Measureable Marketing

Road Trip Blog, Rubicon Style

Trask Rogers — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:04:59 +0000

One of Rubicon's chief dashboard developers is in the midst of a cross-country move back to his hometown of Baltimore. What better way to track the trip then through a dashboard via Tableau Public?! Make sure to check back as the trip progresses. Great work, Dave!

CMO vs. CFO: Who wins?

Trask Rogers — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:05:30 +0000

One of my favorite blogs, MarketingNPV, recently posted an actual email recently posted an actual email from the CFO to the CMO of a global 1000 company.

The net of the email: Congratulations on being on MediaWeek’s list of “most efficient media buying organizations,” but what does this mean? Why can’t we connect the data across campaigns to get more meaningful insights into the effectiveness of the spend? What is the actual value of incremental media spend? How about we try spending nothing and see what the results look like.

Now, for some marketers, it would be easy to quickly turn defensive. Or, worse yet, try to sweep the email under the rug. However, the savvy (read: competent) marketer has all the tools available to present a rational defense of their budget. The following tools allow Finance (and any other department critical of marketing spend) to understand the logic behind it:

Lead Need Waterfall – A calculated approach to understand the overall contribution of Marketing to the company’s overall revenue goals, using metrics such as Average Order Value, Average Campaign Response and Marketing Contribution, to thoroughly understand the overall number of leads needed to meet revenue expectations.

Marketing Intelligence Solution – Probably the most important tool a marketer can use in these situations. Reputable solutions will have the ability to correlate data from disparate sources (i.e. Point of Sale data with Email campaign data) to essentially close the loop on marketing effectiveness.

Established short-list of KPIs – Each KPI represents Marketing’s impact on a specified business driver, such as Marketing Qualified Leads delivered to Sales in a specified time period. These metrics can be used in both a historical context, but their real worth is in use for situational planning moving forward.

So, if there’s any doubt as to how you can justify your marketing spend, ensure you’re making good use of these tools. It’s undeniable that Marketing will always be under the microscope within nearly all organizations. Have you been in a similar situation? How did you respond?

Mind the {Data} Gap

Trask Rogers — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:43:45 +0000

The job description of a marketer seems to change just about every day. The marketing channels have changed, as have the enabling technologies. And one very important element is the undeniable scrutiny placed on the Marketing Department as a whole. Marketers that don’t prove to be highly adaptable and resilient are quickly being replaced with those who are driven and have the ability to prove their value. In preparing to help our clients, one of the areas that I’m very interested in (and that usually doesn't get a lot of love) is data.

Data management can mean several things. Cleaning. Enriching. Segmenting. But one thing is always true about data management: it never gets the attention it deserves. I recently read an interesting post from Jigsaw’s Jim Fowler on DaaS (Data-as-a-Service). At 10,000 feet, DaaS isn’t really a true discipline, but I have a strong feeling it will be shortly. There will be two main reasons for a surge in this field:

The simplicity of a SaaS model for data management

The shift in thinking as marketers begin to pay more attention to the importance of data management

With the scrutiny on the Marketing not going away any time soon, data management is a sure-fire way to ensure your campaign response rates are as effective as possible. And with the influx of so many inbound marketing channels, the need for solidifying complete contact records has never been more important.

So, if you aren’t already, give your database some love. For those of you who haven’t done much in the way of cleansing or enrichment, call us. Email us. Ask questions. Please, just don’t ignore it. For those of you with standard data programs in place, how do you see a DaaS model impacting your current management plan?

Asynchronous Analytics

Dave Ward — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:53:41 +0000

It's December and the holidays are here. While many have yet to commence in their yearly ritual of holiday shopping, our friends at Google, always well ahead of the game, have already delivered a full sack of offerings.

Wave, Real-time search, Goggles, Dashboard, the Mac version of the Chrome Browser, a minimally functional preview of the Chromium OS, free Wi-Fi at over 50 airports and updated asynchronous Analytics code have all been announced or released in the last 3 months. The new and updated products add to an already impressive suite. While they are all impressive and useful, the seemingly insignificant update of the Google Analytics tracking code deserves a second look.

In the past few years we've seen the rise of AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) applications on the web. These apps speed up user experience by loading only the content that is requested rather than an entire web page. Google has now taken this approach and applied it to the primary page load.

Traditionally, absolute references to tracking scripts are just added to an HTML page, requiring browsers to download all that extra code before our precious content can make it to the user. Alternatively, the scripts can be placed at the end of the page to keep this from happening, but that just creates a window for users to perform trackable actions before they are able to be tracked.

