Analytic Fundamentals

A good article by Andrew Edwards  from ClickZ

To make the most out of analytic, you should

·         Understand how to work your way through my interface.

·         Accept "reporting" as the output.

·         Be prepared to interpret the data you see.

·         Remember it’s a tracking tool only.

·         Provide data and leave the process of change to real people.

Analytic is not

·         An automatic insight engine – it needs people to do that based on the data it provides.

·         Analytic doesn't tell you  what your business is attempting to accomplish. You need to know this on your own.

·         Analytic cannot change your content. Only you can change your content (after you decide which content worked better based on my reporting).

·         Analytic does not provide answers to business questions all by itself. It can only supply data on user activity. A real person in the physical world may need to interpret my data and create natural language analysis

·         Analytic is not a process. Process is an important part of the marketer's optimisation exercise, but analytic does not embody a process.

·         Analytic is is not related to artificial intelligence. 

Google Real-Time Insight Finder

It doesn't make sense if you do not go through these tools before you execute your integrated digital marketing activities

More details on Real-Time Insight Finder

What 's Big Data

Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data–so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere: from sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos posted online, transaction records of online purchases, and from mobile phone GPS signals to name a few. This data is big data.

Big data spans three dimensions: Variety, Velocity and Volume.

·         Variety – Big data extends beyond structured data, including unstructured data of all varieties: text, audio, video, click streams, log files and more.

·         Velocity – Often time-sensitive, big data must be used as it is streaming in to the enterprise in order to maximize its value to the business.

·         Volume – Big data comes in one size: large. Enterprises are awash with data, easily amassing terabytes and even petabytes of information.

Big data is more than a challenge; it is an opportunity to find insight in new and emerging types of data, to make your business more agile, and to answer questions that, in the past, were beyond reach. Until now, there was no practical way to harvest this opportunity. Today, the big data opens the door to a world of possibilities, giving organizations a solution that is designed specifically with the needs of the enterprise in mind:

In a context, what are the most powerful ways marketers will be using big data?

1.     Attribution - understanding which channels, content, and messaging is working best.

2.     Personalisation and engagement scoring - delivering the right message to the right person at the right time.

3.     Sales efficiency and effectiveness - giving the sales department more relevant information at the right time, helping to close more business faster.

4.     closing the loop - from marketing lead to sale and ultimately maximizing true ROI.

Typically in a high-consideration (B2B), multi-touch sales process, most marketers are only tracking web activity to lead. This only tells a part of the story. In reality, marketing campaigns are still interacting with people into the late stages of the buying process. Connect your data from lead to sale; and directly tie marketing activity to revenue and you get the full picture.

As digital marketing techniques and technologies have evolved, front-end metrics from web analytics tools often fall short in delivering enough high-value insight to drive business decisions. Deriving high-value business insights from disconnected datasets and offline sales processes often requires time-consuming, complex, and expensive software implementations. It doesn't have to be long, complicated, or expensive, but you do need help - either internally uniting from IT and database experts, or outside help from specialists with experience doing just this.

1.     What opportunities exist to boost sales conversions vs. just increasing traffic or lead conversions?

2.     How do content, channels, and user experience affect lead quality and conversion-to-sale?

3.     How do buyers behave differently from non-buyers across campaigns, channels, and your website?

4.     Where should I invest my marketing and media dollars to produce the largest ROI, not just more traffic or conversions?

Implementation

1.     Write JavaScript code to set a cookie from your website and pass it as a custom variable to your analytics platform, in this case Google Analytics. This ensures the unique customer key will be generated on the customer's first visit, and then passed with every click, event, and goal completion that Google Analytics captures. It also ensures that the customer key will be consistently retained in the user's browser across sessions.

2.     Pass the customer key to the client's lead management system. Most have web service API for lead form submissions.

3.     Modify your reports and data extracts to automatically load a SQL database with web analytics and lead data. Since leads are eventually converted to sales in the lead management system, you now had all the data needed to perform a closed-loop analysis.

4.     Push some of the key findings from this data into your real-time dashboard system. This unlocks key sales and marketing data from complex and hard-to-read spreadsheets and made it easy to view by anyone, anytime. By delivering this data passively, we were able to focus on our next and most important step, mining the data for insights.

This solution had low implementation costs and low complexity. No expensive servers or configurations were needed and no modifications to infrastructure necessary.

What you need to prepare for an Online Direct Response Campaign

Exert from ClickZ

Although much of the work of a direct-response campaign can be outsourced, the advertiser must provide some internal resources for a campaign to succeed. Some key components of direct-response campaigns that need to be conceived, built, implemented, managed, staffed, or approved. Prior to undertaking this direct-response effort, campaign roles and responsibilities must be assigned and divided between the agency and the client, with clear timelines and expectations laid out.

 1.       Set Realistic Goals and Expectations

Direct-response marketing lives in acronym world. You might find yourself having to explain to the client how CPMs , CPCs , CTRs  and conversion rates all factor into CPLs CPAs, and ROI. Since direct-response marketing is formulaic in nature, show the advertiser the range of possible outcomes based on estimated costs and average response rates. Don't set the campaign (or you) up for failure by over-projecting based on unrealistic response or conversion rates.

2.      Develop Customised Landing Pages

Landing pages must take into account the primary campaign objective and woo the visitor to achieve that objective. Too many landing pages ask for personal information before even delivering content relevant to why the visitor clicked through in the first place.

