Alight Insights

Top Five Red Flags When Evaluating an Agency

2011-08-08T15:31:00.000-05:00

Keith Kochberg, CEO of iMarketing LTD, wrote about ensuring marketing agencies are delivering what they promise, titled Top Five Ways to Tell Your Online Agency is Faking It.

To highlight, the top five red flags are:

1. Is your agency regularly testing different opportunities?

2. Do you get regular, detailed reports?

3. When was the last time you were told NOT to spend money?

4. How often do you hear from your account manager?

5. How transparent is your monthly bill?

As a measurement agency of record, we couldn't agree more with point #2. You should see all the key metrics associated with your campaign, including the not so good ones. If you are presented with reports detailing how great the campaign is doing and never hear any bad news, or never hear that a campaign just isn't working, you should be very suspect. If your agency stammers when you ask to see targets and goals, that is also problematic. Conversely, if data is thrown at you in pieces and doesn't provide a cohesive view into your overall effort or if you are overwhelmed with data from them that can be just as troubling.

Marketing reporting should be holistic, end-to-end and should tie marketing dollars all the way to the sale (yes, even if that sale happens offline). Censored, partial and un-timely reporting is a major cause for concern.

Remember, you can't manage what you don't measure.

10 Must-Have Facebook Metrics

2011-07-14T20:32:00.000-05:00

Not sure how to measure success on Facebook? Start with 10 actionable Facebook metrics to show you how your content strategy is performing (or to help create a strategy), what your editorial calendar should be and where you should focus your effort to get more fans.

1. Number of Likes

Month over month look for spikes in your growth. Not sure if you are growing your Facebook fans fast enough? Use socialbakers.com to see the percentage growth of Facebook fans for others in your category.

2. Average Interactions

Combine Content Likes and Content Comments together for an average. Increase number of Facebook posts around topics your audience is engaged in, decrease posts around those they aren't. Make immediate decisions around content strategy and editorial calendar. Watch for unusual spikes or drops.

3. Attrition Rate

Daily Unlikes/Daily Fan Count. Watch for spikes and correlate with activity on page, tells how many Facebook fans are leaving you. There is a natural ebb and flow so focus on significant changes only.

4. Internal Referrers

Tells you where the traffic to your page comes from. You want to increase exposure to your Facebook page on the other Facebook pages that bring you the most traffic.

5. External Referrers

Just like internal referrers, but tells you the external sites bringing you traffic.Focus on building more traffic from the top performers.

6. Pageviews

See if any change to your Facebook page (such as the information or the way it is presented) results in more views. Compare to pageviews on your website.

7. Impressions

Stream Views (impressions) tells you how many times did people (fans and non-fans) view a News Feed story posted by your page. Impressions is a great metric to compare other media tactics apples to apples.

8. Active Users
Tells you how many people (fans and non-fans) have interacted with or viewed your page or its posts.

9. Gender and Age
Is your Facebook content targeted to the right audience? Using the correct tone and language for your demographic? If you understand the demographics of your fans, you will know the answers.

10. City
Look for active local markets for special promotions, test marketing, etc. Or even uncover new markets.

Ideally, you will want to qualify how much money Facebook is making you. While it is "free" there is a maintenance cost in resources. Ultimately you want to have a positive ROI on your Facebook investment. It is possible, conversions can happen both on Facebook and, more typically, off Facebook on your own website. Strong call-to-actions in your Facebook posts will help drive users to action.

We help our clients measure the success of Facebook everyday with our customized reporting solution. What gets them really excited, and what you should think about too, is including Facebook metrics in your cross-channel marketing measurement reporting. Facebook is just another tactic along with Paid Search, Organic Search, Banner ads and Direct Mail. Look at these metrics lined up side by side and really begin to see the combined success and power of your integrated marketing campaigns.

Email is great, but pick up the phone already

2011-06-08T17:59:00.001-05:00

If you don’t know by now… I am an extrovert. I like working for people, so naturally I am one of those people that like verbal communication. I like the phone, but I personally like “face to face” even better. I don’t see a phone call as an interruption of my work at the office or a drive to a meeting as a waste of time. I like to talk to people.

