On the way blog - Where you learn new things in two minutes!

Excel in my day by day routine

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 18:54:00 +0000

I would like to say that the best program I've ever used for analyzing my data is excel. Since the late 90's Excel was there for me and is still here today. I'm not saying I didn't try other programs like R Studio, Power Bi and Tableau but excel is still helping me on my day by day routine.

The list below will give you my top functions and use cases with Excel.

1. VLOOKUP

This function is by far my favorite one. The VLOOKUP function performs a vertical lookup by searching for a value in the first column of a table and returning the value in the same row in the index_number position.

Syntax

VLOOKUP( value, table, index_number, [approximate_match] )

2. CONCATENATE

The word concatenate is just another way of saying "to combine" or "to join together". The CONCATENATE function allows you to combine text from different cells into one cell. In our example, we can use it to combine the text in column A and column B to create a combined name in a new column.

Syntax
CONCATENATE(Text A, Text B)

3. IF

The Microsoft Excel IF function returns one value if the condition is TRUE, or another value if the condition is FALSE.

The IF function is a built-in function in Excel that is categorized as a Logical Function. It can be used as a worksheet function (WS) in Excel. As a worksheet function, the IF function can be entered as part of a formula in a cell of a worksheet.

Please read our IF-THEN-ELSE (VBA) page if you are looking for the VBA version of the IF statement as it has a very different syntax.

Syntax
IF( condition, [value_if_true], [value_if_false] )

4. COUNTIF

Excel COUNTIF function is used for counting cells within a specified range that meet a certain criterion, or condition.

For example, you can write a COUNTIF formula to find out how many cells in your worksheet contain a number greater than or less than the number you specify. Another typical use of COUNTIF in Excel is for counting cells with a specific word or starting with a particular letter(s).

Syntax
COUNTIF(range, criteria)

5. SUMIF

The SUMIF function is a worksheet function that adds all numbers in a range of cells based on one criteria (for example, is equal to 2000).

The SUMIF function is a built-in function in Excel that is categorized as a Math/Trig Function. It can be used as a worksheet function (WS) in Excel. As a worksheet function, the SUMIF function can be entered as part of a formula in a cell of a worksheet.

To add numbers in a range based on multiple criteria, try the SUMIFS function.

Syntax
SUMIF( range, criteria, [sum_range] )

6. OR, AND
Use the OR function, one of the logical functions, to determine if any conditions in a test are TRUE.

Use the AND function, one of the logical functions, to determine if all conditions in a test are TRUE.

Syntax
OR(A2>1,A2<100)
AND(A2>1,A2<100)

7. Left, Right, Mid

LEFT returns the first character or characters in a text string, based on the number of characters you specify.

Syntax
LEFT(text, [num_chars])

Pivot Tables

When it comes to Pivot table you know you are going to save time. No need to memorize all these functions as sumif and countif, you just drag and drop and the pivot will determine if to sum or count your values. The pivot table enables you to do things faster and in a nicer way.

You can also add slicers and other cool options to make your pivot be more easy to use.

Hotkeys

ctrl + 1 - open format cells menu

ctrl + shift + 1 - format number as currency (i.e 1000 will be formatted to 1,000.00)

ctrl + shit + ~ - format number as regular (i.e 1,000.00 will be formatted to 1000)

A good explaination can be found here.

The innovators and the early adopters, can you spot them?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 25 Jun 2017 18:36:00 +0000

Before I start this post. I would like to thank TED talks for helping me enrich my world of marketing and more. One of the best talks I ever heard was made by Simon Sinek and was about how great leaders inspire action.

In this post I would like to emphasis the change in my approach towards contacting customers and in which way to do it.

Simon presented the following diagram:

We need to talk to our customers from the inside to the outside. Conveying why we do things, how we do it and at last the what we do. As Simon said, people follow the why you do it and not the what you do.

Then he spoke about the innovators and the late adapters using the following diagram:

Where he brakes down your customers into groups, where the innovators pass your story along with the early adopters.

