Category Archives: DataBase Marketing

Multichannel Marketing by Akin Arikan

DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics

Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success, so goes the subtitle of this book.  This is a fantastic piece of work by Akin, who I have known for quite some time – since the early days of eMetrics.

What’s so good about this book?  Well, this is a tough space to write for, this seam where Marketing and Technology meet.  There’s an audience on either side and you’re writing down the middle.  Akin has done a great job producing a work that should have both sides paying attention and hopefully will provide a platform for better communication with each other.

The framework he chose for the book is a brilliant approach.

First, a dissection of Online, Direct, and Brand Marketing.  What are the metrics and methods that drive each of them?  How is each of these Marketing disciplines handling the multichannel challenge within their own silos, and what are they probably missing because of silos?

This first part of the book I think will be widely appreciated, especially on the Technology side, for laying out in a logical way what the various Marketing factions are up to, why they do what they do, and how they look at measurement.  I find in the web space particularly lots of people have 1999-era notions of what “Measuring Marketing” is.  Akin provides really great background here, lots of detail on where the various measurement approaches come from and how they are used. 

This Online, Direct, and Brand Marketing structure becomes the backbone of the book, it continues throughout the entire work and provides the reference point, the base for understanding.  Very smart idea, it brings everybody to the party.

In Part 2, Akin looks at why the various factions should be sharing their metrics and methods, how fusing the various multichannel measurement approaches developed by Online, Direct, and Brand Marketers results in a whole better than the sum of parts.  This section really digs into which metrics and measurement approaches are best for different situations and levels of available data.  I really like this “cascading” approach to data.  Got a little data?  Look at measurement this way.  Got more data?  Think about measurement this way.  Got a ton of data?  Here’s the best way to look at measurement.

This section really gets into the whole control group issue, and why, if you can, you should Measure Customers, not Campaigns, to determine your success.  Response is one thing, lift can be quite another.  Once this idea becomes fully embraced by the web analytics community, it’s going to be very disruptive.  But using controls is standard procedure in the BI world, so trust me, it’s coming to web analytics.

In Part 3, Akin flows it all together, providing sequential examples using the Attract & Acquire, Engage & Covert, Grow LifeTime Value metaphor.  What does truly integrated (no silos) multichannel Marketing look like in practice?  What do you do and how do you measure the results?  Now we’re cutting waste and improving Marketing Productivity throughout the entire Customer LifeCycle.

This section is notable for the use of case studies and detailed examples of what it looks like when you are actually maximizing value in an integrated way across all the touchpoints.  What Marketing looks like as it morphs from the ancient offline calendar-based Campaign model into the “right person, at the right time, with the right message”, Measure Customers not Campaigns approach.

This book is a significant addition to the knowledge base, particularly in the area of integrating Brand Measurement into the overall customer management picture.  He also provides a fabulous aggregation of Brand Measurement research sources I found very useful. 

Notable brand new ideas that I’m not aware of seeing anywhere else are the Maturity of Multi-channel Profiles idea and the Cross-Channel Funnel Report.  There are numerous other concepts that may not be brand new to the reader but are expressed in new or unique ways that are better than what has come before.

Fantastic job, really.  I’d call the book a must read, the kind of book I absolutely would not hesitate to hand to Senior Marketing folks and say, “Read this, it’s about where we are going”.

Probably wouldn’t use those exact words, but you get the idea…

As for the relevance of the picture below, see page 144 in Akin’s book!

Reduce Friction, Maintain Momentum

Jacques Warren @ TDWI

DataBase Marketing, Marketing / Tech Interface, Web Analytics

Those of you interested in where web analytics is headed might check out the series of posts Jacques Warren in doing from TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute) conference.  He’s in for a pound – an exhausting 6 days of high order brain-stuffing, much of it very technical in nature.

I believe most web analysts, if they didn’t come from DW / BI in the first place, would benefit tremendously from the kind of exposure Jacques is receiving at TDWI.  There is a larger scope sitting out there that WA fits into, and the DW / BI world has been around a lot longer.  Those folks have all the arrows in their backs already, and there is a lot to learn from them.

For example, the extent you believe what you see in web analytics reports actually happened, or whether you understand it is often an approximation of what happened, more like a model.  At least from a Marketing / Behavior standpoint.  A dose of reality like Jacques received can put this in perspective.

The very next question on the table is how do we get WA data into BI systems?  The answer, I believe, is Events.  There is really no point in stuffing page views and visits into a data warehouse; not enough value and won’t mean much to the broader Optimization picture. 

What the WA folks will have to do is decide what constitutes a significant Event (which could be a series of smaller actions) and then figure out how to mark that Event with a customer ID and get it into the warehouse. 

Some web analytics applications can already track Events (example), so that’s not the issue.  The question, as always, is what are you going to do with the Event?  Otherwise, it’s not worth tracking.  What’s needed is a Strategy for using high value Events first.

Otherwise, we’ll just end up with that many more junk reports.

At the same time, I think the more exciting prospect than what BI brings to WA is what web analysts can bring to BI, which continues to suffer from a focus on the technology instead of what they can do for the business.  While many WA folks understand the need to annotate and evangelize their work, many BI folks don’t see “being proactive” as part of their role.