But I am also a “service” person through and through, so I like to communicate in the most efficient way for my clients, which is typically email. More and more we are all using email as a primary form of communication. I get it. I like email, I particularly like that email provides a written record that you can store and refer back to at any time.

I tell you this because I don’t want you to think that I am one of those people who discount the importance of verbal communication in a service role or discount the importance of written communication via email for efficiency and record-keeping. I happen to think they work best together.

Here are a few examples when email and phone work best together:

If you are explaining something in email and your recipient is responding quickly, your email dialogue may be just as good as a phone call and good news, your “call notes” are already done. But if your client is emailing back with any sign of not quite understanding or if you find you’ve written the same information twice to try to explain the same thing …your next email should be… “Hi there…I am going to call you in a few to talk about this…” It is time to pick up the phone and talk through the explanation.

If you are trying to schedule a meeting with a group outside your four walls, it may be best to pick up the phone. Get the calendars for your group up in front of you, call your key contact at the other business and ask them to get their calendars up in front of them and find a time that works. It can save a lot of time and frustration to pick up the phone and then follow up with an email calendar invite.

Do you have issues, problems, bad news? Pick up the phone and be ready to follow up immediately with a detailed email. Have the email drafted before you call; it will guide you and help you make sure you cover all the key points in your conversation. Then have the phone conversation and edit the email based upon the dialogue - additional notes, solutions, next steps discussed - then send the written follow-up documentation as soon as you hang up the phone. Drafting an email ahead of time helps you structure your thoughts for the call, the call helps you thoroughly explain and gather input, and the final email gives everyone a recap that they can reference in the future.

Email is also great because it allows the recipient to read when they have time, it doesn’t “interrupt” them. But remember, if your message needs to be an interruption – like “Hey I need to tell you something BEFORE you go into that executive meeting” – send the email, but pick up the phone for goodness sakes, have them paged, do whatever it takes to get the urgent message to them quickly. Don’t rely on email alone when there is an urgent message.

Other ideas, suggestions? Let’s hear them! Send me an email, or give me a call!

I’d like a skinny decaf vanilla latte with my meeting, please

2011-04-22T10:55:00.004-05:00

A client of mine and I have gotten into the routine of an early morning coffee meeting about twice a month. These are the best meetings of my month. Not only do we take time to “catch up” and talk about family, what’s going on at the office and the latest phone app (she has an Android, I have a BlackBerry) we also get a lot of work done.

Now don’t get me wrong…the majority of my client meetings are “all business”; status meetings with a jam-packed agenda around web analytics implementation, strategic work sessions for a new campaign launch, complex campaign tracking training sessions or a review of report results and conversion metrics.

And I do believe in the structured PAL (purpose, agenda, limit) meeting format…a well-run, structured meeting is a “must-have” in the account service tool box. Client service professionals with the skill to think through the meeting needs, get the right people together to work through issues and get projects moving forward is essential. I get that. I do that.

But I have always enjoyed getting to know the people I work with (everyone knows I am an extrovert) and I have learned to truly value “unstructured conversations” with my clients as much as the annual strategy meeting and/or the daily project focused interactions.

You may think...I talk to my client every day, we have a great business relationship and we are both just too busy to add a morning “coffee”. That may all be fine and good, but I have learned that when you work closely with a client and you find yourself very busy with daily interaction about the day-to-day business, that is when it is most important to find time to talk about the bigger picture of the business, to understand the “what else” is going on, what’s coming up next, business outside the current projects. In my experience this is some of the most valuable time spent with my clients.

You may also think...I am just not sure my client and I have much in common outside our project. That may be true; I have lots of clients with very different backgrounds, education, experience, family situations, age, income, etc. But we do have one big thing in common – our work product and by starting there and adding my desire to understand how I can be of service to this person to the best of my ability in reaching our common business goals, it turns out we always have a lot to talk about – our industry, our community, our business environment. And in my experience, the people I have very little in common with on a personal level are people I find extremely interesting - it seems we always have something of value to share regardless of our background.

