Measure Performance Success

[Music]
welcome back
earlier in the course you learned about
the relationship between digital
marketing and branding
you also explored the different parts of
a digital marketing and e-commerce
strategy including research goal setting
and selecting the right channels and
tactics lastly you found out a little
about some of the channels and tactics
like seo sem
social media and email marketing this
part of the course is all about data
how you measure it how you interpret it
and how it can make your strategy better
we'll explore the concept of performance
marketing and examine some ways you
might be working with data in an entry
level digital marketing or e-commerce
role we'll discuss how data can help you
find out what's working well and how to
adapt to necessary change we'll also go
over some ways to demonstrate those
findings through data storytelling
measuring the success of your marketing
efforts may be the most important thing
you learn in your digital marketing or
ecommerce career
no matter how carefully you plan your
strategy measuring your results can
always help you make it better from
building your brand to engaging
customers and maximizing sales the first
time i really worked with data and
digital marketing was when i began
running paid advertising for my own
e-commerce store i wanted to understand
if the effort i was making was worth the
extra cost this made me realize that
there was a whole world of measurement
beyond the paid campaigns i was running
i could measure the health of my whole
store through different dashboards and
analytics resources this is where
ecommerce and digital marketing really
gets fun because you can actually prove
that your tactics are helping you reach
your goals
you're almost to the end of the course
and i'm so excited for you to cross the
finish line let's get back into it
[Music]
throughout this course we've emphasized
how important it is to measure the
results of digital marketing tactics
campaigns and strategies
in fact these activities are so
important that there is a special term
to describe them
performance marketing
in this video we'll explore what's
involved in performance marketing and
how it allows businesses to set goals
track results and improve on their work
let's get started imagine this it's 1985
and you work for a marketing agency
that's promoting a new breakfast cereal
you run some focus groups to learn about
your target audience and what they like
you use those interviews and your past
experiences as a marketer to create
memorable ads for newspapers billboards
and televisions
and then you wait
your sales go up the campaign works but
what you don't know is which ads were
most effective and how many of the new
customers found the product through your
campaign
that doesn't mean your ad strategy is
all guesswork
just that there's limited information
you can gather
so you can keep going with that same
successful strategy now imagine you're
running that same campaign today only
online
with digital marketing
there are dozens of ways to measure the
success of your tactics and campaigns
so if you place an ad for serial online
you can track the things that just
aren't possible with billboards like how
many people encounter and engage with
your ad each week collecting and
evaluating all of that information can
help you rethink a weak strategy or make
a good one even stronger that's
performance marketing it's the process
of using concrete information about
customer behaviors to plan and refine
marketing and sales strategies
it focuses on measurable results like
clicks and conversions
performance marketers set specific goals
and use metrics to find out if they've
reached them you're already familiar
with some performance metrics like the
number of impressions or cost per click
on paid ads
another performance metric is customer
lifetime value
which refers to the average revenue
generated by customers over a certain
period of time
there's also roas or return on ad spend
roas is how much revenue is gained
versus how much was spent
so if you spend one hundred dollars on
an ad but made one hundred fifty dollars
as a result of that ad the roas would be
one hundred fifty percent
so for the serial example if you were to
set a goal of increasing overall revenue
roas might be one of the metrics used to
measure success there are so many ways
to measure performance at every stage of
the marketing funnel
and those measurements are critical
because the average customer journey
takes about six touch points
that number has doubled more than twice
over a 15-year period performance
marketing lets us gauge how each of
those touch points contributes to our
goals which helps us reach and engage
with customers more effectively
time to review
measuring results with performance
marketing is one of the most important
things you can do to ensure success
by tracking metrics like roas
and customer lifetime value digital
marketers can reach their goals and
refine their strategies over time
up next you'll learn more about
performance metrics and working with the
data they produce
[Music]
performance marketing generates a lot of
data
from impressions and clicks at the top
of the funnel to conversion and sales
numbers at the bottom
data is critical throughout the whole
marketing and sales cycle data is a
collection of facts or information
your company's total number of social
media followers
how many hours a team spends on a
project or total year in revenue all of
those numbers are data marketing data
can help you answer questions in a
concrete way by drawing on real customer
behaviors and interactions the insights
are useful for planning campaigns
predicting future behaviors and finding
out whether your activities are helping
you reach your kpis
you'll recall that a kpi or key
performance indicator is a measurement
used to gauge how successful a business
is in its effort to reach a business or
