Measuring Marketing Campaigns Online

Measuring Beyond the Click-Through: Overview

Point-Per-Click and Affiliate advertising are an investment that is easy to justify since you only pay for actions. Essentially, no traffic means no cost – some might call that a no-lose proposition.

However, it is important to target successful keyword programs and specific affiliates by applying science to the process of selection. You have to go beyond looking solely at unique visits by finding KPIs that answer your true KPQs (Key Performance Questions):

This module helps you to decide what outcome you are aiming for in order to identify the right keyword and affiliate candidates. In performance evaluations, you must consider direct “recent” conversions (single visit) and delayed “latent” conversions (multiple visits). In particular, latent conversion analysis can impact the decision making process.

This module includes two case studies: Improve and Optimize PPC Campaigns Using Web Analytics and The Impact of Tuning Keywords to Ad Copy in PPC Campaigns.

Measuring Beyond the Click-Through: Objectives / Outcomes

Understand these concepts:

• How to improve search engine and affiliate marketing through effective keyword and site selection and analysis
• Recent Conversions and Latent Conversions
• Metrics needed to perform conversion analysis
• Fixed metrics and calculated metrics
• How keyword planning can improve ad copy and landing pages

Be able to do these things:

• Assess and improve keyword performance using recognized metrics
• Evaluate how latent conversion analysis impacts search engine and affiliate marketing strategies
• Identify and implement actionable KPIs in a web analytics solution to optimize / improve Pay-Per-Click and Affiliate campaign results
• Perform keyword performance analysis and measure its impact on generating website traffic.

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Proper Set-Up and Maintenance of PPC Campaigns: Overview

Through the use of keywords and phrases, a high degree of relevance can be achieved in linking the display of the PPC advert to an Internet user’s interest. A PPC marketer has the ability to influence click-through rates through keyword/ phrase selection, the text used in an advert, the frequency of advert display, advert position, campaign reach and the time the advert is displayed. This can be categorized as pre-click initiatives.

The pre-click initiatives are however, not the only factors that dictate the success of a campaign and return on investment (ROI) maximization. The actions of Internet users post-click, the website persuasion process in motivating conversions, the number of visits required to complete a conversion and other actions all have a direct impact on PPC campaign success.

There are many post-click initiatives, such as keyword/ phrase performance, conversion beyond the entry page and other campaign related variables, which need to be optimized so as to maximize success rates and boost return on investment.

As a direct marketing tool, PPC marketing campaigns generally have goals and objectives associated with them that are conversion oriented. The website owner is looking to drive traffic to the website and once there, have the visitor complete an action, such as buy a product, subscribe, download information, etc. In this way, the role of micro-sites and landing pages becomes a means with which to gauge visitor insight and improve PPC campaign performance.

Later sections in this module help you to identify “click fraud” in PPC and Affiliate programs. With a sophisticated web analytics tool, you can create customized reports on traffic sources and look for fraud-like behaviors.

This module includes an email assignment that involves analyzing PPC and landing pages.

Setting up Pay-Per-Click Campaigns: Objectives / Outcomes

Understand these concepts:

• Different types of PPC and Affiliate campaigns
• Pre-click initiatives, PPC measurements, and performance indicators
• How micro-sites and landing pages affect PPC campaign management
• Click fraud and its detection by using web analytics

Be able to do these things:

• Use performance indicators and web analytics to improve PPC campaign performance
• Evaluate implementing landing pages and micro-sites to improve campaign performance
• Implement processes to identify and eliminate or reduce click fraud
• Apply for and receive credit for fraudulent clicks
• Evaluate the performance of a landing page or micro-site for any PPC campaign

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Measuring Email Campaign Effectiveness: Overview

It’s important for your email marketing to work in concert with your web analytics solution. Many of the really important email metrics are, in fact, web metrics that are tied back to specific email campaigns.

Most email messages should have a call to action. Most of the time, this call to action will drive email recipients back to your website, whether it’s to download a whitepaper, to register for a webinar, or to buy something through your ecommerce system. While all those activities can be measured using a web analytics tool, tying them back to the email that brought the visitor there in the first place is equally important.

Important email metrics include ratios, such as the click-through rate (CTR). Ratios can be compared meaningfully, allowing you to see whether one email batch was more successful than another. Ratios like the click-through rate are also known as key performance indicators (KPIs) if changes in them directly impact the business. There are a number of resources on web-based KPIs and many of these indicators can be easily adapted to measure email activity as well (see the additional readings section for more on web-based KPIs).

The assessment of every stage of the communication process involved with email becomes critical; particularly as communication relevance and communication relationship development is being recognized as an important aspect in the “struggle to avoid the instantaneous delete.”

Later sections discuss campaign targeting through the use of segmentation. A segment is a specific group of customers with unique needs, specific behaviors and identifying characteristics. By segmenting prospects and customers, you can create more focused messages that improve email performance and improve metrics like open and click-through rates.