The 80/20 rule also can be adjusted according to this diagram:

1. The Innovators - 2.5% - your top VIPs

2. Early Adopters - 13.5% - 2nd level VIPs

3. Early Majority - 4% - Top ongoing customers.

But I don't see it only in the 80/20 rule. I see this diagram in every campaign I run. When sending an email, SMS or auto call campaign I will get the same breakdown of response. This is why you should track customer's preference when it comes to campaign channel and promotion type.

Remember the more channels you have (i.e TV, Email,SMS, Auto Calls, Mailers and so on...) the faster your story will spread.

To sum this post, watch as many TED Talks as you can! and don't forget to segment your customers according to preferred channel not only by activity in your brand. I promise you will see growth in revenue and customer satisfaction.

Good luck innovator!

Content Writer Template

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 17:52:00 +0000

When it comes to writing content you need to explain to your writers what you want from them. During these years I've developed a template that helped me convey my message to my writers in the best way.

You can download the template here.

Let's go over the sections in this template.

1. Intro section

The general information about the promotion. Who you are targeting, when do you need it and so on

2. Promotion flow

In this section I like to show my writers the big picture. It's important in my opinion to show them what is going on in all aspects of the promotion. When are things going out, why, where and more. The more specific you are the better content you will receive from them.

3. Promotion explanation

This is where you specify the what. What is going on in the promotion. How does it work, the structure of it. Who can claim it and what happens when he claims it.

4. Terms and conditions

Specify the terms and condition for the promotion. It's important to say when the promotion begins and ends. How many times can be claimed by a customer and more.

5. What you need (popups, emails, etc...)

Also because we pay for each word you need to specify how many words you want for each material type you need.

The most important thing in a company is to communicate and be organize. I hope my template will help you reach that goal.

Building your emails, how to do it right!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 12:22:00 +0000

When writing an email to promote a discount, update terms and conditions, or announce an important message you should follow some key points.

I have two:
1. Tech side (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
2. The HTML/Text part or content part.

The tech side:
In the world today when the war on spam is becoming more and more sophisticated its important to understand some configuration you need to do in order to authenticate your sender and make sure your clients receive your emails.

1. SPF

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a simple email-validation system designed to detect email spoofing by providing a mechanism to allow receiving mail exchangers to check that incoming mail from a domain comes from a host authorized by that domain's administrators.

You can read more on Wikipedia here.

2. DKIM

Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an email authentication method designed to detect email spoofing. It allows the receiver to check that an email claimed to have come from a specific domain was indeed authorized by the owner of that domain.[1] It is intended to prevent forged sender addresses in emails, a technique often used in phishing and email spam.

You can read more on Wikipedia here.

3. DMARC

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) is an email-validation system designed to detect and prevent email spoofing. It is intended to combat certain techniques often used in phishing and email spam, such as emails with forged sender addresses that appear to originate from legitimate organizations. Specified in RFC 7489, DMARC counters the illegitimate usage of the exact domain name in the From: field of email message headers.[1]

You can read more on Wikipedia here.

In the content part:
When it comes to the content part you first need to understand the why. Why are you sending this email? Which segment of clients are going to receive this email?

I usually like the following email layout:

I separated the email into 3 main parts:

1. Header:

You will need your logo and a nice CTA (most of your clients will open your email on a mobile device this is why you should give them a fast and easy way to your site without scrolling to the end of your email.

You can also add a nice image (make sure it's not too large.

2. Main Message Section

Where you add your main message, of course in this part you need a clear CTA in it.

The longer it is the more CTAs you need to add. Your approach should be mobile only. Your customers need to see always a way to your site.

3. Reputation Section

This is where your social media jumps in including your T&C and address.

You can also add more links to different parts of your site (about us, games, promotions, banking, VIP program and so on)

My Flow of work before sending an email:
I believe that the best approach when writing an email is first of all think about the customer, what will bring him to your site not about the configuration and other things. The sole purpose of an email is to bring the customer to visit your site.

If you think too much about SPAM or other types of configuration you will lose your customer. The customer needs to understand what you want from him. In so many emails I see things like 20FREEBONUS instead of 20 free bonus. Your message isn't clear and customers will miss your point.

The same goes to clear CTAs (if the background of the email is dark the CTAs should be light. CTAs are the doors to your site if customers can't find them they wont come. BTW hyperlinks that are the same size as the rest of your text are like small windows to your site...your clients might miss them.

