. Back then it seemed much like a scene in the movie Blues Brothers where they would go into a bar to be told by the bar owner that he was interested in all kinds of music:

 ”Country and Western”

Similarly web marketing back then was multichannel only in a sense similar to:

“Google and Yahoo”.

The old web marketing

In the growth years of Internet usage, web marketers’ focus was centered on their own website and biased towards acquiring visits to the website through advertising.

Rocket science algorithms would optimize advertising spend automatically, e.g. with automated search bid management. Rocket science testing solutions would generate and evaluate thousands of multivariate versions of the same web page to test which one is best at persuading visitors.

But any thought of focusing on the customer was deprioritized.

For example, I recently called my iPhone carrier to say that I was thinking about cancelling the service since reception at my home was unusable. Yet, when I logged into my online account afterwards the website made no attempt to retain me or win me back.

Instead, it was still busy cross-selling me stuff.

Web marketing in 2010: Focus on individual level data for targeting and accurate ROI calculations

It wasn’t due to learning from more tenured marketing colleagues that web marketers changed. After all, in 2010 the web vs. other marketing teams still remain frustratingly silo’d.

But the addition of new online channels has thrust greatness on the online marketer:

Mobile

Mobile is an inherently personal device. So, web marketers aren’t just treating it as a second website but looking into opportunities for more personalized dialog.

For example, San Francisco based GoodGuide’s iPhone application allows users to scan barcodes in the store to get information on a product’s environmental and social acceptability, as well as healthiness. But users can also set lists of favored and “avoid these” products in their GoodGuide account on the fixed Internet website. When you login to your account from the iPhone your favoreds and avoids become available to you.

It is hard to think of a more crunchy-granola (i.e. socially responsible) business than GoodGuide’s. And yet they have integrated individual level data across channels!

Not as an evil scheme, but as a service to their customers! And with opt-in, of course.

That is very promising!

Behavioral Advertising and Email

While ads and email were mass marketing channels, they are now increasingly becoming an extension of a company’s website.

• The ads that you see when visiting e.g. a newspaper’s site can be targeted to you based on your prior behavior on the advertiser’s website. Many ad networks exist that, for example, help re-market to individuals based on products they abandoned or segments for which they were profiled.
• The emails that you receive can show personalized content and promotional offers (e.g. coupons) that were dynamically selected for you based on your click behavior on the website. For example, one Unica client in Europe is sending more than 1 million unique email variations per month.

Advertisers

It is most unexpected, but another push to go from the aggregate to the individual level comes from advertisers.

Why?

As more marketing funds are shifting online, accountability is king. Media buyers want to take credit for influencing individuals that were exposed to ads even if they didn’t click on them. That requires integrating web and ad serving analytics at the level of individual ad viewers and website visitors.

Several analytics vendors, including Unica, make that possible now.

Social Media

Finally, social media pushed web marketers over the edge in their appreciation for multichannel integration with an eye towards individual level interactions.

• Marketers are keen to learn which customers have interacted with their Facebook application even if there wasn’t a direct click-through to the website.
• The Facebook API provides information on an individual’s social graph, i.e. their connection to other Facebook users.
• Websites equipped with Facebook Connect can draw on Facebook authentication outside the Facebook.com domain. That means they can also draw on other Facebook API information in the visiting individual and include that in their analytics and behavioral targeting.
• Advertising networks have become available that target ads to individuals based on their social graph, i.e. assuming that you are more likely to care about XYZ if your direct friend connections purchased XYZ.
• Social CRM has become a buzzword and refers to various online interactions with individual customers. For example web marketers are keen to see that disgruntled Twitterers receive a direct response to turn them around. Meanwhile fans should get encouraged to keep spreading the word.

There is still a missing link for integrating CRM with Social CRM in terms of mapping individuals’ identities. However, vendors are already working on closing that gap.

• Social media monitoring tools such as Radian6 list together each individual’s blog vs. Twitter vs. Facebook identities if they can detect them.
• Vendors such as RapLeaf have begun offering social data append services for CRM databases.

Summary

1. Bottom-line, the web marketing world is in the midst of an onsite-offsite integration era.
2. That has required web marketers to move beyond aggregate level data and think about data at the level of individuals.
3. With that, they now share with direct marketers an appetite for individual level click data for the purposes of analyzing and behavioral targeting.
4. This happened at a time when technology has become increasingly integrated between analytics, email marketing, and behavioral targeting.
5. Online-offline integration is not main-stream yet. But never before have web and direct marketers been so parallel in their multichannel goals and thinking.

I am excited for 2010.

Tags: Customer Centricity, multichannel marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Social media metrics, targeting, Web Analytics by akin
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In part 1 of this series I summarized the crossroads at which digital marketing has arrived in 2010. In this part we will look at the surprising advances that direct marketing has made in the past two years.

The old-new direct marketing: Outbound

What web marketers don’t realize is that the new direct marketing (since the late 90s) has been a highly digital discipline in terms of the sophisticated, predictive analytics that were employed. Just not so digital in terms of the channels through which messages were brought out.

But why do we still have so much spam and junk mail then?

Because, while direct marketers employed PhD level analytics they lacked any timely data on their customers’ current interests. So the predictions were only true on average.

It’s like having a GPS device that tells you the neighborhood in which you are currently driving but can’t tell you which street corner you need to turn at.

