Recently I’ve become more and more irate by the phrase: ‘the paid social campaign did great’. Most of the times I follow up on that and ask: how? why? Unfortunately, 60–70% of the times I ask that question, I can see the look on people’s faces. The numbers looked great in the wrap-up report.
And Then I Go Back To These 3 Screens. One Goal.
For every ad you send into the world as a marketer you need to figure out one goal. Sure, create a funnel, figure out the consumer journey and leverage the targeting and strategy best suited, look at other metrics that can help you optimize. BUT report primarily on the one goal you set up the paid campaign for.
Agencies out there, get to know your client before you come up with proposals on anything digital. Here are 3 topics you should research.
Company Structure
you may have more than just one client. No one on the company side will tell you from the very beginning. Understand who to engage and on what topics, it can save your pitches. Make sure you get to talk to the person within the company that can understand your proposals and can become your advocate or even approves them (that means you get the budget to implement your idea).
Digital Footprint
Find out what and how they communicate. It’s self-explanatory. Show, don’t tell. You claim you are customer-centric, but you know nothing about your prospective client?
Internal Communications Team
they can be your allies if you treat them well. If you step on their toes, you only make your life more difficult. And trust me, they can do that very well. Find out who they are and what they do for the company. If your responsibilities overlap, figure out a way to work together, not against each other.
The most important challenge about data is interpreting it. You can spin it into lots of shapes and form, you can cherry-pick metrics and KPIs to say whatever you or your client /management needs to portray.
That’s why I hate seeing the term ‘overachieved’ in media campaign reports. Was that the correct KPI for the business? And did you track it ok, is your data accurate? Also, does that translate into business-centric results? Did you estimate your potential audience before going live with a campaign?
Don’t just tell me you engaged 1M people. Tell me you engaged 1M people of the 5M you were targeting. Explain how your Share of Voice is increasing because of your marketing campaigns and which one delivered earned media. Otherwise, it just might be that our site was down 2 days this month and people were reaching out on social media to complain. I want to hear all about how the conversion rate increased by 1% AND that means almost $1M in the bank account (hurray!).
You get it. Give me context. Prove that you as a marketer drive value. Do not spin data. It’s fake and we’re both wasting our time. And our clients money.
More than four years ago I joined the analytics team as a Data Analyst with a local agency here in Romania.
Since then I’ve been saddened by how much we as marketers give in to the glitz of advertising. The shape our message takes, the packaging. Do not get me wrong, it’s very important. But I am sad to see people focus on the shape more than on getting the right message to the right audience.
They ask me why their ad/campaign did not perform well. Was it the stock photo? The logo in the corner, the animation on their banner, their GIF, their smaller budget? Most of the time it’s not that. It’s us not getting the customer, not understanding why they would click on our message, why they’d take time from their job/music, in their headphones/hobbies/friends/dating apps/family, and invest it in our piece of content. It’s us not showing them the respect they deserve and not trying to provide added value to their life.
I’ve seen awful quality photos deliver most conversions (they had good USP) , I’ve seen tech support videos done right drive more engagement and brand loyalty than shinny preroll ads brands paid $$$$$ on. That’s because they serve a purpose, they answer a need on the customer side.
Now, do you still want to talk to me about the new GIF option on LinkedIn?
People keep rambling on and on about how you need to leverage data to tell a story. But most of the times what we as analysts or B2B marketers leave behind is the audience.
Isn’t that ironic?
We get caught up in broadcasting our story and forget about who’s listening. Their background, their know-how, and vocabulary on the subject matter are even more important than the amazing story you crafted in your mind. That’s because they might solve for different problems than what you are solving for. And you might be off by 1,000 miles just because you did not ask: who are you? do you want fantasy or the documentary movie on how our ad/campaign/website/brand is doing?
These are just Friday musings of an Analyst on coffee. Born out of the work I do, these are meant to record the learnings and help me move forward.
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