1. So, write content that will bring your customers to the site

2. Add clear CTAs with clear message (Activate, Claim and so on...)

3. Check content for repetition and spamy words and remove what you think you don't really need.

4. Send test emails and check it on many devices (prefer real phones and email clients than emulators)

5. Send your email

Signup process, how to do it right!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 08:54:00 +0000

Every flow, campaign you do should have KPIs, but most of all it should have a purpose. When we work on the signup flow we need to understand that the purpose is 100% clients that start the signup flow will complete it.

This means your signup flow should be KISS (keep it stupid/super simple).

In the signup flow we usually need the basic information of a customer, like:
1. Full name
2. Email
3. Phone number
4. Birthday
5. Country
6. City
7. Zip Code
8. Gender

An example of a signup flow:

The above diagram describes a nice signup flow:
1. On the first step you fill in your email and password (could be separated into two steps)
2. Step 2 you will need to fill in your full details, in the meantime you will receive a confirmation email.
3. Step 3 you will need to verify your phone number

The email confirmation step is not part of the signup process. This email should have only one purpose, confirming the customer's email. Don't make it long or explain about the benefits of opening an account with you. MAKE IT SIMPLE!

During the signup process if for some reason a client closes the browser before completing the signup process tell them they can finish it later and send them a reminder. Don't forget to save their details they did provide you and send them back to the position they didn't complete when they want to finish the signup process.

Terminology you should know before starting your online gaming company

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 08:04:00 +0000

In this post I will try to layout the most important terms you need to know before starting an online gaming business. GGR, NGR, KPI, ARPU, CPA, CR and CLV.

Of course the most important thing is understanding your goal.

What do you want from your clients? What should they do? During my years in many online companies our goal was to buy DEPOSITS (i.e get 10% for xxx deposit, and so on). These days the goal is for players to play on their money as much as they can.

In order to understand your goal in nowadays online casinos. You will need to understand a few key terms:

Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR)

Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) is the amount wagered minus the winnings returned to players, a true measure of the economic value of gambling. GGR is the figure used to determine what a casino or other gaming operation earns before expenses like salaries and taxes are paid. GGR is the equivalent of “sales” not “profit”.

Net Gaming Revenue (NGR)

Net Gaming Revenue (NGR) is defined as gross bets less payout derived from any real transaction with a linking visitor in which revenue is paid or credited to the client, less chargebacks and discretionary returns, sign up bonuses, promotional bonuses.

It is the basic profit share which you are due to collect at the end of the month. Any chargebacks that are accrued from an affiliate referral will be deducted from the Net Gaming figure. In the event of the chargeback taking place on an account after commission has been made, the original commission figure based on that chargeback will be deducted from the monthly commission total. This is by far the one KPIs should be monitored at all the times.

NGR = Bets – Wins – Bonus Cost – Tax

Average Revenue per User (ARPU)

ARPU defined as the total revenue divided by the number of subscribers, it is a measure of the revenue generated by one player, per unit time, typically per year or month.

Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

CPA is calculated as cost divided by the number of acquisitions. They are other forms of paying for traffic. Rev-Share (where you pay a percentage from the wagering profit to the affiliate). And you also have hybrid with is a combination of CPA and Rev-Share.

Churn Rate (CR)

Churn rate (or attrition rate) refers to the proportion of players who leave during a given time period. It is a possible indicator of customer dissatisfaction, cheaper and/or better offers from the competition, more successful sales and/or marketing by the competition, or reasons having to do with the customer life cycle, and of course if you have tech issues customers will never come back again.

One minus the churn rate is the retention rate.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

The lifetime value of a customer refers to the total revenues generated by an individual player over time from all spending, discounted by the time value of money. CLV is critical both from the standpoint of marketing investment (when dealing with a high acquisition cost) and when looking to improve retention rates. CLV helps you make important business decisions about sales, marketing, product development, and customer support.

CLV can be calculated historically, over specific timeframe, or it can be predictive. Each of these calculations serve different purposes. But, predictive CLV is the most powerful way to not only understand what a player is worth to you now, but also how their value will change overtime. Improving CLV has a dramatic impact on the business and is done by improving the repeat purchase rate or improving the average order value (bet value).

