Multichannel Marketing Metrics
with Akin

Exciting times! The consolidation in the marketing technology industry is producing a big league of solutions providers.

Dreaming ahead into the future, what can companies hope to achieve with this new breed of marketing software and services providers?

The end-to-end conversion optimization vision that still seemed far reaching to me back in February, looks much more limited now given the new outlook today.

Disclaimer: The following perspective reflects only my personal dreams and shouldn’t be taken to represent the positions, strategies or opinions of my employer.

Digital Enterprise Marketing++

It isn’t possible to do the coming future justice by calling it next generation analytics, campaign management, or marketing automation. The step up in caliber requires also a step up in language.

Might the following become every day terms in enterprise marketing technology in 2011 and beyond?

Marketing Mix Management (MMM)

Today’s discussion is at the level of point solutions such as search bid management tools (for PPC) and demand side platforms (for display advertising). In coming years, will we see all these combined into a single solution for MMM?

MMM would not only allocate advertising budgets towards marketing mix optimization. It would also automate the execution of these ad strategies, their testing, and the data collection into marketing performance management.

Marketing Performance Management (MPM)

Today’s discussion is at the level of web analytics, benchmarking, landing page and site optimization, social media monitoring, predictive analytics, BI, analytical CRM, social CRM, etc.

In coming years, will we see all these combined into a single MPM environment?

MPM would have to combine the aforementioned point solutions for analytics into one interoperable data environment. Users would want drag & drop flexibility to analyze across silos. Think Minority Report.

The data that flows into MPM would include in-house data marts with sensitive information. That means that we may see the pendulum swinging back to in-house software for things such as web analytics.

Interactive Marketing (IM)

IM is the successor to behavioral targeting and direct marketing. It is based on the accepted notion that marketing is more successful when it is timely and relevant. Therefore, interactions via websites, IVR, email, and any other addressable channel should take into account each user’s past and current behavior to personalize content and marketing offers.

Marketing – Fulfillment Synchronization (MFS)

The dream of automating marketing mix execution requires good synchronization with fulfillment. After all, you wouldn’t want to advertise on product XYZ if it is out of stock. And your ability to set a max PPC bid price for product ABC depends on its true margin, i.e. includes product costs and not just ROAS (ROAS=revenue/ad costs).

Companies such as Amazon have been working on creating ads programmatically for years based on inventory. MFS would take this capability to the enterprise software market.

Marketing Operations Management (MOM)

Already used by the largest marketing operations today, MOM is the successor to spreadsheets, notes on napkins, and the like. It is used e.g. at one famous furniture retailer to orchestrate the development of their catalogues. If any of the other ideas above are to become true, hordes of marketers in the organizations need to work together like a machine. Digital assets need to be created in support of personalized messaging. MOM provides project and workflow management on steroids to facilitate all that.

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One level down we may see practical applications that include software and services in support of specific steps in the customer lifecycle. These more confined solutions may help companies start small, prove value, and grow from there.

On-Boarding Concierge

Successful on-boarding is key for turning newly acquired customers into clients with a high lifetime value expectation (e.g. in banking). The automated concierge would connect to marketing performance management and interactive marketing in order to monitor and orchestrate what needs to be done.

Re-Marketing Optimizer

Re-marketing may be the oldest trick in the book. But it is still tricky to predict who needs just a reminder vs. who needs an incentive to come back. The re-marketing optimizer would provide that intelligence based on marketing performance management insights and connect to interactive marketing to get the message out.

Multichannel, Multi-touch Marketing Attribution

Point solutions for marketing attribution online vs. response attribution in direct marketing need to merge into one multichannel platform. Marketers should ask software vendors for more than just attribution reports. They should also ask for advice on which touch points deserve how much of the credit. Ideally, the marketing mix modeling function would also be covered by providing advertisers with a prediction as to what they can expect from placing their next ad dollar in each channel.

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And the list could go on and on.

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None of the above can replace good old fashioned, customer service with a smile.

But for companies that are already doing a good job at taking care of their customers and building products that delight, the next step can be to compete on Marketing.