marketing goal
your kpis could be certain metrics like
roas
but if you find that you aren't reaching
your goals you might need to prioritize
different kpis instead to know if you're
meeting your kpis you'll need to collect
and interpret the relevant data the
process of monitoring and evaluating
data to gain actionable insights is
called data analytics
and it's one of the most important skill
sets you can develop for a career in
digital marketing or e-commerce that
doesn't mean you need to be a statistics
expert to work in these fields what it
does mean is that most entry-level roles
you encounter involve working with data
in some way let's go over a few of the
main data analytics responsibilities you
might have
pulling reporting and analyzing data
data pulling is the process of
collecting data from analytics tools and
putting it into a spreadsheet or
database making it easy to access and
work with
for example you might have campaigns
with similar goals running on different
platforms like facebook bing and google
to make it easier to compare and analyze
your data you'll need to bring it all
together one way to do that is by
pulling the data from each source
organizing it into a spreadsheet
data reporting also called performance
reporting involves organizing and
summarizing data to track performance
across marketing and sales efforts
this process makes it easier to identify
trends and spot unexpected results more
quickly
for example if you've pulled data from
multiple sources reporting makes it
easier to tell if one has a higher roas
than another
quality reporting provides a clear
picture of the raw numbers it should
help you shape questions that can be
answered through analysis
data analysis is the process of
examining data in order to draw
conclusions make predictions and drive
informed decision making if reporting is
the what then analysis is the why
it helps you develop insights that
explain the reported results and make
suggestions for next steps
like shifting your budget or
prioritizing different kpis you'll learn
lots more about working with data later
in the program but i hope you feel like
you've got a better understanding of
what data is and why it's so important
for marketing and sales success
now let's recap
the data produced by performance
marketing is an incredibly valuable
resource for understanding how well your
strategy is meeting its goals in an
entry-level role you may find yourself
pulling reporting or analyzing
performance data
through data analytics you can find out
if you're meeting your goals anticipate
customer behavior and make plans for the
future
coming up we'll get into some ways to
interpret data and present it to others
[Music]
all right
you've set your strategy
picked your channels
planned your content
and measured your results
now what
you know that all data should tell you
which channels and content are
performing well
but what does good performance actually
mean is it when an ad gets a lot of
clicks when a tweet goes viral what
about increased website traffic
with so many different touch points and
channels shaping customer brand
interactions
how do you know where to start in this
video we'll explore how businesses use
reporting data to find out which of
their marketing and sales efforts are
the most successful
success can mean different things
depending on your particular marketing
and business goals
but every digital marketer wants to know
which touchpoints are getting customers
to take action
say you're running a campaign for a
company that sells art supplies if tons
of people are clicking on an ad for a
new line of paints but only a few of
them eventually make a purchase
that ad might not be so successful after
all in order to optimize a strategy you
need to know which touch points are
influencing customer decisions the most
of course you can't know exactly what
your customers are thinking
all you have to go on is what they do
but those customer behaviors can tell
you a lot about where your efforts are
succeeding and where they're falling
short the process of determining which
content and channels are responsible for
generating leads conversions or signups
is called attribution
this isn't something you need to
determine on your own
most analytics tools include features
that can use your data to find out which
touch points and keywords customers
interact with before taking action
you'll get some practice with these
tools later in the program by accurately
attributing success to specific
marketing and sales efforts businesses
can make informed decisions about where
to invest their time budget and
resources
now some people assume that the last
touch point should get all the credit
and it makes sense right
people often think that the touch point
right before purchase must be the one
that convinces the customer to take
action
but that isn't always the case
you know that the average customer
encounters six touch points on their
purchase journey
and that the path isn't always
straightforward
say someone is shopping for a new
computer and they decide which model to
buy after the second touch point
but then they put off actually making
the purchase maybe they're waiting for a
holiday or for the computer to go on
sale
maybe they just get distracted
it might take another touch point to
remind them of the purchase they already
plan to make
both of those touch points deserve some
credit and attribution is how they get
it businesses have some choices when it
comes to attribution models we won't go
over all of them here
just a few to give you a sense of how
they attribute success
data driven
first click
last click and linear
data driven attribution measures
customer engagement with marketing
content across channels to understand
what's motivating them to take action
it assigns credit to each touch point
based on statistics like which ads or
keywords most often lead to conversions