One of the simplest and straightforward way to calculate CLV is (NGR per player) * (# Life Time Months) as described here.

NGR / Deposits ratio

Low values might indicate a high number of winners or abusers. High values are showing players spending more money than usual.

Bets / Deposits ratio

This will show how many times players circulate each money they have deposited: higher figures mean that it takes more time to lose whilst lower results indicate that players are losing at a faster pace. Deviation from the standard might also mean that the games don’t function as they should (RNG problems)

Withdrawal / Bets ratio

Provides with a reliable method to project the expected true loss out of gaming activity.

What are KPIs?

KPIs exist in every industry, field of work and for every vertical, so online gambling is not an exception. Using KPIs, an online operator is able to measure the performance of its business, the way it is perceived in the market and how it reaches its target audience.

For this reason, analyzing the performance is a crucial step to be taken by any managing department in order to comprehend and direct the next actions.

Furthermore, the manner and means by which performance is measured can be as crucial as performance itself and getting the system wrong can have an adverse effect and ultimately damage the business.

Selecting the right indicator depends on a good understanding of what is significant to the organization. For the business owner, measuring the right KPIs and creating actionable items from the data can elevate the company above the competition. Lacking the appropriate set of KPIs, any commercial and financial planning is difficult to implement.

An example of KPIs are:

- 1213 FTDs in June

- 7819 Depositing customers in June

- $7,918,091 in total deposits in June

And so on...

In your KPIs you need to set goals for every market, VIP level, account manager, campaign, call you make during the month.

Constant communication, what does it mean?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 20:33:00 +0000

When it comes to conveying your story to your clients you need to remember you are not the only one. When I started working in an online E-Gaming company our approach was not to engage clients more than twice a week. In the coming months we saw that the more we send the more clients come to our sites. This was 15 years ago and is true till today. The more you communicate with new content the more clients will visit your site.

In the world today your average customer receives five emails per hour. The competition is absolutely ridiculous. So if you want your customers to hear and notice you, you need to engage them often (i.e every day/two days).

I know some of your clients won't like it so much. This is why most client communication platforms have a frequency option. Meaning the client can select how many emails/sms/automatic calls to receive on a weekly/monthly basis.

Constant communication is really important to survive in the world today if your clients don't hear from you they will just STOP coming.

To sum it up. Communicate on a daily basis EVERYWHERE (social media, emails, sms and so on) with your clients. New deals, new content, new games, updates and many more things you can tell them about.

Remember content is king but communication is the everything!

Protecting your Brand or Killing it

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:58:00 +0000

If you are not protecting your brand you are probably killing it, this is what my boss always told me.

Before doing anything, writing a word, promoting a new discount, sending an email, sms or auto call think if it will hurt your brand's reputation or will it improve it. Its a yes or no answer, not more and not less.

A few points that make your brand look transparent and trustful:
1. Clear T&C - When you change them notify your customers
2. Clear signup flow
3. Stability of your site, minimum bugs on front end.
4. If your operation is paying out customers make it clear when they will get their money and PAY THEM
5. Welcome package - should be meaningful and simple
6. Clear T&C on every offer/deal/discount you promote
7. CAN-SPAM - I will write a post about this in the future.
8. Give your address and company name on emails and promotional material
9. Way to contact your brand (phone and email)
10. Online 24/7 support (or if you don't have 24/7 support tell your customers when can you be reached and when are expected to receive an answer to their inquire)

Remember that in order to protect your brand you need your employees to understand your vision. If you don't care they won't care, its that simple. Protecting or Killing your brand is up to you the CEO!

"The keys to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability".

~ Simon Mainwaring

Meeting summary, how to make sure everything is working according to plan!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 07:31:00 +0000

When it comes to meetings the most important thing in my opinion is how we implement what was decided. In order to do this right, we need to be organize and assign people with tasks but most important is to assign head of implementation - the person that makes sure everything is going according to plan (i.e Execution Manager or just EM).

Every meeting that requires a follow up needs an EM.