The client I mentioned earlier started as simply a new client for me to be introduced to, and we started with just the common ground of our work. But as we have gotten to know each other on a personal level, these meetings have done so much more in helping us become better working partners, more efficient, more creative, more effective, simply because we have a better understanding of each other and have built trust and respect through our morning coffee and unstructured conversations.

It has also taught us how to communicate better, we know each other’s “style” because we have opened up and that translates over to a solid work relationship where we know we can rely on each other to get the most out of our “work product”.

And last, it has helped us solve problems through advice and shared experience. My client has a “client” everyone has a “client”, and we help each other with advice and guidance from our collective experiences.

Yes, the structured annual strategy meeting and the day-to-day client interactions are very important. But don’t discount the value of unstructured meetings in a relaxed environment where you allow yourself to talk about business and other things. These meetings will help you better serve your client, whether you get to know your client better as a business person, a colleague, or a friend – that distinction will come about on its own with time - At a minimum you gain a business relationship that improves over time and if you are lucky, a lasting friendship as well.

The Case for Web Testing & Optimization

2011-04-17T21:10:00.011-05:00

A/B Testing. Why even consider it? To put it simply: because we’re wrong – about 80% of the time, according to some estimates. We all know the Marketing Manager who fancies herself a Web designer. Or the business unit leader who can’t make up his mind on which hero image he wants to use on a banner ad landing page. What about the IT team who designs applications and functionality completely without the consumer in mind? Or the Web designer who is emotionally tied to his or her design, even though sales have plummeted after its implementation? Maybe you’ve been guilty of this behavior a few times yourself? It’s easy to do. We see something we like, and become blind to anything else. In short, we think we know best. But we don’t.

This is precisely why you should employ A/B Testing, as one tool in your marketing strategy. It won’t save you, as there are many tools needed to complete the job, but it can definitely help. Because online consumers have constantly evolving needs and expect relevant, even personalized content from the wide variety of sites and content sources they choose to visit, it’s critical that online marketers quickly identify which offers and content are relevant and compelling to their audiences.

What Is A/B Testing?

To some marketers, it’s a dirty word. To others, it’s taken on a god-like importance. And then there’s me, somewhere in the middle. Done right, A/B Testing can make a huge impact on your bottom line in a short amount of time. In a traditional A/B Test, you experiment with 2 or more versions of a design and see which performs and converts the best. Sometimes, A and B are directly competing designs served to two groups of equal number. Other times, A is the current design and serves as the control that most users see while B, which might be more experimental, is served only to a small percentage of users until it has proven itself worthy of full exposure.

What Isn’t It?

It isn’t the answer to everything, it won’t single-handedly turn your business around and it can be over-used and abused. It will provide you with what most likely works in said scenario, but it won’t tell you why. Unlike focus groups, surveys or other direct consumer feedback, A/B Testing doesn’t provide a direct window into a consumer’s mind. There are no thought bubbles that pop up in your analysis tool that tell you what consumers were thinking when they clicked “Start for free.” So you’ll never know why the visitors who saw design B decided to take the desired action 85% of the time vs. those who saw design A and only took the desired action 15% of the time. You will simply know that in this particular test, design B converted better.

For deeper qualitative analysis, you must have a comprehensive marketing communications strategy in place that could include other tools, such as focus groups, online communities, surveys and usability studies that allow you to interact directly with your consumers.

Again - What are the benefits?

A/B testing has 3 benefits:

It measures actual behavior of your consumers under real-world conditions. You can confidently conclude that if version B sells more than version A, then version B is the way to go.
It eliminates internal conflict by encouraging factual, data-driven decisions rather than decisions based on gut feelings and opinions.
You can develop an archive of learnings, which can be applied to other similar areas of your website. In other words, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.

Lost in a Sea of Reports!

2010-12-14T11:25:00.002-06:00

Marketing has always been challenged with measuring results. Historically, traditional marketing efforts such as print, radio, and TV advertising produced little measurement data – let’s call this the “data pond”. Marketers would use very basic fishing tools such as Excel to try and catch any results that could help them demonstrate value. It was manageable and frankly since the data was directional at best, fishing in this data pond for results was fairly simple and the reports were small and very basic. Stay with me!

