Four Instructional Videos to Help You Improve Your Marketing Measurement Process with Google Tag Manager

In late 2016, I provided an overview tutorial for marketers new to Google Tag Manager. During that GTM training session, I touched on some tactics for tracking embedded video, 404 error pages, scroll depth, and adjusted bounce rate. However, I did not review each of these tracking methods in full.

Below you will find four videos and related resources that will help you improve your marketing measurement process. Feel free to contact me directly with any follow up questions.

Tracking 404 Error Pages

Bad news: your website is not immune to 404 errors or "dead pages."

Good News: we can monitor and fix issues related to 404 error pages with Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics. Here is how...

 

Tracking Embedded YouTube Videos

You've placed one or more YouTube videos on your website or landing page. Way to go.

But are they getting any love? Which videos are getting the most attention? On what pages? How far into the video are viewers watching before deciding to bail?

Answer these questions and learn how to properly track YouTube video activity with the instructions below. Please reference this helpful post from Cardinal Path as you set up this process in Google Tag Manager.

 

Adjusted Bounce Rate with Google Tag Manager

Bounce rate can be such a bummer, but just because a visitor "bounced" does not necessarily mean that her visit was unsuccessful.

The bounce rate metric is based on single-page visits. So if someone visits your site, views only one page, and leaves after 10 seconds, they have "bounced." If another visitors comes to your site, views only one page, and leaves after 8 minutes, they have also "bounced." It's time to look at bounce rate differently. Let's base it on time spent on a page. The video below will show you how to create a "Timer Trigger" in Google Tag Manager, and provide counsel on how to evaluate site engagement metrics with greater context.

 

Measuring Scroll Depth with Google Tag Manager

If you have a lengthy page or a "scroller" website that essentially amounts to one single page, you need to measure scroll depth. Like, right now.

Thanks to a nifty script created by these guys, we can use Google Tag Manager to track when a visitor reaches certain scroll increments. In other words, we can pull data into Google Analytics that tells us when visitors reach 25%, 50%, 75% or the full length of a page.

 

Interested in completing other important measurement tasks with Google Tag Manager. Please let me know.

Today I provided a free online tutorial all about Google Tag Manager. We reviewed some benefits of adopting tag management as a key component of a marketing metrics program, created some sample tags and offered up some recommendations for fine-tuning your tag management process. Slides and video are included below. You will also find a link to some helpful Google Tag Manager resources provided to those who were able to attend the webinar.

Google Tag Manager Tutorial Slides

 

Google Tag Manager Tutorial Video

2:20 - Tag Manager & Efficiency
4:08 - Tag Manager & Time Savings
6:11 - Tag Manager & Measurement Program Organization
11:05 - Creating a Container Tag
13:11 - Defining Variables, Triggers & Tags in the Tag Manager Parlance
15:20 - Checking Our Work: Preview & Debug Mode and Real Time Analytics Reports
16:45 - The Analytics Pageview Tag
18:12 - Defining Constant Variables
19:19 - Publishing Your Container
21:03 - Page-Specific Triggers
26:02 - Adwords Conversion Tag Placement
29:58 - Adwords Remarketing Tag Placement
33:06 - Tags for Onclick Events in Analytics
34:49 - Creating Your Metrics Matrix
38:53 - Tracking PDF Clicks with Event Tags
40:22 - Activating the All Elements Click Trigger
41:23 - Activating Additional Variables
46:30 - Tracking Email Clicks with Event Tags
49:38 - Tag Manager Setup Checklist
50:50 - Tracking YouTube Activity with Event Tags
51:37 - Tracking Error (404) Page Activity with Event Tags
53:40 - Scroll Tracking with Event Tags
54:52 - Tracking Adjusted Bounce Rate with Tag Manager
57:32 - Notes on Ecommerce Tracking with Tag Manager
58:29 - Google Tag Manager Resources, Content & Courses
 

DOWNLOAD GOOGLE TAG MANAGER RESOURCES

No two metrics programs are alike, but the process to develop a new marketing analytics program typically involves the steps listed below.

Tasks are organized into two categories: Hands-On items, which require account creation, configuration, and some code alterations, and Hands-Off tasks, which are more strategic in nature and utilized to organize the program.

