Between 2020, and Summer 2022, I’ve had the benefit of seeing 6 ambitious companies try to scale their new customer acquisition numbers. All have different approaches to how they structure their growth function. The common denominator for all is that they utilise external resources in their acquisition strategy. This creates a siloed approach to acquisition marketing, which can create problems, particularly when the media buyers are paid on a percentage of spend model.
Stakeholders Can Make Their Own Numbers Look Great.
Despite performance marketing having hundreds of metrics and dimensions upon which they can analyse data, the true value of a channel can be quite subjective.
- Rolled Up Data Doesn’t Tell the Whole Picture: It’s very common for an Agency to provide a beautiful summary sheet of the performance. You’ll often see trend lines pointing up, and who can argue with a trend line pointing up.
However;
- In Google, if you aren’t getting a split between Brand and Non-Brand performance, you aren’t getting a fair representation of the accounts performance.
- In Paid Social, the same logic applies, except the reporting split should be on Prospecting, Retargeting and Retention.
- With Affiliates or Partnerships, differentiations should be made between Top of Funnel and Bottom of Funnel CPA
- Attribution Windows Vary Across Platform: If your channel owners are using what’s available in the platform, that must be considered in the context of relative performance.
Within the channels, business owners need to question
- In Google, what’s the attribution being used in the client reporting. Is it 7 Day Click, or 90 Day Click. These will have very different results. Does the report incorporate post-view conversions in Display and Video campaign reporting? Are these conversions as incremental as we think?
- In Paid Social, are post views being counted along with post click, and what’s the post-click window?
Although Google Analytics data has its own flaws, it’s always worth comparing Google Analytics last click data versus the channel rapport data at a campaign level.
- Funnel Position Isn’t Considered: While Fragmenting the reporting should show if conversions are bottom or top of the funnel, it’s worth scrutinising campaigns to determine where in the funnel they are involved.
The relationship between channels is not discussed.
The conversion journey for most purchases are more complex than we think. Actions from one channel can have a major impact on other channels.
Having siloed functions makes it more difficult for cross channel discussions. As Chief Marketing Officer, alerts used to go off in my brain when a single channel’s metrics looked too good to be true. I often see people attribute channel success to actions within their channel, rather than any other channel’s activity.
For example;
- A company could double their spend on Search or Social. Some partners on their affiliate program will see big increases in their daily conversion count.Of course, it’s natural for an affiliate manager to attribute the incremental conversions to the conversion they had 3 weeks ago, but the truth is that the extra volume is being driven by more brand searches, which are coming from the Search and Social media spend.Make no mistake about it, these middle and bottom of funnel affiliates add huge value, but it’s imperative they are paid the appropriate amount.
- A company decides to send an e-mail with a Black Friday promotion to their entire database. Primed users will look up the company’s product, and will click on the company’s Paid Search ads..Without conversation between Lifecycle and Search, the Search manager will look at their own activity to find the cause of the increase in conversions.Usually they will attribute it to fabulous new Ad Copy or some other campaign change.. Again, the Search manager has played their role here, and the conversion wouldn’t have happened without them, but it’s important to be aware that the increased conversion rate is probably a short term gain, and not down to account improvements.