As one-to-one marketing tactics such as direct mail and email became popular, database marketing and email service companies began to spring up in the hopes of marketers being able to actually begin to measure the results of their marketing investments. As a result of these types of tactics, the data pond began to swell into a lake with more data and more reports starting to appear resulting in a marketing picture that began to lose its focus.

Today, the proliferation of the Web has transformed the once small data pond into a giant sea of data. The Web is a data producing machine and this vastness of data combined with the complex marketing ecosystem that marketers face today results in huge volumes of disparate reports. This raging sea of data has left marketers and marketing agencies feeling ship-wrecked in their ability to demonstrate value and results to key stakeholders.

The reason for this is pretty simple when you think about it. Marketers and marketing agencies are still using the same basic fishing tools from the pond like Excel and PowerPoint to try and catch key marketing intelligence. This lack of sophistication creates a very expensive fishing expedition involving manually piecing together data from a myriad of reports which is very expensive and simply doesn’t allow marketers to understand the real value of their marketing efforts leaving them feeling ship-wrecked.

To solve this problem, organizations must implement a core marketing measurement strategy designed to navigate the sea of data. Our four-step approach to building a marketing measurement strategy gives organizations the right marketing measurement process – a “fish finder” if you will – to begin to collectively understand and transform this vast data sea into marketing intelligence.

While having a process (a fish finder) tells you where to go, you need to be equipped with more than a fishing pole for the pond. Our Focus Point solution is designed to collect and organization this vast sea of data into a defined marketing measurement solution eliminating the vast number of reports and confusion that exist today. Our Decision Dashboards provide marketers and agencies a customized, sophisticated and easy to understand reporting giving them the ability to “focus” on what tactics are working, where customers and prospects are coming from, and what marketing investment is yielding the greatest ROI.

This proven approach is transforming our client’s ability to navigate the marketing waters of today. Contact Us today for a free measurement assessment and demonstration of our Focus Point solution if you are ready to start navigating the sea of marketing data and delivering tangible marketing results.

ROI = Return on Investment or Return on Ignorance?

2010-12-09T21:59:00.001-06:00

If you look closely, most marketing organizations have fallen into the “herd” mentality blindly following the latest trends that are hot in today’s marketing ecosystem. The leader of this herd is whoever is beating the loudest drum creating attention to the “next big thing” that will transform your marketing strategy.

In our haste to follow the latest and greatest, we fail to focus on what we should be focused on – Return on Investment. Marketers often venture into new marketing tactics with little or no knowledge and are suddenly disappointed in the result. Call me crazy but this ROI equation feels more like Return on Ignorance.

I am often asked questions such as this:
“I got a million impressions last year through banner ads – is that good?”
“My bounce rate is 55% on my website – is that bad?”
“I had 20,000 hits to my website last month – what do you think”

Besides the fact that the word “hits” is a term from the 90’s, my response is simple – “How does it make you feel?” The reality is that questions such as these have dominated the area of marketing since marketing began – simply looking at pieces of information that are directional at best in an attempt to determine marketing value.

I truly believe that marketers today aren’t afraid of the real ROI equation – Return on Investment. With the global economy being what it is, the need to demonstrate value and return has never been greater! The problem, I believe, is that marketers simply don’t know how to accomplish this.

Understand that I believe we marketers can do the ROI math. The real challenge however is capturing the responses that marketing generates in a consistent and centralized fashion. If this were to happen, marketers could begin to monetize the value of these responses, identify the expense it took to generate this marketing value, and deliver an ROI.

At Alight Interactive, our core competency is built around marketing measurement. We help our clients utilize the Web as centralized marketing response mouse trap through our web analytics management services. Our web analytics and marketing measurement experts integrate directly with our clients marketing and agency teams to provide a holistic tracking and measurement solution. This approach brings together all of the skill sets required to successfully monetize the value of marketing.

Contact Us today for a free marketing measurement assessment and learn how we can help you begin to monetize the value of your marketing investment.

