Measuring Media the Right Way; Online & Offline

Paul Mosenson

President, NuSpark Marketing

November 9, 2010

About NuSpark Marketing

• eMarketing Firm focusing on lead generation, lead management, content marketing, sales coaching and analytics

• Founded in 2010; Team members average 20 years of experience

• Philadelphia based, but works virtually• Provides the process, content, and

consultation for firms that require enhanced digital marketing services, plus media planning

Are you one of these?

• “87% of all organizations struggle to measure and compare online and offline return on marketing investments”

• Aberdeen Group Research

Are you taken by Joe “Media Salesperson”

“Your banner ad received a click through rate of .045, which is above industry average, so you’re going good! Let’s buy another month”

Impressions, clicks, and click-through rates are NOT key metrics. It’s not how visitors get to you, it’s what you do with those visitors once they engage. Without Google Analytics combined with a reason to visit your site, all you have is clicks and click rates and you don’t know if the clicks are “quality clicks”

Agenda

• Landing Pages/Website destination

• The need for measurement

• Introduction to Google Analytics

• Tagging basics

• Online media tracking

• Offline media tracking

• Phone call tracking

• Analysis and ROI

What To Expect

• This is a broad primer on how to track online and offline media sources with Google Analytics and ROI metrics.

• This is NOT a primer on how to implement and manage Google Analytics. This is a high level view of media measurement.

Web Marketing = Obtaining Conversions

• A defined action on your website that leads to an opportunity for further engagement or purchase

• Transactional: A sale

• Non-transactional: A sign-up, a download, a view, a call

–Obtain an email or contact info; Instant database

Ideally, Create Landing Pages

• Create/enhance landing page for specific marketing promotions

– Call-to-action/ coupon/ webform

– Implement with client host

– Draw offline media to online promotions

Landing Pages Best Practices

• Clearly promotes benefits in bullet-point form

• Very relevant to the campaign

• Striking image; bold headline

• Trust copy; testimonials, case studies, alliances

• Strong call-to-action with easily found form or phone number

Goals of Measurement

• Determine Metrics for measurement• Utilize Google Analytics as a tool• Compare offline and online channels• Compare website with phone call

conversions• Get closer to the question- “what’s

working?”

What Is Google Analytics

• Google AnalyticsTM is a free, powerful website analytics tool. It precisely tracks visitors, referrals, search engine performance, email promotions, and even offline initiatives. Featuring visually enhanced reports, Analytics helps users focus their marketing resources, improve site navigation, and achieve a higher ROI. It measures the success of both AdWords and non-AdWords advertising campaigns, revealing which ads and keywords convert the best.

Google Analytics helps you find out what keywords attract your most desirable prospects, what advertising copy pulled the most responses, and what landing pages and content make the most money for you.

All leads to Analytics

Multi-Channel Campaign Funnel

• Advertising Campaign (External messaging)

• Initial Response (Website or landing page visit)

• Engagement (Behavior within the website)

• Lead Conversion (Call-to-action- web form or call)

• Nurturing (Ongoing communication)

• Sale (Purchase)

Measurement Challenges

• Campaign attribution: The practice of attributing credit to all marketing exposures that lead to a Web site and subsequently result in a conversion event, rather than attributing all credit to the exposure immediately preceding the conversion– Separating channel ROI with campaign ROI– Measuring several interactions that lead to last click

• Making sense of the data– What metrics to analyze– What decisions can be made– How to improve customer experience

• Leadership Buy-in• Social Media and viral affects

Example of Attribution

•Google Analytics tracks Last Click by default. Media is measured and analyzed by the last external action by a user. It is still considered an important and accepted measure, but as in traditional media, a combination of messages and channels contributes to the last click activity as per above.

•Additionally, Google Pay-per-click has recently incorporated “search funnels” whereby the attempt is being made to track keyword behavior that assisted in conversions without actually being clicked. Search for the term “search funnels” on Google for more info.

Final Thoughts on Topic

• Experiment with tracking first click metrics

– Add a utm_nooverride=1 parameter to the URL links of campaigns to ensure the first activity that is clicked is credited for conversions

• Learn more about attribution and how some analytics providers are dealing with the subject. Google “Campaign attribution” and read about the issues.

