Pub 355: Beyond Fans and FollowersMeasuring Online Marketing Campaigns

Presented October 26, 2012

Not everything that counts can be measured.

Albert Einstein

Not everything that can be measured counts.

We live in a data-driven time. I can go to the gym in the morning and the exercise bike will benchmark my workout. It will tell me how many other people did this workout. It will compare my time on the bike today to my time on the bike yesterday.

I feel like I’m meant to do something with this data. But I don’t know what it is.

I feel the same way when I’m tracking my online marketing activities. There is so much data that I can collect, but I don’t know what to do with it. I feel awash in data but not meaningful information.

I’m going to share with you my insights into Metrics That Make Money.

We will cover 3 main things:What you need to measure and whyHow to make Google Analytics make senseAnd what useful intelligence you can glean from SMM

There are 2 things we like to measure:

Things that lead to sales

Sales

Sales

Google Analytics makes it easy to track sales. You just have to know how to create a goal funnel.

What’s a Goal Funnel?

A funnel represents the path that you expect visitors to take on their way to converting to a goal. It’s a defined set of pages or steps.

I view my cart. I click go to checkout. I complete my order.

A Goal Funnel shows the funnel conversion rate, as well as the points along the path where the visitor abandons the task.

2 Things:1. Know conversion rate so you can do some forecasting2. Understand abandonment and what needs to be optimized

Reason it’s important for the non-ecommerce folks is1. You can set up goal tracking for any non-financial conversion too like downloads, contest entries, subscriptions.

Also, if you are selling online through other retailers, they have this data. They may not want to share, but it is the info you want.

You want to see the number of impressions being served on your product pages and what areas of the site convert, plus where people abandon the task.

1. So you can make forecasts and 2. So you can make improvements.

Maybe you have lots of impressions but nobody is adding to cart. Why? Does your copy suck? Is the book not available?

The data will always tell you if something is working or not. It just won’t tell you have to fix it.

Things that lead to sales

Sales

Website Visitors

Twitter Followers

Facebook Fans RTs

Press MentionsEmail Opens

Customer Feedback

Herding cats.

Let’s call “Things that lead to sales”: our micro actions. These are the precursors to a sale. Things that have a non-financial impact but help us understand what influences a purchase.

(website visitors, fans/followers, email subscribers, recos from influential ppl, RTs from influential ppl, press mentions, email opens, feedback (insights into customers that we didn’t know before)

Many of these micro actions are about gaining permission to continue marketing to someone. It’s about earning trust. It’s quid pro quo. This for that. Action and Reaction.

A customer gives you their email address, which you promise not to spam, in return for valuable, relevant information in your email newsletter. You nurture a relationship with a blogger, or on twitter or Facebook, in order to solicit feedback, to be recommended, to earn media mentions, to amplify the conversation you would like to have about your books and authors.

Again, since these are influencing factors that can lead to a sale, we want to measure this activity.

Not everything has to be about Revenue, but in my experience, when people ask “did it work”, they mean “did we make money”.

Things that lead to sales

Sales

Acquisition Website Visitors, time on site

ActivationNumber of pageviews, repeat visits, subscription (email, blog), account sign-up (profile data), Fan/Follower

Retention Email Opens, Click-throughs, Repeat visits

ReferralPress Mention, RT,

Refers 1+visitors to the site; Refers 1+ visitors who activate

Another way to look at those metrics is to group them into the stages of a customer lifecycle.

Acquisition: users come to the site from various channelsActivation: users enjoy 1st visitRetention: users come back, visit multiple timesReferral: users like product enough to refer othersRevenue: users conduct some monetization behaviour

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.

Misquote from Alice in Wonderland

Are we down the rabbit hole yet?

The #1 reason why we don’t know if our online marketing activities are working or not is because we have not defined our goals.

Without clearly defined goals we have no criteria for evaluating success.Your goals outline your intent. Your intent informs what you can measure.

A simple Contest

• Reach a new audience or reinforce our connection to an existing audience

Goal Lifecycle Action Reaction Metrics

Reach a new audience

AcquireActivateRetain

ListenIntroduce

ResponseVisit to the site

SubscribeReturn

@ / RT / CommentVisitors

Subscriptions (email/RSS)Fan/Follower

Account sign-upReturn Visits

Reinforce our connection to

existing audience

RetainReferralRevenue

Talk Pitch

Thank

ResponseVisit the site

ActRefer

@ / RT / CommentRepeat visitsEmail opens

CTR / Goal FunnelMentionsReferrals

Referrals who convert

Take a contest for example: We want to run a contest. Why? What’s the goal? To reach a new audience or reinforce our connection to an existing audience.

Maybe it’s a contest to win a collection of cookbooks. We’ll do outreach to foodie blogs. Get them to talk about the contest. People will submit a comment or recipe or do some action as the entry.

So we can measure the macro action = entries.

But there is so much more than entries that will give us insight into the success of this campaign.