So what do we need in this Meeting Summary Template:
1. Project Name/Meeting Title
2. Date
3. Time
4. Attendees
5. Non-Attending Invites
6. Agenda Items (what we spoke about in the meeting)
7. Decisions Made
8. Issues Identified
9. Follow-up Action Items
10. Most important: EM

You can download the template here

Are you getting quality traffic from your affiliates?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 18:56:00 +0000

The most important rule when you want to acquire new traffic is to match your capabilities/strengths with the affiliate's traffic. Meaning if you know how to treat customers from Australia go acquire clients from Australia. If you have only support in English don't buy traffic that doesn't understand English.

Don't mislead your customers on the very beginning (actually I would say never mislead them, but most important things is always start on the right foot).

I've seen companies promoting games that customers couldn't play. So why are you promoting these games? What are you trying to achieve? only good click to signup rate? What about where the money really counts, good conversion rate!

Most of your budget every month goes to acquiring new traffic so why not buy what you know you can CONVERT? The key to preventing over spending on this traffic is to be quick determining if the clients signing up with you are quality or not.

This is why I developed the Priority Potential RFM. This algorithm takes your own data and tells you on which customers you need to focus, which customers you need more of.

For example if you know that 80% of your German customers close their accounts on the first few days after purchasing for the first time, will it be wise to acquire traffic from Germany?

If your Australian customers lead by conversion rate and CLV will it be smart to invest more money acquiring more customers from Australia?

What I'm trying to say is: BE SMART WHEN YOU ACQUIRE NEW TRAFFIC do research, analyze your data, know your strong/weakness points and buy traffic according to that. NOT ACCORDING TO OUTSIDE COMPANIES THAT DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR BUSINESS!

Don't forget you are acquiring traffic to grow your business not because its nice to have.

As we say RSG:
1. Ready (can you deal with customers from that market) - Analysis
2. Set (Test all the flows and communication methods you are going to treat these customers) - Testing
3. Go (Acquire customers from that Market) - Acquisition

Steve Jobs said it best: "If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time"

Psychology Is Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 19:45:00 +0000

When it comes to purchasing a product customers will buy what they think is the best deal for them, because psychology is everything. This is why it's really important to know how your customers think.

A while ago I decided to test this philosophy and offered two amazing deals for our clients to choose from:

- One offer was deposit xxx and play with xxx. (for example: deposit 25 and play with 100 - 300% bonus)
- Second offer was a flat percent bonus (for example 400% bonus).

Even when the bonus offer was higher, more clients took the first offer, the fixed amount one. It led me to the conclusion that YOUR CUSTOMERS UNDERSTAND SIMPLICITY. If its not simple your customers won't purchase. Percentage isn't simple as a stand alone number! If you want to use percentage use it as a comparison (i.e. 30% off).

Few more points we found out:
1. Clients took more offers like deposit $29 than deposit $24 offers (9 vs 4).
2. Clients spent more when the dollar sign was removed from the cost (300 vs. $300)
3. Selling offers as a one deal instead of a full package. Your clients want to know what is the deal now, not what they get on their 4th deposit.
4. Make your deal exclusive for them, your customers want to feel unique. Give it to them!

Don't forget the most important rule, the $100 RULE:
1. < 100
If the price is less than $100 show the discount as percentage
2. > 100
if the price is more than $100 show the discount as amount

Building Customer Loyalty

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 18:44:00 +0000

Before building something we need to understand what is the meaning of the term loyalty.

Simple definition:
Where an individual becomes accustomed to buying from you.

Loyal customers will:
- make regular/repeat purchases
- purchase not one but many of your products/services
- refer others (spread your story)

Some people say that "in every old customer you will find a new customer waiting to be break out and spend more money with you!..."

Value Pyramid Example:
1. Basic Value - Accurate billing, Prompt service
2. Expected Value - Delivery by 10 a.m on next business day (things to stay even with competition)
3. Unanticipated Value - first to provide online tracking, first to provide handled devices

When it comes to loyalty and retaining customers I would say the following:

"The more unanticipated value you provide a customer the deeper his loyalty to you"

Don't forget the 80-20 rule: 80 percent of your revenue is being generated by 20 percent of your customers. This means the not all customers are created equal.

