How to setup, measure and finally select the right digital marketing channels in a multi-channel and cross device world

1. GpeC – Summer School 2014
Selecting Marketing Channels – Which Are Right For My Business?
By: Steffen Heringhaus
August 2014 Page 1

2. August 2014 Page 2
Digital Marketing Channels
1. Setting Up and Tracking Marketing Channels 5
UTM parameters, goals, events, eCommerce Tracking & conversion optimized ads
2. How Attribute ROI to Each Channel 19
Multi-Channel Funnels and the Customer Lifecycle
3. Selecting Marketing Channels and Avoid Common Pitfalls 32
Channel cannibalization, scalability, Exemple din Curs (Brand, Brand-Reseller, B2B, Handmade)

3. Which Marketing Channels Are Right For Me?
August 2014 Page 3
How To Select Fitting Marketing
Channels?
• Increasing number of marketing channels
competes for your budgets
• Size of bubbles to the right correlates with
ROI associated
• But: does this chart hold true for your
business?
Source: specommerce.com

4. Evaluating Marketing Campaigns
August 2014 Page 4
6 Month of Continous Advertising:
What Channel Deserves (How
Much) Credit?
• Constant YOY growth > 50% in 2014
• What channels were key to succes?
• How much to pay for each?
Google Analytics > Audience > Overview

5. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 5
Website URL: Your landing page URL followed by
an ?
Utm_source: The outlet or partner, brandname
Utm_medium: the asset: such as Site,
Facebookpage, Newsletter, Banner, article, text
link, twitter account etc
Utm_term: keyword, if relevant, such as for text
ads
Utm_content: the creative used, such as image,
CTA, color or size of banner
Utm_campaign: the general marketing campaign
such as Summer promo, 30% on first order, Buy 1
get 1 free. etc
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

6. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 6
Track Your Marketing Efforts
• Track campaigns and channels using Google’s
URL builder
• If needed: Track clicks separtely with URL
shortners such as Bitly
• Do use for:
• eMail
• Social Traffic
• Banner advertising and paid referral
campaigns/paid text link advertising
• Do NOT use for:
• AdWords (use their auto-tagging feature)
• Organic Traffic
• Internal site tracking (ex: links in pop-up
notifications)
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

7. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 7
Website URL: Your landing page, followed by an ?
Utm_source: The outlet or partner, brandname
Utm_medium: the asset: such as Site,
Facebookpage, Newsletter, Banner, article, text
link, twitter account etc
Utm_content: the creative used, such as image,
CTA, color or size of banner
Utm_campaign: the general marketing campaign
such as Summer promo, 30% on first order, Buy 1
get 1 free. etc
Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic (Default view)

8. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 8
Click Tracking vs. Visits
• Clicks ≠ Visits (Sessions)
• Often more clicks than sessions in the short
term
• If you do not use an adserver, adwords or a
similar technology a link shortner can help,
especially for social media
Bitly.com > Bitmarks > View Stats (of Link)

9. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 9
Click Tracking vs. Visits
• Clicks ≠ Visits (Sessions)
• Often more clicks than sessions in the short
term
• Long term: direct traffic will not overwrite for
a while tracking parameters of other channels
on the long term this will result in more «visits
than clicks» which will be attributed to such a
source
Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic (Filtered for all visits including „JOY“ in the Source/Medium field

10. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 10
Tracking Against Business
Outcomes: Goals, Events,
eCommerce Tracking
• Define most important business goals and
have separate, static «thank-you» pages with
dedicated URL for them (after order, purchase,
contact request or sign-ups)
If you do not make transactions online: assign
average value per lead for them
• Define secondary business goals (add to cart,
download of whitepaper, profile update) and
create events for them
• If you do transactions online: integrate with
eCommerce tracking
Quicksprout.com (Has also a very useful online marketing blog)

11. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 11
Setting Goals
• Goals: Versatile way to track the number and
percentage of conversions and the conversion
rate
• Good for all kinds of conversions such as
signup, lead, downloads, checkouts and other
actions. Can have values assigned without
requiring eCommerce tracking
• Can be used to evaluate channel performance
for business outcomes
• Can visualize the whole funnel until conversion
happens
• Requires usually dedicated thank-you page to
be set up
Google Analytics > Conversions > Goals > Overview

12. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 12
Defining Events
• Events: Good way to define single actions or
«mircoconversions» which do not have (or
need) their own URL
• Downloads
• Signup
• Login / Logout
• Add to cart
• Live chat
• Click on buttons or links
• Video plays
• Form hits
• Can be used to define goals if no dedicated
URL is available (see slide 17)
• Tool by Raven to help define event codes
Google Analytics > Behavior > Events > Overview

13. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 13
eCommerce Tracking
• Suitable for all eCommerce sites which finalize
transactions with monetary value online
• If implemented, it will track single
transactions, items/SKUs and their respective
values
• Let’s you analytize the monetary value
assigned to each channel
• Several plugins for common eCommerce
software available
• Good Guide to single features
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Overview

14. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 14
AdWords Auto Tagging
• Make sure you use auto-tagging for your
AdWords campaigns. As manual tagging with
utm_ parameters it will pass data about the
campaign to Analytics
=> more convenient
=> carries more data than utm parameters (Ad
group, match type, placements, clicks vs
sessions, CTR, costs, cpc, conversion rates etc)
• => Can also calculate margin and other
financial KPI

15. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 15
AdWords Conversion Codes
• Create conversion codes for main conversion
=> To be used for AdWords conversion
optimizer feature (automatically optimizes
your campaign so you have more conversions;
becomes available after gathering 1 – 3 weeks
worth of data)
=> Try to limit to most important conversions
otherwise it will be hard to distinguish them in
the AdWords interface
=> most stable if used on static pages
• Also available now: import goals from
Analytics (webinar here; ~ 1 hour)

16. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 16
Facebook Conversion and Other
Conversion Codes
• Same, as with Google AdWords conversion
tracking codes you can set Facebook ad
campaigns to be optimized for conversions
=> Create tracking pixel, add it to your thank
you page, then create a Website conversion
campaign
=> works also well with dyanmicaly created
pages and targets
• Likewise, you can add tracking codes for your
affiliate agency, the AdServer of a publisher or
other PPC providers such as Etarget.ro
Facebook > Ads Manager > Conversion Tracking > Create Pixel

17. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 17
Common Obstacles and
Workarounds
• Web server does not accept URLs which are
tagged with parameters such as utm_source
(error page or redirect to homepage)
=> Hosting/Server administrator can fix
• CMS/Website archietecture does not have or
allow special URLs for goals
=> Try to create a static HTML page which
automatically redirects after 1 – 5 seconds
back to your main website. After your business
outcome has taken place, redirect to this page.
Use this static page as goal URL
=> use an event based goal
=> For non-AdWords conversion codes: Set a
flag in the Database and serve the code once
for the next pageview
Google Analytics > Admin > Account > Property > View > Goals > New Goal

18. Tracking Marketing Channels & Measure Business Outcome
August 2014 Page 18
The Limits of Conventional
(Conversion) Tracking
• Analytics sotware attributes to each channel
and source conversions, actions and values
• Model ≠ Reality
• Model is based on the implicit assumption: the
last click which has brought the tracked
conversion does not interact or rely on other
channels
Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic

19. Attribution In A Multi Channel World
August 2014 Page 19
Closer To Reality
• Several interactions across different
channels for most businesses until
conversions occurs
• Also: different devices before
conversions occurs
• Video: Multi-Channel Funnels in
Google Analytics

20. Attribution In A Multi Channel World
August 2014 Page 20
Multi Channels & Assited
Conversions
• Default overview: top 3 intersecting marketing
channels
• In example top converter direct traffic
intersected in 7.88% with both referral traffic
and organic search
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Overview

21. Attribution In A Multi Channel World
August 2014 Page 21
Overlap Between Two Channels
• If reduced to two channels the intersection
between Direct & Organic Search grows to
22%
• You can add up to four channels to see how
large the amount of intersection is
• The effect will be different for diffrent
business models
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Overview

22. Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?
August 2014 Page 22
First Question To Put: Time Lag
• In this example > 85% of conversions happen
on the first day
• Short decision making process
• Last click attribution covers most of the cases
• Still: Revenues and conversions can be
improved by going further
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Time Lag

23. Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?
August 2014 Page 23
First Question Put Differently: Path
Length
• Same website
• 77% of conversions happen on the first visit (1
interaction) nearly 92% within 2 visits
• Still 8% of conversion value make an additional
380,000 EUR of conversion value in this
example
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Path Length

24. Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?
August 2014 Page 24
Path Length: In Most Cases Several
Interactions Preceed a Conversion
• A more common example: only 22% of
conversions happen within the first (tracked)
interaction while the remainder of conversions
happens after more than 2 interactions (visitis)
• 24% happens even after 12 or more
interactions
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Path Length

25. Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?
August 2014 Page 25
Top Conversion Channels
Impulsive/ Short Term conversions
• Short conversion paths
• Few channels involved
• Examples: Lead generation / quotations /
purchase of well known, branded products at
official supplier
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Top conversion Paths

26. Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?
August 2014 Page 26
Top Conversion Paths: A More
Typical Scenario
Rationale / Medium Term Conversions
• Longer conversion paths
• Many channels and/or subsequent visits
involved
• Typical for most products where different
vendors are compared, transaction is final and
different opportunities are available
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Top conversion Paths

27. Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?
August 2014 Page 27
Top Conversion Path: Source
Medium View
Change Views to explore exact source and
medium pathways
• First contacts are often made in discovery
mode
• Soft objectives/KPI such as «brand awareness»
become tangible and show how «direct
traffic» can be build up
• However: typically there are tens, hundrets or
thousands of conversion paths like this – for
these cases this is anectodatal evidence at
best
=> good to explore, hard to make final
decisions for assigning values to single
channels
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Top conversion Paths

28. Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?
August 2014 Page 28
Model Comparison Tool
• Consolidating anecdotal evidence
• Example: Comparing three models: Default
(last) click attribution vs. First click attribution
vs. Linear (equal contribution over time) click
attribution
• First vs. Last click: two extremes, real
proportions are speculative or at least
different depending on the business model
• Details, definitions and different models
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Top conversion Paths

29. Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?
August 2014 Page 29
Model Comparison Tool
Change Views to explore exact source and
medium pathways
• Direct traffic does not fall like manna from
heaven – it is typically initiated by other
channels
• Email traffic, which is much as direct traffic a
sign for an already engaged customer typically
loses as well. This makes sense, bacause email
subscribers usually found your website trough
other channels
• Same holds often true for organic traffic,
which contains a large proportion of branded
search
• Outbound channels such as Display and PPC
typically gain value
Google Analytics > Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Top conversion Paths

30. Time to Conversion: Impulsive Purchase or Long Time Research?
August 2014 Page 30
Conclusions
Keep tracking your channels but be aware of the
interdependencies
• Define a maximum cost per conversion for all
traffic which must not be exceeded
• Take differences in ROI into account but adjust
with Multi-Channel Funnels and some gut
feeling
• This is not the end of the story: Though
Universal Analytics is here, we still have many
obstacles to overcome until having a view on
what is happening in Multi online and offline
channel, as well as a cross-device world
Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic

31. Further Ressources
August 2014 Page 31
Reading and Resources
• Avinash Kaushik : Occam’s Razor
Multi-Channel Funnels – Part I
Multi-Channel Funnels – Part II
• Analytics Help Center:
Conversions & Attribution Modelling
• Official Google Analytics Blog:
Latest product updates & news
• Econsultancy:
Industry reports, best practices, templates and
tutorials (paid)
• Analytics Sollution Gallery: Download &
share pre-configured, custom reports)
Gallery Start
• Gaconfig.com: By Raven Tools
Create event tracking codes & UTM Tracking

32. Selecting Marketing Channels
August 2014 Page 32
Channel Cannibalization
Growing on channel on the cost of another
channel
• Example shows how Google traffic dropped as
Facebook traffic beginns to rise
• Good if: larger audience is reached and more
content is consumed or cost is reduced for
same outcome
• Harmful if: costs for same outcome increase or
overall result/consumption decreases
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/the-facebook-effect-on-the-news/283746

33. Selecting Marketing Channels
August 2014 Page 33
Channel Cannibalization
Most obvious example for eCommerce Marketers:
Organic search vs. PPC or eMail vs. Direct traffic
• Occurs for branded bidding or bidding for
keywords which are also organically present
• Makes sense if: overall result is bigger as both
channels if operated independently and there
are no other traffic sources around to invest in
(or a competitor forces you by bidding on your
brand)
Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic (Applied Avdvanced Segments: Paid Traffic – blue vs. Organic Traffic - orange