3.       Develop Action-Generating Ad Creative

Online media planners must work closely with creative developers to develop action-generating ad messages and visuals. Online also allows for a lot of quick testing and swapping of creative, so the creative team needs to be prepared to produce multiple offers and a variety of ads.

4.      Use Unique Phone Numbers or Call Tracking

For lead-generation campaigns, call-ins could play a big part, yet if you don't have a means to connect the caller to the online direct-response campaign, the campaign won't get the credit it deserves. Set up unique toll-free numbers, or use more sophisticated solutions that dynamically generate a toll-free number based on the source of the visitor.

5.       Use Robust Tracking and Analysis

Tracking and analysis is the most critical piece of the direct-response puzzle. In direct response, it's likely that multiple platforms -- ad tracking, e-mail management, Web analytics, affiliate management -- will come into play when measuring and analyzing a campaign's effectiveness. Online direct-response marketers must understand the limitations of their current solutions so workarounds can be devised or new solutions can be acquired and implemented prior to campaign launch. The direct-response marketer must also be willing to share the necessary components of performance data with her agency so the campaign can be refined and made a success.

6.      Deploy a Well-Balanced Mix of Tactics

Leveraging inbound and outbound efforts together can help create a successful direct-response campaign while improving ROI over time. Consider a complete mix of online media and tactics: search, display, contextual, retargeting, e-mail, public relations, affiliate, and social media marketing. Supporting online efforts with offline ones can increase lift by up to 35 percent.

7.       Establish a Domain Name Strategy

Offline support efforts and some online ones, like optimizing for search engine and buying text links, can be further reinforced by selecting an appropriate domain or creating a subdomain. Domains might be selected to elevate recall or even play on the call to action. Unique domains married to unique microsites also reduce confusion with data analysis because all the traffic to the site theoretically should be for that specific direct-marketing campaign.

Content Creation Ideas

Research and thought leadership is now one of the most effective ways to build your online presence

How do you produce content that will attract links, social shares, help you build your community and engage your target audience?

The digital marketing landscape has changed. The search engines and major social media channels are rapidly evolving. The data that search engines are now able to extract from link profiles and social signals mean that reputation and influence is now fundamental to digital marketing success.


1. Recycle What You Know
If you have ever spoken at an industry event, then you have probably spent hours researching a particular topic – making you a resource of untapped, high value content ideas. So, why not recycle this knowledge into something that is valuable and shareable? Blog posts, whitepapers and case studies of what you have learned add power to your voice while allowing you to assert yourself as an expert in your field.

2. Interview the Industry Leaders
Interviewing your industry connections provides a source for creating the type of content your audience craves: deep, insightful content provided by leaders and visionaries in their field. By displaying these insights in the form of blog posts or webinars, you're generating high quality, link-worthy content while exposing your colleagues to a whole new audience – meaning that both sides win!

3. Curate the News
Sometimes the greatest value can be in curating content, rather than creating content. By providing a weekly roundup of industry specific news you create a valuable resource for visitors, which illustrate that you are up-to-date on the latest developments, trends, and topics. This is also a great opportunity to link to other key thought leaders within your industry.

If content curation seems like too much of a time investment, you may want to explore the dozens of content curation services available on the web. Services like Scoop.it and Curata are designed to help you quickly and easily find relevant news, which can be posted directly to your blog or web page.

4. Conduct a Survey
Another way to make the most of your online community is to conduct a survey. There are many online survey platforms which make the gathering of important data both free and easy. Administering surveys through your LinkedIn groups, community forums, and your Facebook fan page is an ideal way to start exploring the pulse of your community without committing to a major investment.

5. Create Visual Appeal
While infographics have seemingly been around forever, they have only more recently become a staple of the successful online marketing strategy. Through the art of representing data visually, infographics are used to increase awareness about a particular brand, product, industry phenomenon, or up-and-coming trend. It’s this dual threat of providing visual appeal and real value that allows the infographic to attract more links and social shares than just about any other type of online content.

6. Become a Reporter for Your Industry
Have you recently attended an important industry event? Have you read a great white paper or viewed a shareable webinar? Then why not write a blog post which outlines your "takeaway points"? You could even relay some interesting conversations you may have had with other industry leaders. Or you can write a review about a relevant industry book or news article.

7. Share Presentations

When you give a speech, presentation, or webinar, you will usually have an accompanying slideshow. Don’t keep this great information to yourself! Share it with your community. Online tools like SlideShare make it quick and easy to share visual presentation slides. This is a great opportunity for showcasing your expertise and drawing attention to your next public event.

8. Conduct an Interview… With Yourself

Though this may seem a little strange, it has become a proven way to generate quality content. Prepare a list of questions on the latest industry developments or trends. Then, have someone off camera ask you each question. When done well, the video should come across as relaxed and informal, demonstrating both your personality and expertise.

9. Answer the Burning Questions

If you regularly speak at industry events, interact through social media channels or blog on your website, you will inevitably begin to recognize the common questions and dilemmas faced by the members of your community. These questions can be used as the basis for a blog post, SlideShare, video, or even white paper. And because this information is relevant to your audience’s specific needs, it is virtually guaranteed to garner interest.

10. Showcase Your Talents through Video Tutorials

There’s no better way to improve and highlight your skills than to teach others. Video gives you a unique opportunity to showcase your personality whilst sharing your knowledge with others. Why not produce a weekly tutorial that’s published on the same day each week?