The average web page, in total number of bytes downloaded, has grown more than 3 times in size over the last 5 years, 22 times since 1995 [Website Optimization]. Increased bandwith has made a lot of things possible, but it doesn't always do much to balance the bloat of the average web page against load times these days. In a world of constant and immediate updates through RSS, SMS, and microblogs, the web could always use a little boost, which is why the new tracking code is a welcomed update.

With the new tracking code we will see faster page load times and greater accuracy of tracking data. From a marketing perspective, this is an awesome improvement, making for happier users and more visibility into traffic patterns.

Google will continue its momentum into the new year as new products are released and those in the existing line continue to mature. It seems to me that this holiday season, Google is the gift that keeps on giving.

Marketing automation is nothing without a personal touch

Trask Rogers — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:11:26 +0000

One of the biggest draws of any marketing automation platform is the ability to create messages aimed at prospects and customers without all of the manual work on behalf of the sender. Marketing departments strapped for resources can now send out emails on Sales' behalf with the click of a button. High fives and fist pumps all around, right? Maybe so, but don't forget this is only half of the story; The other half, of course, is making a personal connection with the prospect.

Social media has lifted the veil of secrecy that has shrouded corporations for years. Customers can now connect directly with reps at some of the biggest companies in the country, including Best Buy, Dell and IBM. The same principle should be carried into any/all automated communications. The technology exists…use dynamic content to deliver relevant content based on what you know about the prospect. Create a nurturing campaign that gives your prospects relevant content. Include a picture of their assigned Sales rep.

By going this extra step, you're ensuring these prospects are actually connecting with your company's people and products in a meaningful way. And that's the beauty of it…using an enabling technology to make your job easier, which in turn will shorten the buying cycle and make for a very happy Sales team.

Now it's your turn. Share your personal stories on leveraging marketing automation to drive more meaningful human connections.

What worked? What blew up?

Adobe, Omniture and Integrated Analytics

Dave Ward — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:49:20 +0000

Imagine if your tools could talk. And they're smart too.

What if the hammer you used to build that shed in the back yard could tell you how to improve your hammering ability, reducing the number of whacks (and time) it would take to drill each nail, thus making you a more efficient builder.

With last month's acquisition of Omniture, Adobe will be sure to reinvent the hammer. By hammer, of course, I am referring to content creation tools.

In the early days of web marketing, content creation and analytics were two disciplines that had trouble getting their relationship off the ground. This has changed dramatically in recent years as marketing automation platforms have done quite well at connecting content with reporting. However, content creation has for the most part remained siloed.

My personal struggle with content development and tracking arises from the conflict between wanting to create clean, simple, easy-to-maintain code and needing to have as much information as possible about user behavior. When delivering media, web links would ideally be of the form:

<a href="[the content]">Click here to view content</a>

However, lately they've been more like:

<a href="http://www.domain.com/tracking_script.htm?redirect=http://www.domain.com/[the content]" onClick="tracking_function_1('parameter_1','parameter_2',...); tracking_function_2('parameter_a',parameter_b',...);">Click here to view content</a>

...and don't forget the tracking scripts. On every page:

<script type="text/javascript" src="[link to script #1]"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="[link to script #2]"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="[link to script #'3]"></script>
...etc.

Now, Adobe has the power to make content smarter. Analytics can be directly built-in to the content being developed and it can even be configured with some intelligence. The need for links that run off the page or span multiple lines can be a thing of the past, which makes for happier developers. And everyone knows a happy developer is a productive developer.

In this new world of self-aware content, you could make changes to existing assets while viewing their histories as well as the effects of your changes. Furthermore, A/B testing could be built-in and, after a period of time, it could decide to permanently serve up the winner, or even trigger additional actions.

For content developers, the process of creation, delivery, observation, analysis and optimization will become a continuous cycle, manageable from the development platform itself.

It's clear that this acquisition will be a game-changer in a number of ways. And as this new way of thinking about metrics and analysis becomes the norm, we will surely see new ideas and applications we couldn't have imagined before. What do you think?

Email Campaigns - Building a Foundation

Dan Supinski — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:11:32 +0000

We've all been there before. We've planned out new email marketing campaign and need to start pulling things together to execute in a timely manner. Everyone approaches the implementation of their email campaigns differently, and in the process people tend to forget some important pieces that have a large impact on timing, budget and resources. At this point a lot of clients ask me what the best practices are behind email campaigns.

This is a loaded question that leads to questions of my own.

How experienced are you with email?
Have you thought about your messaging?
Have you been tracking your previous emails?

Have you thought about your segmentation?
Do you have a large enough population to justify the campaign?
Are you renting a list, or using an internal database?

Do you need to comply with branding guidelines?
Do you have any existing templates to leverage?
What resources do you have available to you?

Have you thought about follow-up emails, reminder emails, or possible update emails?
Will you need landing pages customized for each email?
Are you trying to use a single landing page for multiple mediums(banner ads, organic traffic, emails, etc)?