Exciting times should be ahead for that.

For those about to rock & roll with marketing, I salute you.

Tags: Business Metrics, Customer Centricity, Direct Marketing, Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Search marketing optimization, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
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It used to be that SEM was the umbrella term for paid and organic. Articles on search would begin with a sentence such as “Search engine marketing (SEM) comes in two types: paid (PPC) and organic (SEO).”. I used to abbreviate that as “SEM=PPC+SEO”.

But something changed in the past 3-12 months.

Now, most articles seem to explain SEM as “search marketing” and equate it only with paid search. You read sentences such as “SEO is going like this and that, whereas SEM (search marketing) is going … (wherever Google and Facebook are going)”.

That seems wrong on so many levels

What? Organic search is not “marketing”?

If PPC is Search Marketing, then what is SEO? An IT function?

That’s baloney.

The effort of prioritizing what keywords (i.e. audiences, buyers, markets) your site should rank for is a strategic marketing function. It is in line with marketing best practices to consider SEO a marketing function and investment. For example, books such as Marketing Champions include great reminders that marketing is ultimately about “identifying sources of new cash and helping to rake these in.”

What? PPC advertising = Marketing = Advertising?

Since when is Marketing equal with just advertising? Is that something that Google and Facebook put in people’s heads, i.e. that if they want to do search marketing then they have to pony up the cash for every visitor that clicks? Or is it the Madmen TV show that is to blame?

If PPC advertising isn’t embedded in a broader strategy and coordinated with organic search it will be the 60% of the online marketing budget that is wasted.

What? Search marketing stops at organic rank optimization and advertising?

You often hear of paid search marketing as the art of advertising (with help of agencies or search bid management tools) and organic search marketing as the art of improving rankings. Yet, these are only some of the ingredients in what should be proper search marketing.

Search marketing optimization requires much more, e.g. audience research, landing page design, landing page optimization, funnel optimization, and re-targeting.

Digital marketers are surprisingly silo’d. There are separate teams (and agencies) for organic vs. paid. The teams for website optimization are separate and so are the teams for email marketing. This silo’d specialization is probably to blame for the lack of an end-to-end view on optimization.

So what is a better term to use then?

I wonder whether the current trend may have risen just because of the visual appeal of the acronyms: SEO vs. SEM. Visually, they may seem as if they were referring to the two categories of search when you look from a distance. In contrast, the PPC vs. organic terms don’t have a visual relationship.

But there is no need for this abuse.

We can just simply go back to saying “paid vs. organic search” which are both aspects of search marketing.

Tags: Search marketing optimization, multichannel marketing by akin
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You might be squandering a huge opportunity if you aren’t using web analytics as a rich source of behavioral insights on individual prospects and customers.

Read the full article published on the brilliant new online-behavior site. There you’ll also see uses of Venn diagrams for behavioral analytics that are more serious than the recent fun with the nerd vs. geeks Venn diagram post.

Kudos to Daniel Waisberg for launching online-behavior.com!

Tags: Customer Centricity, Direct Marketing, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing, targeting by akin
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Ever since the brilliant Nerd-Geek-Dork Venn diagram below started zipping all over blogs in Sept 2009, I have been waiting for genius to strike me so that I might think of ways to apply this to the analytics topic.

Sadly, genius never struck.

But here are a few Venn diagrams anyway that kind-of, sort-of make sense and contain a few useful reminders.

The Analyst vs. Change Agent Venn Diagram

A good reminder how critical both business acumen and political skills are so that analysts can be the change agents that we so much desire to be.

The Bean Counter Venn Diagram

A web / marketing analyst also needs to balance an eye towards saving money with an entrepreneurial spirit towards identifying new sources of cash. Veer off too much into one or the other direction, you might be either a bean counter or something worse.

The Segmentation to Recommendation Venn Diagram

A good reminder how critical segmentation is to analysis because static reports probably never tell a story that leads to action. Good reminder also that the true goal of analysis is to get to recommendations as Eric Peterson was pointing out in his keynote at the eMetrics Marketing Innovation Summit conference in San Jose in May.