So how to identify your best customers:
- Total revenue (for example $746,000)
- Calculate 80% of revenue (746,000 * 80% = 596,000)
- Next begin listing in descending order revenue b customer
- Add a column which will sum the revenue till now, stop when you get to your 80% revenue)

- RFM

- PPRFM

Customer's Funnels - The Big Picture

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 05:10:00 +0000

The big picture is all about what you do for every customer in his way to becoming active and loyal VIP (Loyal customer funnel/flow).

The following diagram show you the movement a customers needs to go in order to reach that goal.

In my previous post I spoke about stages in customer's life cycle, now I want to show you the big picture.

This diagram was built for an online gaming company

1. Every customer will come from an external campaign that will bring him to your site.
2. Then he will go through the signup process (could be 4 stages - will talk about it in a different post)
3. After that he goes into the conversion funnel - where the goal is to make him do his first purchase
4. FTD funnel is where our goal is to make the customer trust your software and make his next few deposits
5. Reactivate funnel - is where we try to activate customers that didn't purchase for a long time
6. Loyal customers flow - where you want most of your customers to be.

In the next series of posts I will explain about each and every funnel.

Have a good day.

What the FUCK is churn rate?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 20:33:00 +0000

What the fuck is churn rate and why is it so important for your company?

Wikipedia tells us:
"Churn rate (sometimes called attrition rate), in its broadest sense, is a measure of the number of individuals or items moving out of a collective group over a specific period. It is one of two primary factors that determine the steady-state level of customers a business will support.

The term is used in many contexts, but is most widely applied in business with respect to a contractual customer base. For instance, it is an important factor for any business with a subscriber-based service model, including mobile telephone networks and pay TV operators. The term is also used to refer to participant turnover in peer-to-peer networks. Churn rate is an important input into customer lifetime value modeling, and can be part of a simulator used to measure ROI using marketing mix modeling."

When you look at your churn rate you know how is your retention performing. How many clients are still purchasing your products after their first purchase. The less drop off the better retention you are doing.

For example lets take a look on clients that deposited for the first month in January 2017.

January: 1000 FTDs (no drop off)

In February only: 500 continue to make purchases (50% drop off)

In March only: 250 continue to make purchases (75% drop off) and so on.

This is one of the most important keys when measuring your retention!

Don't forget retention means to exceed or meet your customers expectation!

Customer Life Cycle

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 20:20:00 +0000

Simple and easy way to understand your customer's road map (also known as customer's life cycle)

As you can see I separated the customer's life cycle to 4 stages.

1. when he gets to your site

2. when he signs up

3. when he makes his first purchases (retention only starts after four* purchases)

4. retention stages

* you can define different quantities and also change it to days/months of activity.

I just think you need to understand that most customers will purchase only once - twice with you. So you need to treat them differently and show them the way to become loyal high value customers!

Buying traffic? Just know this: “it’s all about the AGE!”

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 19:55:00 +0000

When buying traffic most of the companies like to talk about quantities and not about quality. The ones that do talk about quality usually refer to player value. “We did 2781 FTDs this month with average player value of $250”.

New traffic is the new blood for every business and it’s the most important thing in my opinion. Without it, it’s difficult to grow your company and reach your goals (i.e KPIs).

But what is the right traffic? Few questions need to be answered to solve this complex and disturbing issue.
-          How do you know that these 2781 will purchase again?
-          What is the churn rate on these customers?
-          How much did you pay for these new customers?
-          What is the life expectancy of these customers?

Understand the purpose of buying traffic and your goals:
1.       Cover cost (usually takes three to six months but might take longer according to your industry)
2.       Make a profit (You should be able to make between five to ten time in less than 12 months, but again it depends on the industry you work in)

During my years as an online marketer in the online gaming industry I found that when buying traffic, age is the most important factor.
Older customers usually mean:
- Loyalty – 5/5
- Money – 5/5
- Suspicious – 4/5
-  Curiosity – 1/5

Young customers usually mean:
-Loyalty – 1/5
- Money – 1/5
-  Suspicious – 2/5
- Curiosity – 4/5

Every company needs to determine its own age group segments and build customers journeys according to it. For example, defining the following age groups:
1.       18 – 24
2.       25 – 34
3.       35 – 46
4.       47 – 61
5.       +62

Based on the following table.

