Wednesday, May 11, 2011
An Obsession with Advertising, Accountability & Awesomeness.
A guest post by Avinash Kaushik
I am so incredibly impressed with the rapid evolution of advertising and marketing possibilities around us. Offline, online, social-- there are so many things to do, and so little time (and budget!).
One of the absolute delights of online marketing (regardless of type) is the amount of accountability you can bring to your marketing budgets. How many people looked at your ad in a magazine and took action? You can measure this for your digital display ads. How many potential customers how were actively looking for cars, saw your ad on TV, and then went to your destination? You can measure this for your search ads. How often do prospects listen to your radio ads completely and then take engage with you? You can measure this for your YouTube ads.
I could keep going. It is so exciting what we can measure, regardless of the online channels we use, or the measurement tools in which we have access.
And yet, it is heartbreaking how little we bring all this awesomeness to bear upon our digital efforts. So much of our marketing is simply replicating our offline advertising online. And what is particularly heartbreaking to me, the author of two books on web analytics, is how we bring our low expectations of offline measurement to our online efforts.
So let's change this. Together.
On May 19th I am conducting a webinar that will share my point of view on three stages of digital marketing and measurement. [Sign up for the webinar here. Seats are limited!]
Here are three three phases of accountability and awesomeness...
The toddler phase: Here most of our measurement is based on simply response based metrics. This is far more accountable than other channels, but there is so much more we can do and with such little actual effort. We'll cover conversion tracking (simple one page tagged and you get so much!) and how a couple clicks get you the joy of call tracking data for your mobile search advertising campaigns.
The rebellious youth phase: CTR? Sure. CPC? No problem. CPA? Done! (If you don't know what these are we'll cover them, too!) But how about a holistic understanding of the impact on your business of all your online marketing? No, not just the one big conversion, but all the micro-conversions? This is such a delight. You develop the complete impact of your acquisition strategy and are better able to balance your marketing portfolio. Trust me, you want to do this. Every day.
The digital ninja phase: Macro and micro conversions? Check. Revenue? Yep. Economic value? When you hear OMG, know that it was created for this concept. The most glorious thing any Marketer can do, and the CMO and VP get, is a robust understanding of not just the activity (clicks, conversions et. al.), but also the value created for the business (including revenue). This is how the good get to the great (and we'll cover the approaches you can use to get there!)
So come join us on May 19th for an incredible hour and half where we’ll talk digital marketing, measurement, and strategies to kick things up a notch. And yes, bring awesomeness to everything we do.
See you there.
-Avinash