More Studies on Multi-Channel Engagement

• www.coremetricsworld.com

• IBM owned company with robust reporting tools that combine offline and online behavior

ClearSaleing manages Online Attribution

Google Analytics

Track Almost Anything with Google Analytics

• By combining custom URL tags made with the Google URL builder, we can track specific content and campaigns- Twitter, Facebook, blog posts, banner ads, radio, TV, print, email, direct mail, etc. (more on this later)

• Custom reports with a myriad of metrics and dimensions can be tracked and analyzed

What Can Be Tracked

• Goals: Track conversions and sales

• Campaigns: Pay-per-click, banner ads, email, offline, social media, mobile

• Ecommerce: Product pages, purchases, revenue, cart abandonment

• Site Content: Top visited pages, events on pages, entrance pages, exit pages

• Visitors: New vs. all, geography, browser, mobile, time spent on site, pages visited

First Step: Goals

• Increase sales (ecommerce)

• Increase lead capture conversions (newsletters, blog subscriptions)

• Increase educational downloads (white papers, webcasts)

• Increase phone calls

Choose KPIs

• Which Referral Sources

– Reached my “Thank You” pages (after a sale, a download, or an email submission)

– Called my sales phone number

– Visited key pages on the site (directions, blog page)

– Generated best CPL, CPS, CPA, ROI

Weight Goals By Value

Select a Goal

Give the goal a value (1-10)

By weighting goals, you can prioritize goals by analyzing which ones are most important. “Thank you” conversions may have a 10 value, but visiting the “Directions” page may only have a 5 value.

Goal Outcomes

• Completions: How many of each goal is completed

• Conversion Rate: Percentage of completed conversions as compared to site user sessions

• Per Visit Goal Value: Weighted goal value total per visit. Metric represents an ROI measurement, whether the value be a currency or a number

Ecommerce Metrics

• Transactions: The total number of transactions during the site visit

• Days to purchase: How many days between initial visit and purchase

• Product revenue: Quantity purchased x price

• Per visit value: Revenue divided by visits

• RPC: Revenue per click

• Average value: The cost of an average transaction

Important Page Metrics

• Bounce Rate: The percentage of single-page visits

• % Exits: The percentage of site exits that occurred from a page or set of pages

• Time on Site

• Page Views

• New Visits

• Event Downloads (PDFs, podcasts)

• Event Views (webcasts, videos)

We will need IT/Tech People for

• Embedding eCommerce analytics code– Add fields to track for each product page: Order

ID, Cost, Tax, Shipping, Promo Code, Product Name, Category, Price, Quantity, SKU

• Embedding Event Tracking Code– Custom code to track on-page activity such as

video views, Mp3 plays, and file downloads.

Wordpress plug-ins can track events automatically.

Let’s Start Tracking Media

Tools

• Install Google Analytics on website• Google URL Tag Builder for Tracking Online Hyperlinks

– If your sources aren’t tagged, data on referral sources is limited.

• Utilization of call tracking provider• Access to a landing page/PDF designer• Access to your website host/ IT guy• Email program that has robust measurement tools• A webform with a promotional code field• URL shortener for social media needs (bit.ly)• Text Messaging provider

First, Online Media

URL Builder: Online Media Only

1. Insert web/site landing page URL for each campaign

2. Fill in campaign info for tracking. Each online source will have its own URL tag. Google automatically tags for Adwords.

3. Generate URL. Cut and paste into source hyperlink.

Examples of Custom Tag Variables

• Source: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Yahoo, eNewsletter, YouTube, AOL. B2B Portal, Radio station name, Newspaper name

• Medium: Cost-per-click, email, social media, display banners, print, radio, magazine

• Term: For specific keywords

• Content: Ad sizes, offers, specific strategies, logo link vs. text link

• Name: Promotion, Campaign name

Specific Examples

• http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/?utm_source=Yahoo&utm_medium=Display&utm_content=Square%2Bad&utm_campaign=Webinar

• http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/?utm_source=eNewsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=B2B%2BTarget&utm_campaign=November%2Bissue

• http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social%2BMedia&utm_content=Analytics&utm_campaign=Facebook%2Bads

Below is what the URL looks like in a browser..

Medium vs. Source

Campaign vs. Content

If Tagged Properly, You Can Track

• Banner Ad campaigns: CPC, CPA, or behavioral or retargeting, or run-of-site vs. demo targeted, sizes, rich media

• Social media: Video sites, photo sites, podcasts, blogs, review sites, morning tweets vs. afternoon tweets

• Mobile behavior: Devices, platforms. Utilize third party mobile tools to track mobile sites. Google has its own mobile analytics code. Developer site:

http://code.google.com/mobile/analytics/docs/web/

URL Shortener usage

• Simply insert the tagged URL into the box and you’ll receive the Bit.ly URL to use in blogs or social media sites, I.e. Twitter

Now, Offline Media

Print, Radio, TV, Outdoor, Direct Mail

• Vanity URL or Domain

• Coupon Codes

• Text Messages

• Unique Phone Numbers

Vanity URLs

• Assign a unique URL to each offline media source.