(load graph)

Google Analytics: Annotations

Monique Trottier@BoxcarMarketing

Show annotations: Do you get more traffic to the website during the campaign period? Or when you engage in a particular action like sending out a newsletter, running an ad. Track this through annotations.

Google Analytics: Title- or Author-Specific Searches

Show: Are there more searches for the title or author you’re promoting?OpenBook Toronto, for example, whenever there’s a new writer in residence, you can see the spike in analytics of people coming to the site as a result of greater awareness created by OpenBook activities.

If you’re actively promoting a title with a mix of online and offline, make this one of your metrics. Can you increase the number of people coming to your site because they’re heard about the book and are searching online for it.

Google Analytics: Audience Segments

If running a blogger outreach campaign or you’re doing media pitches. You can measure the referral traffic from those sites, but what you really want to know is which sites are sending you the most qualified traffic?

It’s about volume + activation

Who is referring you traffic that activates? Remember our Customer Lifecycle...Time on sitePageviewsPages per visitRepeat visits

Most important are those Goal Funnel. Who completes a desired action?Subscribes to the newsletterDownloads a pdfSigns up for an account and provides profile dataBuys a book

You need Goal Funnels, which we talked aboutAnd Audience segments

Creating a segment lets you run comparison reports against that segment.

(show report then how to set up)

A simple campaign to build Reputation

• Use a blog to establish authority / expertise for an author. • Focus on writing good content first and self-promotion second

Goal Metrics

Nth position in relation to competitors by a certain date

Pagerank + # inbound links from influential blogs

# bookmarks (Delicious)Google Position in Search Results

X% increase of traffic per month

Volume of organic traffic per month# inbound links from influential sites

# email subscribers or fan/followers who can be directed to the site

X$ per month attributable to referrals from blog

Segment and Funnel: Traffic that converts to sales

macro: Net Profit per Sale. (Revenue - Total Expenses) / transactionsSuggested Max PPC Bid Value (Net Profit per Sale * Conversion Rate)

micro: number bookmarks, sharethisRSS subscribersemail subscommentsretweets@ mentions

A really simple campaign to increase Engagement

• Be nice to customers who mention your company / authors / titles on Twitter

Goal Metrics

Increase # positive conversations

# positive comments sent to customers per week w/in given timeframe

# of conversations that started from those comments

# additional activation points

micro: CTR (Click-Thru-Rate) Landing Page Arrivals Conversion Rate Gross New Subscribers Confirmation Rate Net New Email Subscribers Average Cost per Click Marketing Cost Cost per Net New Email Subscriber

A problematic campaign to increase Offline Sales

• Implement a promotion on social media with a specific store. • Give participants a printable campaign voucher so you can track offline sales

Goal Metrics

Download voucher Goal Funnel: Impressions, Form Completion; Downloads

$ monthly sales monthly sales

% increase in store traffic over pre-promo period monthly store traffic

Attract an audience in a particular area traffic from particular area

macro:cost per leadwhat reach at what cost

A simple campaign to increase Online Sales

• Use Twitter or Facebook to inform prospects about special promotions. • Exclusive, limited-customer/limited time offers.

Goal Metrics

Increase monthly sales monthly sales attributable directly to SMM

Increase % value from new customers Segment & Funnel: new customers attributable directly to campaign

Increase conversions from Twitter traffic

Segment & Funnel: monthly revenue generated from customers from Twitter

Retain X% of new customers Repeat customers from that groupUnsubscribe rates

Reach large numbers of readers

If you’re doing your own ecommerce, see what things you can do to compel purchasers to add this to their profile.

macro: cost per leadcost per conversionaverage purchase value

micro: referralsinquiriescoupon downloads

Social Media Measurements

Monique Trottier@BoxcarMarketing

Platform Ratio of Posts to X Peak Conversion Content Resonance

Email Opens DayTime of Day

OpensCTR

Unsubscribes

Twitter RTs DayTime of Day

RTs@

Recos

Facebook Interactions DayTime of Day

LikeShare

Comment

Beyond time-based campaigns, there’s the general, day-to-day work to maintain and build your audience in preparation for future campaigns.

What are the successes? Time cost of developing content so, how do know if it’s worth the time?

Likely have a certain number of tools that you use on a regular basis: email newsletters, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Slideshare. Each tool serves a specific purpose. Each tool should have specific goals and metrics

Here’s one way to look at it.

How am I supposed to find the time to also track what I’m doing.

Less is more.

This is not a make work exercise. This is about insights so you can optimize your activities.

You choose how far down the rabbit hole to go.

Make a Hypothesis about your Customer Lifecycle and those Precursors to ConversionChoose 5-10 conversion points that are directly related to business objectivesMeasure & refineFocus on conversion improvements

Data is black and white

• The number tell you if it’s working or not working.

• The numbers do not tell you how to fix it.

• The job of a web analysts is to understand and communicate the story behind the numbers.