data driven attribution draws on real
customer behaviors to assign credit but
if you don't have enough meaningful data
for this model they have other options
here are a few examples
first click attribution assigns all the
credit to the first touch point that
eventually leads to a conversion
let's go back to our art supply store
if a customer's first interaction with
the brand is a social media ad for oil
paints
all the credit for their purchase would
go to that ad
even if it takes a few more touch points
for them to buy something
last click attribution assigns all the
credit to the last known touch point
before conversion
if our art store customer makes a
purchase after the 4th or 5th touch
point maybe a promotional email
last click attribution would give full
credit to that email linear attribution
assigns equal credit to each touch point
along the customer journey
so for our art store customers journey
the social ad promotional email and all
the touch points in between share credit
for the eventual conversion
attribution isn't an exact science but
it can give you a better idea of how
customers are interacting with your
content and what's leading them to take
action using models like data driven
first click last click and linear
attribution businesses can put their
resources in places that will maximize
customer conversions
up next you'll learn about communicating
the insights you get from your data
insights to other people
[Music]
working with data isn't just about the
numbers you know that the process of
data polling reporting analysis and
attribution produces valuable insights
that can change the course of a project
or strategy but how do you turn those
insights into action how do you persuade
key people that something needs to be
done
by using your data to tell a story
without a story data is just numbers
those numbers can tell you what happened
but they can't tell you why it happened
why it's important and what you can do
about it
that's where data storytelling comes in
data storytelling is the practice of
conveying data insights to a specific
audience using a clear and compelling
narrative
data has a lot of stories to tell and no
two people will tell exactly the same
one
everyone brings their own perspectives
experiences and biases to data
storytelling and you'll find out about
navigating some of those challenges in a
bit for now let's think about how to
create stories with data a data story
has three main components
the data itself
a compelling narrative
and clear visualizations
together these pieces should engage your
audience by explaining what you learned
and how you can use that information to
take action
let's take them one at a time
first data
think of your data points like the
characters in a play if they're all on
stage at once it can be hard to know
where to focus your attention
so you need to be selective about which
numbers you highlight
the most important data points are your
lead characters while others can play
supporting roles and some may not need
to be in the scene at all
to decide which data points are
important it's crucial to understand the
questions you're trying to answer for
example maybe you work for a toy company
that's measuring the results of a new
social media campaign
your question could be as simple as
asking whether this new campaign is more
efficient than the last one
for that question your main data point
might be return on ad spend
but remember you need to understand the
question you want to answer to know what
data to use
being clear about your questions and the
data you can use to answer them is also
the first step in planning your next
piece of your data story the narrative
the narrative is like the plot of a play
it's what happens in the story a
well-structured narrative is engaging
memorable and persuasive once you've
picked the data points and insights that
answer your questions you can start
building a narrative that conveys them
effectively in the toy company example
you'd explain how the roas data you've
gathered compares to the previous
campaign and how those results can
impact your future efforts in other
words your data story should explain not
just what your insights mean but why
they matter to your audience and what
they can do about them that doesn't mean
you need to have all the answers in fact
some of the best stories create space
for discussion but appealing to your
audience with a strong narrative can
draw attention to your insights and
encourage others to take action you'll
learn more about how to create an
effective narrative in just a bit now
that we've explored a simple narrative
structure let's get into the last
element of data storytelling
visualizations data visualizations are
graphic representations of data that
convey information
data visualizations are like the
costumes lightings and stage set of a
play
they focus attention and help the
audience understand what's happening in
the narrative visualizations can take
the form of charts graphs infographics
or other illustrations a well-placed
visualization clarifies trends and
expresses relationships between data
points
returning to the toy company example
again we could choose to represent the
roas data as a series of numbers but if
what we want to do is compare the
current campaign to the last one it's a
lot clearer to convey that relationship
with a bar graph
it gets the point across quickly and
clearly you'll learn more about
visualizing data and making
presentations accessible to different
audiences in a later course
data storytelling is a powerful tool and
one that's in high demand for digital
marketing and e-commerce roles
using data narrative and visualizations
we can engage audiences communicate
insights and influence big decisions
up next we'll explore more about how to
structure data stories
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e-commerce certificate
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