– Create a subdomain, or new domain, then redirect to a custom URL built through the Google URL Builder

http://www.nusparkmarketing.com/?utm_source=Channel6&utm_m&utm_campaiedium=TV&utm_content=ad1gn=FallTV

The redirect URL for TV is actually the custom URL, for Google Analytics:

Sample of Vanity URL

Custom Codes

• For eCommerce sites, utilize custom promotional codes

– Direct Mail- Enter “BuyNow” into the promotional code field

– Print Ad- Enter “GetNow” into the field.

• The Analytics program will be able to track these fields with eCommerce analytics code installation

Text Messaging

• Utilize specific keywords for each media source to measure texts by medium– Mobile coupons or auto-

responders created

– Cell phone numbers saved for future marketing efforts

– All texts go to a shortcode. NuSpark Marketing’s code is 313131

– Coupons are redeemed

– *Can’t track with analytics

Phone Call Tracking

Why Track Phone Calls

• Telephone calls to business are considered highest quality of all leads

• Google search marketing has implemented “Click-to-Call” features as well as other online directories

• Without call tracking, you rely on website email capture, and thus a portion of media analysis is missed.

Offline Call Tracking

Caveat

• If your offline media sources include unique phone numbers,

– You can still track call conversions

– You can’t track engagement goals

– You can’t capture email addresses

Online Call Tracking

Dynamic Phone Numbers

Examples of Dynamic Insertion

Robust reports, including call recording

Bottom Line for Offline

• Promote unique number and or unique URL on– Print

– Radio

– TV

– Magazine

– Outdoor

– Mail

• Unique URL redirected to landing page/web site

Email Analytics

• Email is a medium that combines pre-click data through your email provider and post- click data with Google Analytics.

• Pre-click covers metrics such as emails sent, emails bounced, emails opened, and clicks within the email.

• Post-click covers the metrics described earlier from Google Analytics- bounce rate, page views, conversions, revenue.

• Analyses should include both pre-click and post-click

Case Study; Non-ecommerce

Assumptions

• Goals

– Visitor viewed Product Page (Value 5)

– Visitor submitted a form for a newsletter (Value 10)

• Leads-to-Sales Conversion Rate: 10%

• Average Cost-Per-Sale: $1,000 per transaction

• Margin: 33%

Goals Analyses by Channel

Key metric: Per Visit Goal Value. Direct Mail, enewsletters, and EDN Products Magazine show the highest engagement. Formula is sum of the goal values divided by visits.

Phone tracking exists in this example. Total conversions sums completed phone calls to sales + Thank You page conversions (denoting a form was submitted)

ROI Analyses

Enewsletters, Direct Mail, Google, Bing, and Facebook ads show positive ROI

Pivot Table

Pivot Tables allow analyses by mediums, content, or other attributes

Case Study: eCommerce

Revenue Analysis by Channel

Per Visit Value is a key metric. This is calculated by dividing revenue by visits. Without factoring media cost, enewsletters and the Daily News have generated quality visits

ROI Analysis

By including media cost, now the best ROI belongs to pay-per-click channels and direct mail.

Another Look at Media Mix Affect

Blog Post

Radio Starts

Print Ad

Track media activities and correlate with overall visitor and conversion trending

Ideal Best Practices

• For Retailer- Whether it be a sub-page on website or separate landing page, promote an offer or coupon; encourage consumers to visit site and download offer.

• For Institution- Offer a free guide, newsletter, or event sign-up; something of value

• For B2B- Offer content on a landing page; white paper, case study, or newsletter. Encourage contact info submissions

Actionable Steps

• Media negotiation

– For underperforming- reduce pricing or cancel

– For overperforming- reallocate more funds

• Promotional analysis

– What offers performed best engagement and ROI

• Message analysis

– Evaluate and test message approaches

• Website analysis– Study visitor, usage, content, and conversion trends, adjust and

optimize accordingly

Summary

• Continue to optimize media sources for effectiveness

• Understand the importance of attribution and media mix

• The case studies are presented as top view. Consider margins, promotions and lifetime value metrics to fully understand ROI determination

• Test. Mediums, offers, strategies, landing pages and measure results (a la A/B tests)

Ready to Begin? Questions?

• Contact Paul Mosenson of NuSpark Marketing

• pmosenson@nusparkmarketing.com

• 610-812-2725

• www.nusparkmarketing.com

About NuSpark Marketing

• eMarketing Firm focusing on lead generation, lead management, content marketing, sales coaching and analytics

• Founded in 2010; Team members average 20 years of experience

• Philadelphia based, but works virtually• Provides the process, content, and

consultation for firms that require enhanced digital marketing services, plus media planning

References

• Akin Arikan, Multichannel Marketing

• Nikki Rae, eConsultancy

• Avinish Kaushik, Web Analytics 2.0

• Sebastian Tonkin, Caleb Whitmore, Justin Cutroni, Performance Marketing

• Dave Chaffey

• IfbyPhone