Monique Trottier@BoxcarMarketing

Let’s take a Breather

ABC Metrics

Revenue

AcquisitionAcquisition: Where do New/Return Visitors come from?

Activation

Behaviour: What do they do on the siteRetention

Referral

Conversion: What precursors influence sales?

So when I’m looking at Google Analytics, I’m thinking about the data as it relates to those customer stages.

Acquisition

• 161.01% increase in visits starting in Fall 2011 season• Where did those visits came from: Direct, Google, Paid, Facebook• If Paid, what’s the Cost per Click?

Cost per Click

• Pay per Click (PPC) advertising

• Cost per Click (CPC) is the amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad

• If you spend $5,000 on ads and get 10,000 clicks, this is a CPC of $0.50

Cost ÷ Clicks = CPC$5,000 ÷ 10,000 = $0.50

Behaviour

• 30 days before a book event is when visitor traffic starts to increase. • 1 week before launch night is the sharpest increase • As expected, the top content pages during each spike are for the featured book

Conversions

• Traffic to tickets page follows similar patterns to the total visits.• 1.59% ecommerce rate (orders/visits)• New Visitors generate 97% of transactions, Repeat Visitors only 3%

Conversion Rate% of visitors who convert to a desired action: buy, sign-up, download

In ecommerce, it refers to the percentage of Visits that convert to OrdersNumber of Orders ÷ Number of Visits = Conversion Rate (E-commerce)

As an example, a website that generated $100,000 of sales through 2,000 orders in a month with 40,000 visits, has an Average Order Value of $50 and Conversion Rate of 5% (which is quite high):

$100,000 ÷ 2,000 = $50 AOV2,000 ÷ 40,000 = 0.5 = 5% CR

This means that 5 out of 100 visits turn into an average of $50 revenue

This can then be used to project revenue for a campaign aimed at generating another 5,000 visits, in the following manner:

Number of Visits × CR × AOV = Projected Revenue5,000 × 5% × $50 = 250 × $50 = $12,500

What Channels Complete Ecommerce Transactions?

• The Traffic Sources to Tickets show that Search, Referral, Social Media and CPC traffic are the best drivers

Off-Site: Social Networks

Facebook performs best for volume of trafficBlogger is a great channel bringing second best traffic and longest duration of visit, second only to YouTube.

I’d give up on Yahoo! Answers but spend more time on LinkedIn.

Top 30 Locations (ECommerce)

Month over Month Top Reporting Metrics

Revenue

Acquisition

ActivationRetentionReferralWhat behaviour do they engage in? If outreach, what sites are most valuable?

How many conversions?If time on marketing activities, which perform best?

How do we acquire visitors?If paid traffic, is it working?

Total VisitsVisit SourcesVisits to Tickets by Channel

Pages/VisitBounce rateAverage time on site% repeat visitsNon-transaction activities:

Visit performance pagesVisit blogSign up for eNewsEnter a contestExit via social media links

Ecommerce Conversion RateNumber of transactionsAverage order value% from new vs. return visitors

Instead of just looking at data after the fact, better to look at comparative data month over month during the season. Looking for actionable data: what does it tell you to doIf you’re paying for traffic, is it working?If you’re doing outreach, which sites are most valuable?If you’re spending time on marketing activities, which perform best?

Quiz

Imagine you’re running an online advertising campaign promoting Louise Penny’s bestselling novel.

• The goal is 2,000 pre-orders.

• The cost of the book is $29.99

• You’ve spent $5,000 on ads.

• Your ads received 400,000 impressions & generated 200 pre-orders to date.

What is the conversion rate for pre-orders from this ad campaign?

What is the net income (total revenue - expenses) this ad campaign generated?

200 / 400,000 * 100 = 0.05%

($29.95 * 200) - $5000 = $998

Budgets, Costs and Time

• Approximately 2 hours per channel per week in maintenance mode

• 50-100 hours for a 2-week contest or in active campaign mode

• $200 for contest badge or ad

• Facebook contest using Antavo, max. $300

• Facebook ads, est. $1000-3000

• Media release Newswire.ca, est. $300-600

• Publicity $3-5000 per city

• Landing page: $1500-4000

• Microsite: design $2500, programming Wordpress $5-7000

• Display Ads on blogs: $750-1500+

• Video: $3-5000

Next Class

Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo, “Chapter 6: Measuring Success: How to Monitor the Web,” Friends With Benefits, 99-114.

Social Media ROI: Socialnomics, http://youtu.be/QzZyUaQvpdc

Olivier Blanchard, “Basics of Social Media ROI,” http://www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-blanchard-basics-of-social-media-roi

Jay Baer, “6 Social Media Success Metrics You Need to Track,” Social Media Examiner, http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/6-social-media-success-metrics-you-need-to-track/

Questions?

Contact InfoMonique Sherrettmonique@boxcarmarkting.com604-732-6467