Which email clients does your segment use?
Do they prefer HTML or text based emails?
Are you targeting desktop email or mobile email?

The list of questions goes on and on, but we want to start simple.

Remember that the purpose of any email is to drive traffic to a specific source. This source might be a company blog, a website, a webinar or a white paper offering. There really are no restrictions on that ultimate goal, just remember that you want to take the extra effort to ensure everything can be tracked. Without a complete picture it is hard to decide if an email campaign was successful or not. Email marketing is becoming more and more acceptable across industries and we don't want to waste any opportunity to gather data that can help guide future campaigns.

Know your segment.

Take some time to pin down your target audience before you get started with your email campaign. Make sure your marketing or sales database has a sufficient amount of people for this campaign to be worth the investment. If it doesn't you might look into renting a list for the campaign. As an agency sometimes we don't get insight into segmentation details until it's too late. Don't waste your money or time, do your research before executing.

Email Best Practices Series

I'll be working on a series of posts that discuss the fine art of email marketing. We'll discuss layouts, template management, segmenting, coding practices, increasing deliverability, messaging design and offer ideas. When we finish this in-depth conversation you will know the right questions to ask to get your marketing campaign finished quickly and efficiently.

What are your biggest questions about email marketing?

Let's discuss.

Eloqua Experience 2009

Trask Rogers — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:59:49 +0000

I can't believe we're already near the end of October, but that’s actually a good thing. November 2-4, Rubicon will be at the annual Eloqua Experience, held this year in San Francisco. If you weren't able to attend last year's, here's some of the highlights. The conference aims to be even more enriching this year, with a heavy emphasis on a wide array of user training.

This year, several of the friendly faces from Rubicon will be in attendance and we’d love to meet up with old friends and new alike. If you haven’t had the chance to meet any of us in the past, I encourage you to stop by our booth. We'll even be offering free audits of your Eloqua instance to make sure you’re getting the most out of the platform.

Planning on attending? Leave a comment so we’ll know who to look for!

Marketing Automation Implementation: Not-So-Easy Pieces

Dave Ward — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:44:36 +0000

In one of his books, physicist Richard Feynman, shares a few stories about inventions he concocted as a young boy. Although they were rather ingenious (one was a potato slicer), they were quickly cast aside with irritation by the grown-up crowd, regardless of how useful they were. The moral of the story is that innovation is a very difficult thing in the real world.

Marketing automation solutions are built, top to bottom, beginning to end, with great detail. In the end, everything is measurable and gives a definite quantitative result. From there efforts can be fine-tuned and better-targeted. It's the great promise of marketing automation.

But all too often, the crucial marketing paper trail is either broken or muddied. The technology is never the problem. It's the people. And I mean that in the best way possible.

Old habits die hard. When new protocols are first put in place, it's easy to revert to the old methods, circumventing new processes.

Roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined. As a general rule, if it's not restricted, somebody will eventually do it. You don't want just anybody to upload lists of prospects or to have control of the prospect database.

All processes relevant to the prospect data should be clearly documented and should include methods for dealing with "other" cases that may not have been considered as part of the original solution.

The problem of wrangling your team into new daily habits and getting them to see the changes as part of a larger picture is not insurmountable. However, when building an innovative new system, it's easy to get lost in the details and forget this not-so-easy piece.

I've seen this issue rear its ugly head in organizations both large and small. We'd like to hear your stories of success (or trouble) in rolling-out a marketing automation system to your colleagues.

Comment below.

Are metrics + analysis getting their spot in the limelight?

Trask Rogers — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:26:00 +0000

For years, metrics and analysis have been arguing for validity among marketers. Sure, everyone talks about the importance, but as research has shown, this doesn’t always correlate to making its way into the budget. Even as recently as a year ago, I can remember being at a marketing awards show, in which one of the judges for the ‘measurable marketing’ category commented that the concentration was primarily subjective. Given the technology now available for tracking marketing spend, such a statement is now laughable. That said, the need for a ‘full spectrum’ analysis tool is growing at an exponential rate.

In an effort to define a tool that meets these demands, Rubicon has began using the Tableau platform. The most beautiful aspect of this solution is the visual analysis that allows users to interact with a data to solve the questions they have. One of the most interesting examples I’ve seen recently using Tableau comes from Tim Graham and centers on how global brands hold various levels of popularity in different countries.

In the months to come, look for this field to continue to take leaps and bounds toward the spotlight. If the trend continues, actionable analysis will be a consistent theme with executive management in 2010. If you haven’t had a chance to familiarize yourself with the capabilities, be sure to check out the Tableau Software blog and also an independent site, Information is Beautiful. If you have had a chance to employ technology such as this, what have you gained? Any surprises or hurdles?