DOWNLOAD THE MARKETING ANALYTICS TASK LIST
 

Hands-On

1. Create a Google Account (assuming there is none)
2. Create a Google Analytics Profile (assuming there is none)
3. Configure Google Analytics – Most of these tasks are performed in the “Admin” area of Google Analytics.
   • Set "exclude" and "include traffic filters – Update these filters to remove traffic from internal visitors and/or illegitimate (spam) referral sources.
   • Link/integrate appropriate accounts (Adwords, Ad Exchange, Call Tracking, etc.)
   • Configure site search
   • Configure ecommerce settings (if necessary)
   • Prepare custom alerts for sudden loss/influx of visits, conversions, errors, etc
   • Create conversion goals
   • Add/include users for access to the account
4. Prepare and Label Client-Specific Advanced Segments – These act as lenses or unique filters relevant to traffic sources, campaigns, behavior, etc. They can be applied to every Google Analytics report and shared with clients and partners.
5. Test Google Analytics – Utilize the Real-Time reports to verify tracking.
   • Confirm traffic (with filters applied)
   • Confirm event actions
   • Confirm campaign tagging
6. Create a Google Tag Manager Container (assuming there is none)
7. Configure Google Tag Manager
   • Enable Click and Page related variables
   • Setup Required Google Analytics Variables & Tags
   • Configure Tags and Triggers for Custom Events
   • Add All Tags for Software, Advertising, Conversion Pixels, Custom HTML, etc.
   • Configure DataLayer Variables, Triggers & Tags (for ecommerce primarily)
8. Place the Google Tag Manager Container Tag on the Website or Application
9. Conduct Preview Testing – Utilize the Google Tag Manager "Preview" function here to ensure all of your tags are firing when they should.
   • Tags Firing on Page Load
   • Tags Firing on Clicks
   • Tags Not Firing According to Triggers/Filters in Google Tag Manager

Hands-Off

1. Review the Site/Campaign in Full – Prepare a master questions list that helps identify and articulate measurement nuances that you may revisit in reporting.
2. Decide Upon Primary Objectives and Key Metrics for the Program - Consider this an agreement with a client on meaningful success metrics and reporting cadence.
3. Prepare High-Level Metrics Matrix – Most important conversion goals and events are documented here.
4. Prepare Deep-Level Metrics Matrix – An expansive list of all your on-click events. This is mainly internal documentation that aids Google Tag Manager setup.
5. Create Campaign Tracking Inventory – Produce a Google Sheet or Excel document with Source / Medium / Campaign concatenations.
6. Document Advanced Segments
7. Document Filters and Related Google Analytics Functionality
8. Draft, Edit and Finalize Your Reporting Structure and Layout
9. Prepare and Present Reports – Report production is conducted on a weekly, monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly schedule.
10. Create and Update the Analytics Task List – This serves as a living document that records the suggestions and recommendations derived from each report.

Last week I was lucky enough to attend The Email Design Conference in San Francisco. As usual, the folks at Litmus put on a great show and filled the agenda with reputable, knowledgable email practitioners who all had something valuable to share.

The show was attended by a variety of email marketing professionals including designers, developers, strategists, marketers, and technologists. I'm always impressed by the people who come to the #LitmusLive events and how open, friendly and welcoming they truly are. Email people are different; they are equal parts smart and kind.

Here is a quick recap of some of my favorite sessions during the event.

Design Leadership from Andrea Mignolo of Movable Ink
Deservedly so, Andrea was given the opportunity to kick off the conference by speaking about the role of design in email. She defined design as "the rendering of intent" (a definition borrowed from Jared Spool). Andrea provided a much-needed reminder that email should be viewed by the marketer as a privilege, not a transaction. Design leadership coaxes trust with personal experience and delivers a conversation about intent. Elements that the email marketer can rely upon to create trust include voice, cadence, coordination and experience - all "little things" that make a significant difference within your audience's inbox.

Making the Mundane Delightful from Sarah Esterman of Simple
Simple is a tech company that provides online banking services. And like any bank, they are legally required to send notifications to their customers that wouldn’t typically be categorized as provocative or stimulating. These are the kinds of messages email marketers loathe. Simple, however, took a different approach. When tasked with delivering required disclosure regulations for electronic transfers, they made boring playful and injected personality into legalese. Simply took the "bankyness" out of banking. Sarah did a tremendous job of talking through the hurdles and stresses involved with the month-long process to get this email out, provided advice on how to deliver personality by being brave, and left us with this excellent tip: "be the best at being good to your customer." Here is more info on the rest of the story.

 

Automating Customer Success with Ros Hodgekiss of Campaign Monitor
Ros is in charge of customer success programs at Campaign Monitor, my personal ESP of choice. She deftly noted that while email automation has obvious merits (50% conversion rate for B2C companies and 60% revenue growth in B2B organizations), the adoption rate of email automation is still low. Less than half of business with less than $1B in revenue use automation today. Ros also provided some great insight on the importance of Customer Journey Mapping and Feedback Loops.

Customer Journey Maps allow us to define the perfect path taken by a customer through an automation series, help to define new milestones along the path, and provide a framework for success metrics. Feedback Loops involve collecting, triaging, and following up on recipient input so that we can be sure to deliver the most appropriate and relevant messaging to each individual over time and make course/system corrections internally. Because the Customer Journey often relies upon several tools and services (CRM, eCommerce, Analytics, Email Service Provider, Website, etc.) the challenge is integrating data from each tool (check out this piece on the importance of customer data hubs). As usual, Ros did an excellent job of educating the audience with examples, stories, and artfully concepted graphics.