Age Group	Average Customer Value in 12 months ($ USD)	Life Expectancy (Days) - between first to last deposit
18 – 24	87.57	15
25 – 34	347.70	31
35 – 46	755.23	63
47 – 61	1,326.94	120
+62	3,204.09	253

After you define these groups give them a priority according to your results.
1.       18 – 24 - Low
2.       25 – 34 - Low
3.       35 – 46 – Medium
4.       47 – 61 – High
5.       +62 – High

High means you want to get as many of customers in that group (maybe run different promotions when your existing customers get to these age groups, just a thought :-) )

Try to have two high level customers and focus on them the most.Now after analyzing your database according to this article with many amazing tools as: R studio, Power BI, Tableau and more.

Now contact your affiliates and tell them they have work to do!
Remember it does not help if you buy 120 new customers that are in the lower priority level for you. You will never cover cost and you won’t reach your goals.

I really hope this article was helpful for you and thanks for spending your time reading it.

Priority Potential RFM

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 19:38:00 +0000

After learning what is the RFM algorithm in my previous post. I would like to write today about my adjustments and improvements that helped me during these years as an online marketer.

I call it the Priority Potential RFM or just PPRFM.

P - Priority (who to contact first)
P - Potential (predicting lifetime value of a customer)
R – Recency (most recent deposit)
F – Frequency (how many times he deposited)
M – Monetary (Lifetime Deposits)

Please see attached diagram I did for an online gaming company:

Remember we are not changing the RFM algorithm we are just adding two new add-ons.

Priority - everything should work according to who do you want to contact first and why.

Potential - In this section you put everything you think might influence a customer to buy your product or not. It can be various things so try to think what are the characteristics that differentiate your purchasing customers from your customers that still didn't buy from you and segment them according to that.

For example your database shows that Americans ages 45 - 62 have high life expectancy and high CLV. So when a new customer from Arizona, USA, age 61 signs up with you. He will have higher potential than a customer from Arizona, USA age 24.

Remember that every customer has the potential to spread your story to other potential candidates, so treat them with respect and segment them correctly.

RFM algorithm

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 19:16:00 +0000

Let's jump right into the stuff we only have two minutes :-). In this post I would like to write about the RFM algorithm.

RFM analysis assigns value-scores to each customer on the basis of her past behavior. Using the quintile system explained above, at the most, 125 different scores (5x5x5) can be assigned. These cells differ in size from one another. A customer’s score can range from 555 being the highest, to 111 being the lowest. The best customers are in quintile 5 for each factor (555) that have purchased most recently, most frequently and have spent the most money.

RFM provides a simple framework for quantifying customer behavior. For example, it is possible to infer that customer which has RFM score 155, has made a high number of purchases with high monetary values but not for a long time.

Something might have gone wrong with this customer, for example, he/she has most likely defected to a competitor's products and services or has found an alternate source and that is why his/her recency score is low. At this situation, marketers can contact this customer and get feedbacks about how to do it better because he/she is one of the valuable customers according to his frequency and monetary values.

Moreover, it is possible to plan a customer reactivation program and send him/her an extreme promotion in an effort to get his/her attention. While customers with score 155 need a reminder, 551's need to be upsold, and 515's need a sticky recurring relationship. For example, if the RFM score of a customer is identified as 515, marketers can prepare a special customer packet that includes a thank-you letter, a list of company benefits, and an incentive to make another purchase from the online store within the next 30 days.

My Short Story

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 19:01:00 +0000

Hi, this is my first post. I would like to introduce myself to you all.

In the past 20 years I've worked in the online marketing. I was there when everything started.

This blog's purpose is to share with you all my understanding of how to do successful online marketing campaigns and how to retain your new and existing customers. In the world that everything is becoming more and more automatic, where AI is taking most of the focus we as marketers miss the why we do things.

I will try to guide and show you how I did things and how I managed to turn companies from $10K cash flow per month to $1 billion,

My moto in life is: "think before you act"

Hope you have an amazing experience.

Good luck,

Bob Tea