I have to tell you, if you think WA and Optimizing web sites is exciting, wait until you get your hands on the entire business and start optimizing it.  Your first A/B test with a call center script, for example.  Fulfillment testing.  Packaging.  The list is endless.

That experience, my friends, is pure adrenaline.

I know some of you out there are already wearing both the WA and BI hats.  Got any killer Business Optimization stories (that you can tell?)

eMetrics 08 (SF)

Analytical Culture, DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics

As opposed to eMetrics 08 Toronto, don’t you know…

A really big shew, for sure. 

With the tons of WAA EdCom stuff going on, and the tremendous opportunities to just run into people in the halls and have hour long spontaneous “shootouts” (thanks for your help with “The Cluelessness of Crowds), it can be difficult to get to all the sessions I want to see.  

Still, I always try to catch sessions outside of the mainstream that look interesting.  Often nobody comments on these overlooked sessions, so I like to bring them to the surface.

The presentation by Egan van Doorn of the Dutch Automobile Association (ANWB) called Connecting Web Analytics with Decades of Marketing Metrics was such a session. 

Here, the beauty was in the simplicity and purity of the approach.  Classic Database Marketing – the targeting, the pacing.  No breathless monthly or weekly blasting of the same message to every customer.  No, to each customer the right message at the right time.

ANWB works with the understanding the calendar doesn’t matter nearly as much as the customer’s individual behavior.  When the customer is ready, they say so.  It’s all about Pull – gently bringing them to you, not beating them over the head.  Context, relevance; what they want, when they want it, while they are interested in it.  Like Search, right?

Web analytics folks often view multi-channel ideas as too complicated, and they’re really not – if you are using the right methodology and if you have some discipline.  Apparently, ANWB has both.

From a Marketing perspective, ANWB pays close attention primarily to high value online events.  Forget page views, visits, etc.  What they want to know is this: what action was taken for which we have a related product?  They store these events in the customer record, and then play out the online / offline Marketing stream accordingly.  If they can reach them online, that’s obviously cheaper.  If they decide to go offline (in the mail) they have their timing issues down and they make it happen. 

Very efficient, highly productive.  Huge increases in response rates, even offline when using online behavior to trigger the Marketing event.  Classic Database Marketing.  And there’s a reason they are so good at this – they’ve been doing the same thing offline forever.

If you can make money doing this offline, you can make an absolute pile of money doing it online because the Marketing is so much cheaper.  The problem is, most online folks don’t have access to that Database Marketing background, the understanding of how to optimize remote relationships.  So instead of playing it as Database Marketing, they play it like Media (Push) Marketing.  And they get unremarkable results.

How simple is it to do multi-channel right? 

Here’s an example, courtesy of ANWB.  Customer comes to the web site.  Customer searches for and finds info for “bike and hike” trails.  When this happens, customer is shown banners offering a “Bike and Hike Trails of the Netherlands” book during the rest of the visit.  Customer maybe buys the book.

Or not.  If they don’t, and waiting a reasonable amount of time for the sale to occur online, ANWB goes in the mail with an offer on the book, and then later on, a modified offer in the mail if there is no response.  Customers buy scads of these books.  Enormous ROI, both online and offline. 

Then repeat this scenario with every product line – what is the trigger event, what is the timing?  Man, that’s a beautiful business they’ve got going there.  Just printing money.

They do have one advantage – as a membership org, each customer has a unique ID, offline and online.  This was raised as an “unfair advantage” in terms of their success.  Disagree. 

Megan Burns of Forrester said as much in the 2nd half of the presentation.  The reason people don’t usually factorize to do this kind of stuff is they can’t project the ROI, they don’t know what they would do with a unified view of the customer to generate incremental profit.  So they can’t justify spending the money to make it happen.

This is really the same Push versus Pull issue I mentioned before – as long as you batch and blast, as long as you keep using the offline Push model, there’s no point in understanding any of this multi-channel stuff.  When you get ready to accept that the behavior of the customer is your key to relevance, and test through a couple of scenarios (as all offline DB Marketers have done), the ROI of the offline / online join becomes self-evident and justifies the spend to set up for it.

Wait a minute, you say – there’s no reason anyone would want to log into our web site.  Oh.  But now you are into Marketing Strategy.  Not the same issue.

Why won’t they log in?  Let’s say you don’t think you can get people to “log in” so you can create a database match.  Here’s the real question – have you conceived an experience for your web site that is worth a log in?  If the experience is worth it, people will log in, and you will have a database match.

That’s Marketing, my friends.  It’s not just about the “Push” MarCom stuff.  It’s the Strategy, the whole picture that creates the Pull that is so incredibly powerful. 

This is what makes interactive different.

Let’s assume you think I am wrong, that what I’m saying couldn’t possibly be true.  After all, how could so many people get interactive wrong?  Wisdom of Crowds, right?  After all, look at all the folks who got it so right in 2000 (not).  THAT was a Crowd.  This Jim Novo, he’s just pushing the ideas in his book.

OK, fair enough.  Here’s another voice that has been added to mine.  More on Akin’s book in the future – I’m only 1/2 through!