 

Email Authentication with John Wilson of Agari
DKIM, DMARC, D..huh? What does it all mean? John Wilson of Agari did the near impossible by putting email authentication terms into plain English. While explaining the importance of the following systems, he gave us a snail mail analogy:

• DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) - This is like a wax stamp on a letter that ensures the integrity of the message. It authenticates the sender.
• SPF (Sender Policy Framework) - This is like the return address on an envelope. it authenticates the envelope.
• DMARC (Domain Based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) - This is like the 'from' name from inside the envelope. It is built on top of SPF and DKIM. It basically ensures that the mail coming from a sender is actually coming from that sender and not someone else.

John’s company Agari, works with large enterprises to prevent and fix deliverability issues. If you do not work for a large enterprise and are concerned about spam or phishing, John graciously recommended Dmarcian for derivability check-ups.
 

Big Data Emails of the Future with Laura Sullivan of Brightwave
Laura Sullivan brought to light what every email strategist has been thinking: one-to-one communication is ideal, but it's extremely difficult and time consuming. Bringing meaningful messages into an email message requires gathering meaningful data from recipients beforehand. Laura talked about the benefits and challenges of progressive profiling and how email marketers must strive to gather interest and motivation data from interactions as opposed to preference centers, which very few subscribers utilize.

Shifting her talk to execution-related themes, Laura also provided some great advice about using modular design (or card design) to introduce personalized elements to individual recipients. Finally, she warned against trying to do too much with templates with this graphic (above right). You can only pick two.
 

Defying Conventional Email Design with Jared Stivers from ModCloth
For a fashion brand like ModCloth, image is important. Jared Stivers talked about how his and other brands are using images to evoke emotion. In fact, he noted that when ModCloth uses image-heavy emails with an emotional context, they see more clicks and interactions. Despite the fact that emails that rely on large images or headlines that overlay images aren't really considered a best practice, Jared asked why others tend to design for their worst customers or for the worst possible experience.

Why use more imagery in your emails? Jared noted that A) images stand out in the inbox, B) they set the tone for your brand promise, and C) images can be used to speak to the audience’s passion. Also, as most emails are opened on phones (for his audience especially), he suggested leading with an image with the same aspect ratio as a phone. The immediate delivery of a complete idea helps convey the rest of the message.

 

Some other excellent tips and moments from #LitmusLive:

• Logan Baird of Emma gave us a primer on the Checkbox hack and encouraged the audience to check out Animate.css for CSS animations.
  
• Megan Merrifield of Supply.com and Katie Montgomery of Seaworld discussed cart abandonment emails and why message content should absolutely vary by customer type/history. Some great notes on FOMO (fear of missing out) messaging tactics were also provided.
• Eric Leptit of Nest provided some sage advice with the following:
  

  Emails don’t have to look the same everywhere, but every user matters.

  Don’t let the pixel perfect distract you. You care. Users don’t.

• For those email marketers that get stuck with design or content inspiration, Alex Williams of Trendline Interactive suggested we go back to the original reason the audience subscribed. He also compared email marketing to Tetris, "an unwinnable game that is endlessly fun to play."

Thanks again to Litmus and the community for making The Email Design Conference so enjoyable. If you love email (or it intrigues you), I highly recommend attending this event.

Do you ever feel like technology, that broad category of tools, systems, platforms, and arbitrarily-named widgets meant to create efficiencies, actually requires more time than it saves?

The grand theory of marketing technology and how it can help us deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time is promising, hopeful, and enlightening. In practice, marketing technology, specifically automated communications, is challenging, confusing, and vexing.

The problem lies not in the "why" to deliver relevant messages to targeted prospects and customers, but rather "how."

There are just too many tools. Tools collect customer data. Tools to record data about interactions with customers. Tools to advertise and deliver marketing messages to customers. Tools to collect data about the performance of those messages. And on and on. Gartner predicts that by 2017, CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs.

The attempt to confine a marketing communications program or a customer data set within a single tool or platform leads to a siloed approach and myopic outlook. Information from each tool in play (from analytics to customer service to email to CRM, etc.) must be combined to gain a panoramic view of the customer experience. Meanwhile, the confluence of multiple data streams from disparate tools often results in the customer data equivalent of a muddy creek.

How can we keep all the data clean while maintaining its never-ending supply and practicality?

The Need: Customer Data Hub

I’m of the opinion that many of us in the digital marketing industry get too caught up in tools, or the newest, brightest, shiniest platforms on the market.

We are tool-obsessed.
Are all the tools you are currently utilizing for analytics, CRM, email marketing, testing, surveys, ecommerce, live chat, etc. really necessary? Probably.
Are there alternative solutions to tools in your current marketing technology stack that could carry out a unique function better, faster, cheaper? Maybe.

The real question lies in how to build a better relationship with new and existing customers:
Would it be advantageous to share customer data between tools to produce a more relevant experience for the customer? Hell yes. Forget about tools for a second. Data is your most valuable asset.

The point of the customer data hub is to gather information about customers regardless of how and where they interact with your brand (site vs. app, mobile vs. desktop, email vs. help desk), and to make smart decisions about the next best interaction with that individual.

For example: It’s probably not a bad idea to allow a visitor’s actions on your website or app to inform the next email message your brand sends to that person.
 