Google Analytics vs. Adobe (Omniture) SiteCatalyst – A Quick Comparison

2010-12-09T21:54:00.006-06:00

I was recently contacted by a web analyst at a leading sporting goods retailer. He was gathering opinions from industry leaders on the increasingly popular debate - Omniture vs. Google Analytics.

While both products provide the basic elements needed in any web analytics software, let’s breakdown what I shared with this individual which outlines the key elements most organizations need to make a decision.

Key Element	Our View	Winner
Software Cost	Google Analytics is a free product versus a pricing model from Omniture built on pageview volume and users.	Google Analytics
Implementation Time & Cost	One of the biggest reasons to use Google Analytics is the ease of implementation. The account creation and base code implementation process is very simple. See our cost savings post for an industry leading consumer goods client.	Google Analytics
Speed and User Interface	Google Analytics user interface is far more simple to navigate and much more responsive.	Google Analytics
User Pathing	Omniture SiteCatalyst stores all of its web analytics data in a highly relational model that allows analysts to understand virtually any path a user takes through the site. Google Analytics only tracks a before and after click path.	Omniture
Custom Tracking	Omniture SiteCatalyst outperforms Google Analytics ability to track custom measurement variables. However, the implementation is very complex and very expense. And the reality is that Google Analytics has rapidly evolve their ability to compete here at a much lower cost.	Google Analytics
Campaign Tracking	Google Analytics does a better job of knowing where inbound traffic to your website should be categorized and the implementation of tracking is much easier. See our post on Campaign Tracking.	Google Analytics
Ecommerce Tracking	Omniture SiteCatalyst outperforms Google Analytics here because of it stores its data. Pathing is an important part of high volume Ecommerce websites and Google Analytics has some room to grow here.	Omniture
Goal Tracking	Google Analytics wins here because of the simplicity in setup and implementation. Omniture SiteCatalyst requires extra coding and increased implementation costs.	Google Analytics

By no means is this a comprehensive list however it is a high-level check list that makes Google Analytics the better choice for most organizations.

At Alight Interactive, we specialize in both platforms and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each product. We don’t get paid to say good things about either platform and enjoy having this discussion. Contact Us today for a free web analytics assessment and answer any questions you might have.

Adobe (Omniture) SiteCatalyst vs. Google Analytics - Round 1: Unexpected Cost Savings

2010-10-29T20:10:00.004-05:00

From our experience with Fortune 500 companies, Omniture SiteCatalyst (now Adobe SiteCatalyst) has always been king. In many regards, the king has been dethroned. SiteCatalyst, along with the entire Adobe Online Marketing Suite, has capabilities that Google Analytics does not provide. However, those capabilities (which we have found are rarely used) come with a price. Not just the price of the software, which is usually where cost comparison comes into play when discussing the two web analytics market leaders. But, the price of initial and ongoing maintenance and implementation.

Can you believe that our clients are finding savings in excess 40% in ongoing web analytics maintenance costs when they switch from SiteCatalyst to Google Analytics? These are not costs paid to the analytics provider for use of the system (as those decrease to $0 with Google, a big savings but a known and obvious one), these are internal IT and development costs. This is a huge savings.

Why the big savings? For a robust implementation of a large site, SiteCatalyst is 80% custom analytics code, Google Analytics is 20% custom analytics code. There is less work overall with fewer errors, shorter QA times and less manual configuration. When you combine this savings with the savings of using a free product, the results are truly great.

The downside? Still looking for that answer. SiteCatalyst's pathing ability is always a feature that clients think they will miss. In reality, they never do miss it. For our clients, web analytics software is simply a data capture mechanism. The magic and insights occur outside of the web analytics tool, when data from all sources is combined to tell a story about conversions, marketing strategy and ROI that is, quite frankly, unavailable in SiteCatalyst.

For very large, highly complex e-commerce sites, making a switch to save a few bucks may not be the best path if you are actively exploiting the entire Adobe Online Marketing suite. Choosing a web analytics provider should always be based upon business requirements to ensure a proper fit.