Week 4 of CXL Growth Marketing Mini Degree
Hey, it is me again. The Digital Evangelist as I call myself at times. Today is class day. Yes, it is a Sunday, probably not the best day for classes, but it is the one day that has worked best for me so far. Over the coming week, I will be experimenting a new schedule to see if I will be able to do more during the week, so I don’t have to leave it to the last minute.
The writing exercise has been a good experience for me. For one, it has helped me get back to writing consistently. Secondly, I find it therapeutic. Thirdly, it ensures that I do not forget what I learned, which is the most important benefit so far. Each week, I spend time to think about what I am going to write about. While going through the videos, I put down my thoughts, but before I write, I arrange these thoughts in a manner that I think resonate well with the speaker. I think last week was the only exception.
Sometimes I wish, I spent my time in school learning these in my younger days, but then I remember that marketing (broadly speaking) has evolved from what it was to almost something completely new today.
More Google Analytics
“I have a google analytics certification from Google. However, I do not know if I should even say that out loud anymore. It is like I do not know anything about it. Come to think of it, I do not actively use it anymore, so it is understandable that it has been built out to do so much more than I used to know. Honestly, I tried to keep up, but I guess I was not fast enough.” This was my opening paragraph last week. I kept thinking about it during the week and I did not really understand why until yesterday, while speaking to someone about a current project. Speaking with the team, I realized we did not have enough data to make certain decisions. One reason is that the platform is relatively new, and it has very few subscribers. The second reason is that the GA has not been configured appropriately. So, it is not even possible to generate the kind of data we might be interested in or find helpful.
After fussing over this (in my head), the next steps became clear to me:
- Setup GA properly
- Analyze existing data to see if there are possible questions, we can generate from it
- Use that as a basis for conducting some research
- Prioritize and Implement the possible solutions
- Monitor and evaluate
- Rinse and Repeat
Attribution!!!!
About 6 years ago, I was taking a Google course on Adwords. The session was delivered by a Google staff and I remember two words that featured repeatedly during the session. The first was the relevance of the ad to the content on the landing page. The second was ATTRIBUTION. Right away, I got it. It was an easy concept to understand. In simple terms. It is just understanding the customer through their lifecycle. It is more than the data.
According to Rusell, “Understanding the data behind marketing is the future of Marketing.” This is a profound statement. I found it to be true 6 years ago and it even truer today. If I was to specialize in any area of marketing, it would be Attribution. The course covers four key areas of attribution: The Theory, the Technical, the Tactical and the Strategic.
He went on to talk about say that attribution in marketing is “…understanding the context behind the data.” It is about understanding the consumer and not just the math.
On the other hand, he did mention what attribution is not. Attribution is not the distribution of value. My understanding of this statement is that he was referring to some of the models that are typically used to explain the concept of attribution. A popular one is a football team and how the player that scores the goal is cannot get all the credit for the goal, since it is a team effort. As such, every member of the team deserves some credit for the final output.
Attribution with B2C is easier than attribution in B2B. This is because the interaction with B2C is more direct, while in B2B, it can be more complex.
Attribution and ROI
Attribution has always fascinated me, and it is for one reason only, its ability to understand ROI. Every marketing professional will tell you that one of the biggest challenges they face is always measuring ROI. While the systems and processes have matured over time, it’s still always a challenge to attribute marketing efforts to the impact on the bottom line of any brand or organization. That is why marketing budgets are the first to go whenever a business is looking to cut costs.
Rusell says, and I believe it, that “Using attribution to understand ROI will be integral moving forward.” Many more CMOs will want to know. The lines between sales and marketing have been blurred, especially when it comes to online in the B2B space. We must go beyond the data to understanding the people behind it.
Not just online!
“Not just online!” this three-word statement gave me some validation. This is the key to understanding marketing today. There are so many more touchpoints for a consumer to interact with and many of them are offline. For example, I once read an article by the CEO of one of the big global cards issuing companies and he said that most payments in the world are still cash based. Same for retail, people would still rather go to the shops to buy most of what they need. Take for example clothes and even groceries.
Attribution is challenging for traditional marketing. That’s a given fact, but with advancements in the TV advertising space, print media, On demand TV, and location data for the retail industries, it’s become easier to establish frameworks for attribution online. Combining both online and offline modes is called ROPO (Research online, Purchase Offline). It’s also worth noting that sometimes, there is not enough data for attribution.
I must stop here for today. Talk soon.
Taiwo