Potential Solutions

Here are some sample customer hub/personalization tools below. Please note that I am not providing an endorsement here. These are just samples I have chosen to list based on my own research and experience.

Fresh Relevance - Connects email service providers and shopping cart platforms for online retailers
Boomtrain - Tracks interactions with your website/app to deliver personalized, omni-channel engagements
Umbel - Helps organizations in the entertainment and non-profit industries create custom customer segments
Segment.com - Houses all customer data and provides easy integrations for popular analytics, CRM, and email tools
 

How They Work

Each of the customer data hub providers above operate slightly differently, but here’s a high-level explanation of how customer data hubs operate.

• Tags are placed to gather customer data and information about their behavior and actions.
• Some tags are used to identify who visitors are, while others are used to track where they go and what they do.
• Libraries of tracked data are then stored and sent on to respective tools and platforms in your marketing technology stack.
• One or a series of tracked behaviors can act as a trigger to kick off targeted messaging to individual customers and prospects.

 

Sample Communications Programs Empowered by Customer Data Hubs

 
Lead Nurture - As opposed to creating a "set it and forget it" workflow, make alterations and adjustments to your communications based on app/site behavior (Analytics) and sales interaction (CRM).

Predictive Recommendations - Monitor activity on a website or app and provide customized recommendations for individual users via email. Here is more info from Fresh Relevance and SendRoll.

Product Onboarding - The most crucial (and confusing) touch points between brand and user are usually right at the start of a new engagement. Deliver useful tips and helpful resources to customers based on their website page visit behavior and search patterns.

Product/Service Utilization Updates - Keep customers engaged and informed about how they are using (or not using) a product. Nest does a very good job of this.

Conveying Social Proof - Encourage customers to take action by introducing elements of social proof and/or scarcity (i.e. “only three left”). Here is a visual example of this concept from Fresh Relevance.

Shopping Cart Abandonment - By delivering a recovery email to interested prospects, retailers can increase conversion rates and win back more customers. Here are some additional insights from Boomtrain.

Email Cadence Testing - Data can flow to or from an email marketing tool. Combining email behavior tracking (opens and clicks) with website or app analytics, marketers can determine whether they are sending emails too much or not enough. Segment.com offers some helpful tips regarding email overload.

The Hitch
For all of the programs explained above that involve triggered email communication, customers must either subscribe or log in to tie site/app behavior to their email address. Otherwise, they are viewed as anonymous users and email marketing campaigns are not always feasible.
 

The Real Benefit

With any change in process or modifications to how marketing technology is used within an organization there are gains and losses to be had. Consider the following before deciding to utilize a customer data hub or choosing which solution is best for you.

What We Gain: Improved marketing message relevance and greater understanding of each customer by avoiding data silos.
What We Lose: Time and development resources dedicated to integrating one ore more tools manually. Plus, as many hubs allow for easy, one-click updates to the tools passing data to and from the customer data hub, the costs involved with switching from one tool to another are minimal.

Recognize that marketing technology providers provide value in their features, functions and ease of use. You derive value from marketing technology by utilizing them to gather, analyze, and act on customer data. Maintaining a hub at the center of your marketing technology mix will help to provide balance in operations and clarity in decision marking.

When I was a teenager I took on all sorts of jobs to make a little money.

I cleaned pools, mowed lawns, raked mountains of leaves, and trimmed elusive palm trees. I painted houses. In a fast food place, I manned the deep fryer serving up greasy tacos and salty french fries. In a private kitchen, I assisted with food prep and made dishes sparkle. I even worked in a museum in downtown Phoenix for a summer.

For the most part, I did well in all these roles except for one.

I was an abysmal babysitter. Absolutely terrible.

With one babysitting job (my last one actually), things didn’t go as planned. A family in my neighborhood with two kids asked me to help out while the parents ran errands and went out for a weekend afternoon. I thought it would be easy. I got the kids settled in front of the television, popped some cartoon movie into the VCR, and retreated to another room where I could relax in peace.

An hour flew by. When I went to check on the kids, I couldn’t find them.

I heard some laughing coming from a bathroom down the hall. There they were - having just hurled literally dozens of soaking wet, wadded up balls of toilet paper at the bathroom mirror, walls, and ceiling. As luck would have it, the parents had just arrived home. Their lavatory masterpiece consisted of giant spitballs, only bigger and grosser considering the kids had likely used toilet water as a binding agent.

I showed them what their delightful and spirited children had accomplished in the bathroom and bolted home without asking for payment. Peace out.

Needless to say I didn’t get a call from that family to watch their kids again. Nor would I have accepted. And to make the situation more awkward, they lived directly across the street.

Despite the fact that those kids were undeniably demonic and they are both probably sitting in a correctional facility right now, I screwed up. I was a bad babysitter, who could have helped to keep the holy terrors at bay. My mistake.

Email Marketing is Babysitting

There are several similarities between the childcare occupation and my current role as an email marketer. Please know that I’m not trying to compare email subscribers and recipients to unruly brats. The two jobs - babysitter and email marketer - sharing a striking likeness. Here is what I mean.