Email Campaign Effectiveness: Objectives / Outcomes

Understand these concepts:

• Basic metrics for email marketing
• How to measure email performance via key performance indicators
• Elements of the email communication process
• Marketing segmentation

Be able to do these things:

• Assess email marketing activity by quantifying it
• Determine the success of an email campaign
• Calculate KPIs to create a KPI report
• Test email communications and evaluate the results
• Use customer/prospect segmentation to build customer and prospect personae and focus messages and offers

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Advanced Email Marketing Analytics: Overview

This module provides information on how email can be used to acquire new customers. To manage such a campaign effectively, you need to understand the steps your prospects go through from initial exposure to your offer down to sign-up completion, the conversion funnel.

The conversion funnel resembles a funnel because prospects will abandon the process at some point. Your goal is to identify each point along the funnel where these drop-offs occur and reduce that number of abandonments thereby increasing conversions.

Sections in this module describe how to use the intelligence gained from web and email analysis to segment your email communications with the intention of targeting customers based on interaction behavior, purchase history or LifeCycle factors.

A fundamental aspect of email marketing is the ability to develop a relationship with the target audience. To achieve this, two key factors are important, namely content relevance (is the target audience interested in what you are communicating?) and trust (you need to build a reputation in the audience’s eyes, where they trust your communications and know they can rely on the communications to be informative and of value). Ignore these factors and your communications soon become the targets of the instantaneous delete/ trash button. The basic metric for measure interest levels is email click through rates.

Later sections tell how email link tracking and analysis can be enhanced to gauge content popularity and be used as a tool to determine interest levels in content subject matter over a period of time. This is called Content Trend Analysis.

This module includes a discussion assignment regarding calculating the cost of increased email frequency.

Advanced Email Marketing Analysis: Objectives / Outcomes

Understand these concepts:

• Conversion funnel and customer acquisition via email
• Customer retention and customer segmentation
• The effect of Recency on response rate in email campaigns
• How content categorization and content trend analysis relates to newsletters

Be able to do these things:

• Assess the effectiveness of an email acquisition program
• Assess communication effectiveness using customer segmentation
• Create an email-based retention program to increase sales and lower costs
• Evaluate content popularity over extended periods of time
• Calculate the cost of Increased email frequency

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Setting Up Application Tools and Handling Barriers: Overview

This module discusses which requirements should be considered in order to maximize the actionable intelligence that can be extracted from web analysis and email distribution solutions. You will need to discuss with your web analytics and or email services solution provider as to how their applications can be set up or fine-tuned to achieve the same results.

Email marketing has evolved from batch-and-blast simplicity to a more complex, trustworthy marketing channel. Key to this trustworthiness is deliverability. Many issues can occur, however, that may hinder good email deliverability rates and therefore the metrics tied to your email program. You will look at some of the most common issues with deliverability and ways of overcoming these barriers to improve overall response data.

This module includes a special project that works with a Marketing Campaigns Analysis Report.

Application Tool Setup and Maintenance: Objectives / Outcomes

Understand these concepts:

• Email marketing effectiveness
• Common problems that can occur during email delivery
• The purpose, expectations, schedule and assessment methods for a Marketing Campaigns Analysis report

Be able to do these things:

• Identify weaknesses in the email marketing conversion process
• Handle issues involving email delivery

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Introduction to Display Advertising: Overview

This module provides information on the different types of advertising options and purchase methods. This is the first step in creating and managing a successful online campaign. You’ll review ad terminology, pricing options, pricing models, and ad placement options.

Advertising metrics are typically used to measure the performance of an advertising campaign, while also providing the insight that allows the marketer to understand the different elements of the campaign and take action to improve performance.

The elements of the campaign include everything from creative (including size, formatting etc), message to market, call to action, advertising channels selected, targeting options selected, and duration/ timing of adverts. The metrics do not include standard ad “pricing” methods, which of course come into play but are not really “metrics” – they are just ways to set price. Rather, these are some of the metrics used to measure behavior and determine the “real” cost or ROI of the advertising.

Careful planning is required to effectively advertise online and measure the results. The first step is to determine what is being advertised and the objectives for the ad. Next, determine where the ads will be placed (most likely your site, someone else’s or both). Before the ads are designed, the banner size(s) will have to be determined, which may be dictated by the site requirements where the ads will appear.

You’ll learn about comparing click-through ratios, types of banner ads, banner ad coding and tracking, and unique landing pages.

Online (Display) Advertising Overview: Objectives / Outcomes

Understand these concepts:

• Online (display) advertising
• Advertising placement terminology and purchasing methods
• Metrics that apply to display advertising
• Types of banner ads and banner ad strategy

Be able to do these things:

• Summarize the various purchase methods for online advertising
• Calculate the most effective ads
• Combine advertising and purchase options to actualize real ROI for your online advertising goals
• Use advertising and web metrics to enhance the campaign decision making process
• Form an ad strategy that involves banner ads

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Understanding What Can Be Tracked and Measured: Overview

This module provides information about Adservers, which are powerful technological tools that, when used correctly, can benefit both advertisers and publishers. It is almost impossible to effectively run an online advertising campaign without an adserver.

