Category Archives: Driller Q & A

Visitor Retention Mapping

DataBase Marketing, Driller Q & A, Measuring Engagement, Newsletters, Web Analytics

Jim answers questions from fellow Drillers
(More questions with answers here, Work Overview here, Index of concepts here)

Q: The research folks in my company are trying to convince me that measuring sessions and Page Views per Session is more effective than using Recency and Sessions, as you advocate in your book, for a retention metric.

A: For a content site, the Page Views / Session measure can be used as a measure of visitor quality and appropriate marketing to the right audience – a customer acquisition idea – not retention. And it really needs to be broken out by Source – the average has little actionable meaning. You want to know the Visitor Sources, and then look at this metric by Source. This is still Frequency though – what about visitors who don’t come back?

Q: I am having some difficulty in making a decision regarding this. They want to give me a matrix with Page Views per Session on the Y axis and Total Sessions on the X axis as the “customer retention map”.

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A Budget for Discounts?

DataBase Marketing, Driller Q & A

Jim answers questions from fellow Drillers
(More questions with answers here, Work Overview here, Index of concepts here)

Q: For the first time ever, we have a Discount budget built into our financial plan. We’ve been told this number in the budget is less than we used last year, but our Sales target is a bit higher. We’re supposed to hit our sales targets while at the same time not going over budget with our Discounts to generate those sales. This directive comes from Finance.

A: You have just been offered the opportunity to graduate from Advertising to Marketing!

Q: We are fairly sure if we reduce the discounts we give, response is going to fall and so are sales, especially from best customers. Or we could keep the same discounts but do fewer discount promotions, with probably the same effect on sales. Are there any other alternatives, any ideas on how to manage this discount budget issue?

We’re an online only retailer.

A: Sure, ask an easy one over the holidays!

Seriously, I hope you did not take my comment about graduating from Advertising to Marketing the wrong way. This is really an opportunity for you to shine in so many ways, and to learn a lot of new ideas in the process – if you want to take advantage of it.

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Offline Engagement Modeling

DataBase Marketing, Driller Q & A, Measuring Engagement, Newsletters,

Jim answers questions from fellow Drillers
(More questions with answers here, Work Overview here, Index of concepts here)

Q: In our business (airline) – particularly on the loyalty side – we’ve been using both RFM as well as lifetime and current cumulative totals. For instance in our mileage program, we look at both lifetime miles earned and used as well as current balance.

Does that seem appropriate?

A: Well, I guess the question is appropriate for what purpose, what action are you driving to?

For example, if you were to divide metrics into “strategic” and “tactical”, meaning “for management / long-term planning” and “for campaigns / taking short-term action” then you get different answers.

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