You Have to Get Acquainted

To make any babysitting adventure a success, the caregiver must invest in learning about the children in his/her care. What do they like to eat? What do they consider fun? What do they view as exciting, funny, scary, or tedious? Asking a few simple questions of a child to learn her interests will guide the babysitter’s approach for the rest of the gig.

Similarly, email marketers must first understand the needs, wants, and expectations of their audience before sending too many messages that run the risk of being irrelevant. There is no more important time in the sender-recipient relationship than during the subscription process. Email marketers must gather what info they can upon sign-up or gradually glean interests during a “welcome” series to convey pertinent messages moving forward.

Make Unyielding Efforts to Entertain

So much of a babysitter’s job is about appealing to a child’s interests and keeping them happy, content, and entertained. This requires planning. This demands creativity. This necessitates good, old-fashioned hard work.

Some of the best email marketers are also seasoned content marketers. They make certain to produce and deliver the best possible information, resources and content via email and always place a priority on relevance. Just like the babysitter’s task, content development and refinement can be a grind for email marketers. Regardless, every email you send is competing with dozens if not hundreds of other inbox inhabitants on a daily basis. Your email content must captivate. No exceptions.

Avoid Taking Shortcuts

With my own misguided attempt to “entertain,” I sat the kids in front of a television - a classic rookie move from a lame caregiver. In other words, I took a shortcut.

You know who else takes mindless shortcuts? Email marketers who rely on misleading subject lines, avoid optimizing their templates for mobile devices, or send without permission. These kinds of tactics just don’t work, but they do tend to trigger a collective gag reflex among desired audiences.

Read the Signs of Boredom & Apathy

As a child-care worker, it’s important to detect when the kids are disinterested. Every yawn or expression of general malaise is a clear indication that it’s time to move on to something new.

As an email marketer, a continuous lack of response or disinterest from an email audience speaks volumes. In some cases, it’s time to re-engage them or find out what they would prefer to receive from you with a “tell us your preferences” campaign. Extended periods of inactivity call for removal from the list completely. If it’s obvious that certain segment of your recipients are just deleting every email message you send, give them an easy out.

Learn from Each Interaction

Like I said, I never received a call-back from the parents of the miniature sociopaths. A better babysitter with a more successful experience would take account of every care giving gig with an individual family or group of kids. What did the kids enjoy? What bored them to tears? What should we do differently next time? Keeping tabs on small successes and failures can help a babysitter improve the experience for the next job.

In email marketing, we also have to measure rigorously. Metrics like delivery rates, open rates, and click rates tend to get the most attention, but there are likely micro-moments (interactions with a particular content element) that we can monitor. As ongoing communication with an audience proceeds, measurement of what individual segments respond to or ignore can aid in the decision process for what to deliver with each subsequent send.

Babysitting is no picnic. It brings panicked challenges and unanticipated hurdles. While I may have been the worst babysitter in recent history, my missteps in that occupation certainly helped me to become a more empathetic and prepared email marketer. I hope they do for you as well.

A friend recently called asking for some advice about her client's current email marketing platform. She felt that the current toolset does an adequate job, but the need to upgrade may be fast approaching.
The question: At what point do you know it's time to transfer email marketing operations to a more advanced, robust email service provider (ESP)?
My answer: Maybe never.

Before we get into the particulars of why or why not to move on up to an advanced email marketing suite, let's first distinguish a CRM from an ESP.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools - These platforms provide a foundation for contact or customer records management. Information about customers are stored, segmented, and updated based on ongoing interactions with individual customers. CRM tools typically include email marketing capabilities among other content, marketing, sales, and measurement operations.
Examples include Salesforce, Hubspot, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, ZOHO, several variations of Oracle CRM, and so on.

Email Service Providers (ESP) - Simply put, email marketing tools enable users to create, deliver, and measure email marketing campaigns. While contacts can be stored and segmented within email lists, ESPs do not offer the same kinds of data manipulation functionality as your typical CRM. However, several ESPs offer integrations to connect data about customer email behaviors with other tools related to content management, analytics, marketing surveys, ecommerce, social media, etc.
Examples include MailChimp, AWeber, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, Emma, Vertical Response, and so on.

When we talk about "upgrading", we most often refer to migrating from an ESP solution to a full-fledged CRM platform. Given the definitions above and your company's objectives and unique processes not withstanding, transitioning from a tool like MailChimp to Campaign Monitor might be considered a lateral move. More on that later.

Note: This post really is not about what CRM tool or ESP to choose/use. They all have merit and some are better than others for your unique situation and marketing communications requirements. Here I plan to explore whether moving from an ESP to a CRM is really worth all the effort. Considerations are discussed. Pros and cons are offered.

Does (List) Size Really Matter?

One of the first considerations many give to making the "ESP or CRM" decision revolves around the size of the customer list. Typically smaller lists in the hundreds or thousands only warrant a simple ESP solution. Customer records numbered in the hundreds of thousands might require something more robust. List size is one component to the decision process for sure, but it's really not all that important when deciding to upgrade.