Adservers are generally sold in two major ways: as an ASP (application service provider) service, or a local installation of the adserving technology – in simple terms, the later tends to bring greater cost efficiency for larger sized clients – the greater the volume of your online marketing inventory or campaign, the more cost-efficient a local installation of the adserver tends to be. The cost, as mentioned, is usually linked to the amount of advertising that will be handled by the adserver – the larger the campaign (on the advertiser side) or inventory to be managed (on the publisher side) the greater the overall price (although economies of scale are common practice and marginal costs decrease with greater volumes).

The new advertising standard involves establishing optimal campaign result metrics and tracking display advertising return via appropriate (not necessarily click) indicators. In addition, behavioral and contextual advertising is growing in popularity and how tracking and analysis can be used to optimize this form of targeted advertising.

Sections of this module discuss how technology and marketing is moving beyond defining a product demo presented in Flash as a “rich” experience to making the entire customer experience on the website a “rich” experience. With AJAX and Flex, we have truly arrived in the world of Rich Internet Applications (RIA).

The premise of RIAs is that they are going to bring “desktop” type rich experiences to our websites and provide our customers with significantly better experiences.

Later sections discuss the key to maintaining a successful online marketing initiative. This includes the development of dashboards that filter the data, presenting only the necessary Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to the right target audience.

What can be Tracked and Measured: Objectives / Outcomes

Understand these concepts:

• Adserver types: sell-side adserver and buy-side adserver
• The various forms of ad display targeting
• How ad display targeting can be used to improve campaign
• Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)
• The different types of campaign dashboards and their intent

Be able to do these things:

• List the important factors in selecting an Adserver
• Describe how to track display and affiliate advertising
• Identify the relevant web metrics associated with ad targeting
• Explain how to define, implement and measure visitor behavior of RIA applications
• Determine the appropriate dashboard for each marketing vehicle
• Create an effective dashboard that tracks campaign performance

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Tracking Brand, Buzz and Public Relations: Overview

This module explains differences in buzz, buzz marketing, and word of mouth marketing. For online marketing purposes, buzz is the discussion of a brand, product, or issue in a public on-line place.

Measuring buzz can provide insight, protect your brand, help to detect and track rumors, Measure interest in competitive offerings, and Increase effectiveness of marketing expenditures.

In recent years, many advances have been made in the area of online public relations and how web analytics can be used to optimize online PR to attain marketing objectives. PR can help to build a brand, build product awareness and more importantly today, reach the target market in a cost effective manner.

This module takes a close look at testing. Testing has shown that press releases can create significant spikes in site traffic, and generate hundreds or even thousands of back links. Those involved with link-building strategies will certainly appreciate the value those new links can deliver.

When planning a brand campaign, you’ll learn to consider behavioral, branding and voice of customer metrics. Web analytics is an important component to understanding level of engagement, but research and buzz monitoring are also valuable methods for capturing success of a campaign and driving marketing insights.

This module includes a case study on how Press Releases can improve online marketing campaigns.

Brand, Buzz and Public Relations: Objectives / Outcomes

Understand these concepts:

• Buzz and appropriate measurement techniques
• Online PR channels/portal sites and how to optimize them
• The components of brand campaign measurement

Be able to do these things:

• Assess the impact of buss through the use of off-site, on-site, and off-line techniques and tools
• List the key metrics required in measuring online PR
• Create a plan for the analysis of branding campaigns

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Offline / Online and Qualitative Data: Overview

As the Internet continues to mature, the boundaries between on-line and off-line -channels begin to blur. Marketers are developing hybrid techniques that leverage the strengths of each medium. However, the boundaries still present challenges for the analyst attempting to measure the effectiveness of these cross-channel marketing efforts.

With some careful planning, and a little extra effort on the part of the development team, systems can be implemented that will aid in the tracking of on-line usage that originates from off-line sources. Once this data is available, off-line sources that impact on-line performance can be integrated into the reporting process, evaluated and optimized for performance.

This module discusses the many types of qualitative data at your disposal including brand buzz, customer satisfaction, net promoter indices, visitor engagement, stickiness, blog-pulse, etc.

You’ll receive information about how Customers/Visitors interact with your “web presence,” which is the most important qualitative data point. Visitor interaction can lead to actionable insights faster while having a richer impact on your decision-making.

Clickstream data can tell us What happened on our website. Qualitative data gives us insights into the customers mind and help us understand Why. Getting a read on why your customers take certain actions can be quite helpful, and should be the first place to start your own foray into the world of qualitative metrics.

You’ll also learn how to foster a culture that has well-established processes / methodologies to help companies truly hear their customers and listen to what is being said. This culture in of itself can be long-term strategic advantage to any business.

This module includes a case study on the role of Web Analytics when integrating online and off-line campaigns.

Offline/Online and Qualitative Data: Objectives / Outcomes

Understand these concepts:

• Benefits of capturing and tracking off-line marketing to online activity
• Quantitative analysis to gain insights into website customer perspectives
• Survey bias

Be able to do these things:

• Assess which option for capturing off-line data is best suited to your campaigns
• Interpret website Customer Perspectives through quantitative analysis
• Apply quantitative analysis of customer perspectives to the marketing process
• Use surveys to expand marketing analysis