The new-new direct marketing: outbound and Inbound and real time

The increasing digitalization and integration of channels made inbound and real-time marketing possible. Now, while a client is still on your website, or on the phone with your call-center, in front of your ATM, or using their mobile phone application to interact with you, the new direct marketer’s sophisticated analytics can be fed with real time context. That puts them in the position to refine their offer decisioning (i.e. behavioral targeting) on the spot.

Direct marketers from many industries have taken notice and expanded their ambitions to embrace the real time in their work. Thanks for that, web analytics are now increasingly on their minds too as a rich source of very current behavioral data.

Examples of the new-new direct marketing:

• Banks in Europe and the US have implemented interactive marketing programs that target individuals behaviorally in a consistent and analytical manner, regardless of which channel the interaction is on, i.e. the branch, the web, the phone, or outbound channels.
• Telcos in Australia, Europe, and US are including web behavior as part of their scoring calculations for attrition risk
• Multiple large, high-tech, B2B businesses in the US have designed demand generation marketing programs that integrate the web with other channels of interaction.
• Cable TV operators in Europe have implemented marketing programs that deliver targeted ads through direct TV. They are able to follow up consistently through phone, email, and web to nurture their leads and measure response across.
• With retailers, the degree to which the web team is asked to participate in a one-to-one marketing program depends on whether the team rolls up to the CMO or whether it is silo’d within an eCommerce, i.e. sales function. In the latter case, the web tean is told to focus on the website alone and it is difficult to get funding for cross-channel projects.

Overall though, we do seem to be heading towards a tipping point some time in the coming years.

Europe vs. USA, who is ahead?

From working with companies across continents, I gain the impression that more Europeans have been working on integrated marketing vs. Americans.

This is despite the fact that Europeans are much more concerned about privacy.

More European companies seem to have implemented sophisticated cross-channel programs or are issuing related projects. Until this year maybe, where noticably more American marketers are launching similar projects.

But until recently I felt as if the average American marketer was still building “Marketing Cadillacs” whereas Europeans were building “Marketing BMWs”.

Add to that the fact that Europeans (and Asians) are also ahead in their adoption of mobile devices including the willingness to interact with marketing messages.

Then you wonder what happened to the days when America was still 5 – 7 years ahead of Europe with any business innovation.

Wake up call!

—

In the final part of this series we will look at web marketing that has truly become multichannel in 2010.

Tags: Direct Marketing, multichannel marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics by akin
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In the two years since publishing the Multichannel Metrics book, the face of marketing has changed drastically.

We are entering a critical crossroads in 2010.

By 2013, will we look back and find that this was the year when marketers from online and other marketing teams first realized how similar their goals have become and took steps towards integration across camps?

Or will we look back and find that the camps remained ignorant of each other and instead set in stone silo’d technologies making integration more difficult than ever? 

What do you mean, web and direct marketers’ goals are aligned now?

Marketers have had no choice.

Greatness has been thrust upon them!

Direct marketers

1. Have seen marketing dollars beginning to shift from offline to online
2. Finally see clearly that a large portion of interactions with their customers has moved online. For example, according to anecdotal feedback from several older European banks, 25% to 50% of their clients use online banking now. Some financial institutes acquire the majority, if not all, customers online.

Online marketers

1. Have had to abandon their silo’d, website-centric thinking because their websites are now only one component of their total web presence. Other presences include social media, mobile sites, behaviorally targeted ads and personalized emails.
2. They may continue to treat the offline as a step child for another couple years. Yet, they are already adopting multi-online-channel marketing practices for the purpose of integrating all these web presences.
3. The latter has required them to move from their traditional focus on aggregate level metrics and dashboards to looking at data about individuals across website, mobile, social, and advertising. This experience with individual level data will also make it easier for them to integrate their customers’ offline interactions down the road.

As a result, both online and direct marketers are now pursuing multi-channel data integration at the level of individual prospects and customers. Both camps do this for the purposes of

1. behavioral targeting,
2. better understanding of marketing ROI.

The technology gap is closing

While all vendors talked the talk for 360 degree views, the reality was different. Web analytics data was far removed from a direct marketers’ access.

• After all, the data are owned by the web team who couldn’t care less about individual level data at that time.
• The data are also hosted remotely at SaaS based web analytics vendors that prioritized reporting and good looking charts over granular data. As a result, data feeds (while available) would come with no SLAs. A feed might or might not arrive at the agreed time of night. That made it too unreliable for driving interactive (let alone real time) marketing programs.

Meanwhile, web marketers could integrate analytics based targeting into email marketing only by bridging the gap between several vendors and paying for integration services.

These technology gaps are now increasingly closing.

• Omniture is positioning its online marketing suite along with integrations with ESP partners through its Genesis program.
• Unica is positioning both
  • Its eMessage and Interact products for email and web personalization integrated with Unica’s web analytics and campaign management products for enterprise clients
  • Its recently launched Interactive Marketing OnDemand product where SaaS based customers use web analytics, email, and web personalization within a single application and UI.

The crossroads

This alignment of methods, goals, and technology represents our arrival at a crossroads.

(note added on March 12th): Maybe the word alignment is too much said.  But methods, goals, and technology are now more parallel and similar than ever.

But will we leave these crossroads into an integrated future or will we set in stone two silo’d multichannel worlds between online and direct marketing teams?

That is the big question.

—

In part 2 we will look at direct marketers vs. digital. Then in part 3 we will review where multichannel web marketing stands in 2010.

Tags: Business Metrics, Direct Marketing, multichannel marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics by akin
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