The key issue when deciding to migrate to an all-in-one CRM solution is not the sheer volume of data, but rather how that data needs to be utilized and manipulated. If your customer record volume is over 100,000 and you simply need a method to deliver marketing communications, an ESP will do the job. If you are seeking to develop a program that delivers customized messages based on website behavior, phone conversations with your sales team, and in-store visits, your requirements likely call for a tool with more heft. Before moving away from your ESP, take a realistic look at what you can do with your data if given the features and functionality CRM tools afford.

Integrations Almost Make "Upgrading" Moot

Over the past few years, the creation and development email marketing software has become a commoditized business. Comparing ESPs is almost like choosing between midsize sedans – at first glance, they all look the same. Most every respectable email delivery system includes the following features:

• Contact Capture Forms - the ability to create forms that live on your website and feed your list
• WYSIWYG Editors & Pre-Fabricated Templates - email design tools that enable almost anyone to create a pretty email
• Transactional Email / Automation - often called "nurture series" or "drip campaigns" that feed relevant information to select group of subscribers according to a set of conditions
• Testing - methods to A/B split an audience to improve email performance over time
• Personalization - deliver emails that are modified based on an individual subscribers contact information, interests and preferences
• Integration API - a means to connect data from the ESP with other reputable tools

It's that last feature that makes the migration process to a CRM tool nearly pointless. Just take a look at the integration libraries from MailChimp and Campaign Monitor. Try and find a legitimate digital marketing operation that cannot synchronize customer data with one of these ESPs. Nearly everything is covered: analytics tools, content management platforms, SMS services, CRM and contact management tools, ecommerce providers, event management systems, customer service tracking tools, social media venues, and on and on. Plus, tools like Zapier make non-existent or unestablished connections between two tools a reality.

With the volume and variety of possible connections available, small to medium-sized businesses can choose to spend time rather than money to make all their disparate marketing processes play nice together.

The Real Question: Battleship vs. Fleet?

Without analyzing cost implications of the various CRM and ESP options in great depth, the most important factor to determining how to accomplish your digital marketing objectives with the tools available on the market is your company’s tolerance for juggling.

Would you prefer to rely on one singular toolset for the vast majority of your customer communications and record keeping needs (aka The Battleship), or can you manage a Fleet of tools and platforms all designed to complete a specific tactic (e.g. email, contact management, ecommerce, customer service, content publishing, etc.)? The CRM option provides a single source with which your team can familiarize itself. Using an ESP and several integrations to accomplish myriad marketing tasks is more of a juggling act. A list of advantages to each approach follows.

Advantages to Upgrading to a CRM

• Consolidate all contact records and electronic communications within a single suite
• Less concern about faulty integrations or losing connections between two services
• Ability to hire resources solely dedicated to a single toolset, as opposed to one or more people managing several platforms

Advantages to Standing Pat with Your ESP

• Keep familiar systems in play, and accomplish all required customer data transfer operations with integrations
• Avoid training and onboarding time associated with migrating to a larger CRM system
• Diversify communications and contact management platforms to hedge against failure of a single system to operate or simply survive

One last note on cost implications:
The CRM approach is typically more costly with one-time program setup costs, training/onboarding expenses, and multi-seat licenses.The ESP+Integrations approach likely will not impact the budget as much as it will require precious resources on the time clock.
 

Above all, know that no marketing communications program can flourish without care and effort to customize the solution to your specific needs. CRM and ESP configurations are as unique as the companies that produce them. Set aside time and resources to enable the tools to work for you, and not the other way around.

Make no mistake. Email lists are assets. The value of the list is only as great as the distinctive connections the brand shares with individual subscribers.

While some email recipients may eat up every ingredient you offer up to their inboxes, others just aren’t that into you. This lack of interest, mutual affection, and activity indicates where the real vulnerability lies within your email list. The true menace to a well-performing and profitable email marketing program is not the unsubscribed, but rather the uninspired.

The opposite of love is not hate; it is apathy.
- Rollo May

Here are three strategies to place direct focus on the disinterested and appeal to the apathetic.

Identify Inactives and Begin The Courtship Process Anew

Has an individual subscriber not shown any signs of life over a significant amount of time? It's probably time to check in on her.

The determination of who is "inactive" vs. "active" is completely at your discretion. With proper context, you may decide that those on your list who can be classified as "inactives" haven’t opened or clicked an email from you in the past X sends or the previous Y weeks. Make the call, but be consistent. Consider initial subscribe date to avoid sending a re-engagement message to recent subscribers.

I've written previously about email reactivation campaign strategies and tactics, but the process goes like so:

A. Segment inactives based on lack of activity over a set period of time or a quantity of previously sent emails.
B. Design a campaign that is meant to upset the current flow. Use a subject line that reads outside the norm.
C. Within the body of the email, acknowledge a lack of activity and invite the subscriber to re-engage.
D. Encourage inactives to update preferences or provide them with a special offer. Here are a few examples below.