The Business Optimization Venn Diagram

The purpose of the last one is to remind how web analytics by itself just doesn’t lead to web business optimization. It needs to be combined with customer analytics and put into context with the wider marketing history. The latter refers to preceding marketing touch points and each individuals’ responses (e.g. did or didn’t click-through on an email that they received).

Another possibility that arises at the center of this Venn diagram is interactive marketing. My colleagues and I at Unica take interactive marketing verbally, i.e. the kind of targeted marketing communications that take into account each customer’s past and current actions. That makes the combination of web analytics, customer analytics, and marketing history indispensable.

Tags: Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
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Today is another exciting day in the history of web analytics.

Or was today another step forward on the inevitable path of web analytics (as we knew it) to becoming history?

For Unica’s read of today’s news, check my post on IBM’s acquisition of Coremetrics on Unica’s blog.

Tags: Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Multichannel marketing metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
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The title of this joint webcast with Radian6 might as well have been: “Bringing order to the wild west of social media through analytics”.  Or “The sherriffs are riding into social media marketing high noon”.

All kidding aside, neither web analytics nor social media monitoring alone can do today’s social web justice. So, we are very lucky to have Lauren from Radian6 as our featured presenter in this Thursday’s WAA, educational webcast series (sponsored by Unica).

Thursday, June 10, 2010 at noon Eastern.
Combine social media monitoring with web analytics to
improve your chance at social media success.

Lauren Vargas Community Relations Manager, Radian6

Measuring social media success is a coin with two faces:

1. What participants say about you outside of your website/sphere of influence.
2. How your social media presence – through your website, Facebook, Twitter, ad campaigns, etc. – influences behavior.

This unique event brings together leaders from social media monitoring and web analytics. Tune in to learn:

1. A practical framework for social media measurement that helps you avoid analysis paralysis.
2. The why and how of combining social media monitoring with web analytics.
3. How to go beyond social media analytics to increasing viral reach and social relationship success.

The webcast has been recorded and Web Analytics Association members can watch it from the WAA’s website.

Tags: Multichannel Marketing Measurement, Social media metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
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Like most vendors at the eMetrics marketing optimization conference this year, I only had a chance to attend very few of the sessions. But each of the ones I did attend was awesome.

Even more awesome than I remember from past years.

Here are five track sessions that were real gems:

[Read more →]

Tags: Direct Marketing, Multichannel marketing metrics, Social media metrics, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing by akin
1 Comment »

The team at Online Marketing with RSS Ray kindly invited me to present on BrightTALK yesterday on five ways to increase returns from SEM.

This was a welcome opportunity for me to detail my recommendations for how to optimize search engine marketing from end-to-end rather than focusing only on search bid management and SEO.

If you are new to online or search marketing, you will hopefully find this a useful intro to help you plan your optimization efforts. If you are already experienced in online marketing, especially SEM, then the only useful piece for you in this presentation will be a reminder that SEM optimization requires you to take a complete view.

Otherwise, the weakest link in the chain will break your ROI.

Tags: Search marketing optimization, Web Analytics, multichannel marketing, targeting by akin
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Last Wednesday (March 31st) Eric Siegel presented on 5 Ways of leveraging predictive analysis using web analytics data.

Registrations and attendance were very strong which isn’t surprising because the WAA”s yearly survey had recently shown that predictive analysis is a top question on which web analysts seek to get more education.

You can access the recording of the webcast here.

Meanwhile, Eric was nice and speedy enough to answer all the questions that came in during the webcast. You can access the Q&A on the new Unica blog.

Check this Q&A blog post out even if you don’t have enough time to watch the webcast.

By the way, did you know Unica had a blog? It was recently restarted and is on fire with lots of contributors blogging across the company now.

Thanks much to Eric Siegel for a super insightful webcast and Q&A. If you had any doubts on whether predictive analysis makes sense on web analytics data, then be sure to watch this webcast to open your eyes.

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