34. Selecting Marketing Channels
August 2014 Page 34
Scalability
Do not limit your profits by keeping CPAs or other
costs to low – but also do not be fooled by succes
based on low numbers
• Optimization is not about local optima and
reducing costs per individual conversions (let
alone clicks or impressions)
• As long as you yield a positive return on
investment and overall profit grows a channel
is worth further explotation
• However: make sure it really scales up
• If you have a large budget, no time pressure
and and a lot of confidence in the future: try
the life time calculation tool
Source: Google presentation
20 ct CPC
37 ct CPC

35. Selecting Marketing Channels
August 2014 Page 35
Examples – B2C & Brand
Typically largest competitive advantage: your
brand
• Search for low-hanging fruits such as branded
traffic (Direct, organic & PPC, social media and
eMail)
• Boost your brand with well thoughts
campaigns
Source: Comparethemarket.com ad

36. Selecting Marketing Channels
August 2014 Page 36
Examples – B2C & Brand
Typically largest competitive advantage: your
brand
• Search for low-hanging fruits such as branded
traffic (Direct, organic & PPC, social media and
eMail)
• Boost your brand with well thoughts
campaigns
• Consider letting other players (online
distributors, affiliates) do the job of
performance marketing channels for you (and
let them take the risk of all the algorithmic
changes attached as well as the cost of
additional organizational overhead and
friction)
Source: Comparethemeercat.com

37. Selecting Marketing Channels
August 2014 Page 37
Examples – B2C & Brand
Typically largest competitive advantage: your
brand
• Search for low-hanging fruits such as branded
traffic (Direct, organic & PPC, social media and
eMail)
• Boost your brand with well thoughts
campaigns
• Consider letting other players (online
distributors, affiliates) do the job of
performance marketing channels for you (and
let them take the risk of all the algorithmic
changes attached as well as the cost of
additional organizational overhead and
friction)
• DONT‘s:
• do not allow affiliates and distributors to use
your brand name for traffic acqusition
purposes

38. Selecting Marketing Channels
August 2014 Page 38
Examples – B2C & No Own Brand
But Selling (also) Branded Products
Competitive advantage: leverage brand
reputation of products sold while building your
own brand
• Low hanging fruits: SEO for brand names +
item types / categories, PPC same: +
remarketing for engaged users
• Social, especially for lifestyle products
• Affiliate: beware of channel cannibalization
and growing new competitors
• eMail
• Piggyback on Okazii, Amazon, etc.
=> build brand around your USP and become
either niche leader or efficiency machine
(McKinsey) just being one of many who sell also
brand X is not enough in the long run
(Amazon = Efficiency machine, Zappos = niche
leader ‚delivering happiness‘)
Source: Zappos.com

39. Selecting Marketing Channels
August 2014 Page 39
Examples – B2C & No Own Brand,
Unbranded Products
1. Build a brand for what makes your budiness or
service stand out
2. Google and Facebook are not the internet
Websites as Amazon, eBay or Groupon have
massive traffic with transactional intention and
fitting categories
• Handmade Fashion & accessories : Try Breslo,
Okazii, Etsy
• Participate in relevant communities
• Try to get press coverage by providing useful
content
• Build followers
• Gifts: Try Okazii, eBay, Zumzi
• Leverage social media‘s viral potential by
creating sharable content
• Try to get press exposure by providing
astonishing or suprizing content
Source: Breslo.ro

40. Selecting Marketing Channels
August 2014 Page 40
Examples – B2B
Often small relevant audience, complex buying
cycle
• Content marketing
• Social: LinkedIn and specialty
blogs/communities
• PPC with a lot of attention to negative
keyword lists to distinguish B2B from B2C
intents
• Remarketing lists to keep prospects close
• PR
• Newsletter
• Direct Marketing
Source: FiberVision.de

41. Thank You
August 2014 Page 41
Thank You
Steffen Heringhaus
CDO
Ringier Romania
Bd-ul Dimitrie Pompeiu nr. 6
Novo Parc, Building A
Sector 2. Bucharest
eMail: cdo@ringier.ro
LinkedIn: /in/steffenheringhaus