A simple re-engagement message from Lowe's:

A "We’ve Missed You" message with incentives from Crate & Barrel:

An invitation to see what’s new and a special discount from Rockport:

 

Encourage Preference Center Updates

It is difficult to appeal to someone when we don’t know exactly what they want from us or what they truly value from our relationship. Utilization of a preference center can solve this mystery.

Most any Email Service Provider (ESP) allows for a customizable preference center. Your job is to A) make modifications to this tool so that aligns with your brand and provides a means to capture subscriber interests and motivations that can impact future email messages, and B) determine the best way to promote the preference center.

Here is a sample custom preference center from The Home Depot in which the subscriber can select among home improvement interests, gardening interests, skill levels (beginner to expert), and content subscriptions.

As noted in the points above, a preference center can be the subject of a unique campaign meant to win back the attention of inactive subscribers. Here is a sample from Artifact Uprising in which the preference center is positioned as a survey:

You can also introduce the preference center and encourage its use during other crucial points in the publisher-subscriber relationship:

1. On the "thank you for signing up" page immediately following subscription.
2. During a "welcome" series, which aims to provide important information about what the recipient can expect in their inboxes. Also take this opportunity to elicit preferences data to ensure the utmost in relevance.
3. As an omnipresent element in all email communications. Most email marketers include a small link to update preferences adjacent to an unsubscribe link in the footer. If preference data is important to you as an email marketer (as it should be), consider making the "update your preferences" link a more prominent fixture in your email template.
4. During unsubscribe actions. Perhaps a few subscribers aren't necessarily fed up with all your emails, just specific content or delivery frequency. A preference center can be introduced during unsubscribe confirmations to give the recipient control. Check out the example below from PetFlow.com.

 

Review Email Performance Metrics by Content/Topic

In a preemptive move to remain in the good graces of those that interact with your email marketing messages today but could tumble down into an area of disinterest later, consider reviewing your content metrics. Here is how it works.

Assuming you have sent a decent volume of emails that focus on various content topics, segment these emails and their performance metrics by subject matter. The following example comes from a recent email audit I performed. Please note the numbers are a modified replica of reality to protect the client’s anonymity.

Over the course of six months, the client had sent dozens of emails to its audience. Each email delivery fell into one of five topic segments. Take a look at the metrics below.

We can take a few notes away from this data to inform our email content planning and editorial calendar process.

1. Educational content scores well in both open and click rate metrics. This kind of content seems to perform well and we should produce more of it.
2. The Product Introduction and Special Offer topics score high in open rate indicating well-crafted subject lines that piqued recipients’ curiosity. However, they did not produce outstanding follow through with lower click rate metrics.
3. The Gift Giving topic does not perform well according to either metric and should likely be discontinued or reserved for a subset of the audience who has explicitly requested these kinds of messages.
4. Further analysis is likely needed to determine what topic has the greatest impact on sales. We might find that a topic that does not necessarily generate a high volume of opens and clicks does produce site visitors with a very high likelihood of conversion/purchase behavior.

 

No matter how you encourage inactive and apathetic subscribers to engage with your email content, always strive to provide the most pertinent and meaningful messages for each individual recipient. Minimize churn and list fatigue by amplifying relevance.

Running a successful and informative analytics program is not always easy. Here are six potential pitfalls that can affect any data-driven process. Remain cognizant of each probable hurdle as you build and refine your own marketing metrics operation.

1. Reporting Rubbish

Are your reports truly providing helpful insight, clearly stated data translations, and meaningful recommendations? While the “insights” or “notes” section of any report is truly the most important, too often these annotations simply regurgitate data tables, charts, and graphs. Don’t let your marketing reports get away with conveying cookie-cutter notes and lackluster insights. For every hour spent pulling data, spend an hour offering up a healthy dose of understanding.

2. Empty-Handed Frustration

The analysis process can lead you down several promising routes that bear no fruit. A data point that initially gives off a promising scent can end up stale and uninspiring. Don't sweat it. The more time you spend with your data, the better equipped you'll be to uncover juicy takeaways and ask really smart questions. Remain steadfast, if not stubborn, in your commitment to manipulate marketing metrics to unveil truly meaningful data discoveries. Stay true, and keep hunting.

3. Lack of Creative Appreciation & Cooperation

Be a data-driven organization, not a data dictatorship. Marketing metrics should not command the creative process. Data should inform creative strategy and validate its results. Just because you have the metrics to point you in the right direction, doesn't mean the journey is complete. Analysts need to know their role. Allow your metrics to inform business decisions without mandating creative approach and execution.

4. Integration Troubles

No matter what analytics tools you rely upon, getting them all to share data or feed one single hub is often a challenge. Integrate data from your various marketing metrics platforms (web, apps, media buys, search campaigns, email, social media, etc.) to make holistic decisions about the current state and future of your program. Having trouble integrating data from one tool with another? Try tools like Zapier, snapLogic, or Skyvia.

5. HiPPOs

No, I'm not advising you to steer clear of perilous pachyderms. HiPPO is an acronym for Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. From the CEO to the intern, we all have thoughts and ideas about the best course of action for our websites, apps, and campaigns. The only opinion that truly matters, however, is that of the customer. Data-driven organizations are democracies ruled by the people. In the analyst's case, your "people" are your website visitors, app users, and the prospects targeted in your campaigns. Don't let one person - even the boss - run the show. The voice of the customer as demonstrated by analytics should be the focus of your metrics program and always have the final say.

6. Analytical Myopia

Marketing campaigns fail. So do websites, landing pages, emails, display buys, search programs, and offline efforts. Most often the points of failure are not singular. Avoid becoming so laser-focused on a sole issue that you lose sight of other symptoms. Take a wide view when problem-solving and be willing to change how and what you measure to make the best long-term marketing decisions.

Making Email More Efficient & Relevant with Dynamic Variables

A greater degree of relevancy often translates to better email marketing results. If you find yourself sending the same email to every single person on your list when an opportunity to convey more specificity exists, just stop it. Dynamic email doesn’t have to be difficult, we just need to put forth the thought and leg work to line up all the particulars properly.

The following documents a recent, real-life client example in which dynamic elements played a key role while relevance and efficiency won the day. I can’t tell you the name of the client, but let’s just say I developed a dynamic email program on behalf of a well-known retailer in the home improvement space.

 

The Situation: A Potential Quagmire of Inefficiency

The client had asked to deliver a unique email message in which recipients in 18 markets would receive a slightly different set of content elements. While I could have taken the long route by developing 18 unique email templates, we (the client and I) opted to create one template that would populated by 18 different lists. The result was less expensive for them and less time-intensive for me. Win-win.

 

The Solution: Illuminating Dynamic Possibilities

To explain the situation in more detail, the client wanted to deliver a message that included:

• A catchy headline that referenced the market/City name
• A special promotion unique to that market
• A map showing the location of the different stores in the market
• Contact details for store representatives (quantity varied by market)

For each store rep, we had an added collection of unique variables including:

• Rep Headshot
• Rep First & Last Name
• Store Address, City, State & Zip
• Rep Phone Number
• Rep Email Address
• Store Hours

A quick gander at all those elements, you can quickly see how variables (and columns) in our list added up quickly, especially for emails that featured four store reps or more. The challenge was to tie the correct variables to each recipient in all 18 lists. By the way, the total list quantity numbered greater than 16,000 with all markets combined.

 

The Template: Open Sockets

Think of our template for this project as power strip with several open sockets.

The template itself required form and structure as well as mobile responsive properties, but it also needed to provide openings into which we could slide our many variables (or plugs). The desktop view of the template kind of looked like this. Wherever you see a highlighted area is an open socket.

The List: A Plethora of Plugs

To be honest, the template construction piece of this project was the easy part. The list management portion required some heavy lifting and serious concentration.

Think of each variable in our list (promotion image, market City reference, rep headshot, rep phone number, etc.) as an individual plug for our power strip of sockets. Every single plug would have to be represented in its own cell within an Excel/CSV recipient list file.

As noted above, some markets could require nearly 50 unique plugs per message depending upon how many store reps were available in each market (4-6 in some cases). Remember, contact details for just one store rep could equate to ~8 plugs. Each one of those plugs must be tied to a unique email address so the appropriate plugs would fit into the correct sockets upon program launch.

I had three kinds of plugs for this particular project:

• Text Plugs: These would cover references to City name, Rep name, and most of the rep Contact info.
• Image Plugs: These would reference image files I would upload along with the template for the promo image, map image and all the Rep head shots.
• Link/URL Plugs: Finally, I could include an email address or website address to be dynamically plugged into to my template were appropriate.

Every different plug would be represented by a column in my email list. When uploading each list, I would assign a column full of unique plugs to the appropriate socket in my template. For example, all the “PromoImage” plugs would be aligned with the <img src=“[PromoImage].jpg”> socket in my template.  The “Rep1Email” plugs would be aligned with the <a href=“mailto:[Rep1Email]”>[Rep1Email]</a> socket in the template, and so on.

For more on how to configure your list, check out my previous post on dynamic email content.

 

Testing & Deployment: Flipping the Switch

Given the large quantity of email addresses, plugs and moving pieces, testing efforts required some serious dedication. The last thing I wanted to was to spend all this time orchestrating this effort for a stupid error to occur (trust me, mistakes with dynamic email are no fun).

I used a few tools to test all the different components.

• Template Testing: I used Litmus email previews. Their checklist process makes it easy to spot an fix errors with your code.
• List Accuracy & Quality Assurance: I relied on old school diligence and sweat here, pouring over rows of data and double checking that all the names, contact details, image references and URLs were spot on.
• Deployment Testing: To execute this program, I relied on Campaign Monitor as my ESP. Campaign Monitor makes it easy to test dynamic elements. I ran a few tests for each of the 18 market with randomly selected contacts on each list.

Thankfully, everything checked out.

Despite the time and effort it took to create my socket-laden template and manage/configure the client’s multiple lists and plugs, I actually saved countless hours compared to creating 18 different emails. Additionally, the client now has a template and a list configuration process they can rely on for future email deliveries like this one.