2. 2
Who I am Who I’m not
GENERAL ASSEMBLYFAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
3. 3
• Frameworks, Exercises, The Meat
• Running Lean
• Choosing early-stage channels
• Conversion basics and tracking
• TIMITI
• Future channels
What we will cover
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
4. 4
• Introductions
• What you want to get out of the session
Who are You
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
5. 5 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Framework 1 – Media types
Paid Owned
Earned
Converged
Sponsorship
Advertising
Paid search
Site
Blog
Youtube
channel
Twitter
account
WOM
Press
coverage
Buzz
6. 6
Build awareness KPIs – UV, fans, Audience share
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Framework 2 - RACE
Building
awareness
Interaction with a
brand
Goals
Repeat
and delight
7. 7 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Framework 3 – Conversion funnel
Impressions
Or eyeballs
- Remarketing
- Shopping cart abandonment
Communications- Shareability
- Member
Get member Tracking
-N.b – Closed loop reporting
Goal 4 Sales
Visits
Goal 1 – Email sign-up
Goal 2 - registration
Goal 3 –
shopping
basket
AB split
testing
Product improvements
8. 8
CPA = Cost per action
LTV = Lifetime value
LTV – CPA = Profit!
ROI or ROAS = Return on Investment/advertising spend
Optimising requires measuring everything in between.
•Click-through rate (CTR)
•Cost per click (CPC)
•Conversion rate (CR)
•Average order value (AOV)
Marketing Jargon - KPI’s
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
9. 9 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
running Lean
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
10. 10
“A startup is a temporary organisation designed
to search for a repeatable and scalable
business model” – Steve Blank
“Less Transformers, more Blair Witch Project” –
Ryan Holiday
Test, measure, learn: TIMITI
Lean startup Marketing
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
11. 11 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
Traffic light system
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
As you progress, your business model isn’t fiction, it’s fact.
= Happy Investors!
12. 12 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
What if scenarios
Attraction efficiency
Site conversion efficiency
Lead conversion efficiency
Costs
Profitability
Average order value
13. 13
• Think about your own Conversion funnel.
- What are your conversion Key Performance
Indicators?
- What actions do you want your customer’s to take?
- Registration, Email sign-up, phone call
- What assumptions are you trying to validate?
5-10 mins
Exercise 1
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
14. 14
No mums!
•Customer personas, Customer journey mapping
•Treat it like a tap
•No one-off traffic yet
•Fast cycle times – “Measure” and “validate”
•Continuous customer reference
•Branding slowly but surely
•Make big wins
What makes a good Early-stage
marketing channel?
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
15. 15 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
What does this mean?
Paid, I’m afraid!
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
16. 16
Anything people search for – AdWords
Demographic targeting – Facebook
Interest targeting – Twitter
Physical products – Kickstarter
B2B – Go sell – LinkedIn
Choosing your Channels
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
18. 18
• Auction
• Ad position
• Account structure
• Keywords
• Quality score
• Campaign history
Adwords overview
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
19. 19
• In theory 1p more than the ad below you
The auction
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
http://www.wordstream.com
Ad rank CPC Bid Quality
Score
20. 20
• Keyword relevance – matching
• Ad relevance – click through ratio
• Landing page experience – Engagement rate
Quality score
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
21. 21 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
Ad positioning options
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
22. 22
structure
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
• Network choice
• Naming structure
• 1 goal per campaign
• Ad groups – Keywords
ads bids
• 3 ads per Ad group
• Automated rules
• Daily campaign
budget
• Automatic or manual bidding
23. 23
Keywords
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
• Customer personas
• Your company – your site
• Tools
– Google’s Keyword Planner
• Average monthly stats, competition levels, Average
CPCs
– SpyFu or Ubersuggest
24. 24
Keywords match types
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
• Broad match - Misspellings, synonyms, longer phrases
including keywords
• Phrase match – Phrase, close variations of that phrase
• Exact match – Exact term and close variations of that
exact term
Negative
25. 25
Ad creative
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
- 25 characters for headline,
- 70 characters to explain what you
- 35 characters of display url
26. 26 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
The triangle
trick
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
27. 27
• Assume everything has history
• Campaigns, Ad-groups, ads, keywords
• YOUR DOMAIN!!!
• Pause poor performers quickly.
Account history
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
28. 28
• Mock out your Campaign structure.
- Which campaigns would you use?
- Which keywords relate to your business goal?
- Which themes could each keyword be grouped to?
- Which ad copy would you test?
5-10 mins
Exercise 2
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
29. 29 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
Conversion
Turning clicks into cash
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
32. 32
Landing page best practice
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Landing page 1 Landing page 2
33. 33
• Relevance
• Integration with referral source
• Sufficient detail
• Page length
• Meaningful graphics
• Signposts – Call to actions
Lots more opportunities to Test
Landing page guidance
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
34. 34
• At least 3 pages of good unique content
• Terms of service & Privacy Policy
• Optimised meta titles, H1, Body
Do not go live without:
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
35. 35
• Sketch out an optimised landing page for your
business.
Think:
- Relevance, integration, detail, sign-posts, length
- Headline, image, data collection, call to action
5-10 mins
Exercise 3
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
36. 36 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
Paid Social
new ways of targeting
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
37. 37
• People don’t always search
• A relationship – often more fruitful
• Conversion starts with the networks themselves
Average Facebook user - 15 mins per day!
Social paid channels
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
38. 38
• 1 billion active users
– 24 Million UK
• 64% Active mobile user
• Self service for ads in 2009
• Options
– Boost page engagement
– Increase page likes
– Traffic to your site
– App installations
FACEBOOK
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
39. 39
• Experiment - ad formats
• Build an audience
• Build conversations to become conversions
• Make it engaging, you are pulling people away from
pics of cats….
Facebook Tips
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
40. 40
Advertising - Placements
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
• Sponsored results in search bar
• FB exchange – retargeting
• Right rail – tighter creatives
• Newsfeed – sponsored story
41. 41
Ad creative
• Text
• Image
• Social endorsement
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
42. 42
• Geo, Age, Gender
• Connections and friends of connections
• Sexual orientation and relationship status
• Education
• Advanced
– Custom audiences and Look alike groups retargeting
• CPM or CPC
Targeting and budget
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
43. 43
• 200 million active users
– 15 million in the UK
• 80% mobile
• Launched on self service end of last year
TWITTER
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
45. 45
• Keywords
• Interests or followers
• Gender
• Device
Targeting
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
46. 46
• Optimise for a click-through
• Remove #hashtags, @handles & pics and focus on
the link
• Keep tweets colloquial very different from a search
ads
Twitter ad tips
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
47. 47
• Discuss what would be the most appropriate Paid
social network for your business?
- Why are your customers using this network?
- What targeting options would you want to use?
- What would be the type of creative you would use to
increase conversion rates?
5-10 mins
Exercise 4
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
48. 48 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
Early engagement
Opening up the Comms
channels
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
49. 49
• Auto responders – Mixpanel or Intercom.io
• Engage directly with customers
• Turbo charge early adopters
– Share their experience
– Member get member schemes
– Build up product reviews
Email
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
50. 50
• Olark or Bold chat
• Prompt to engage
• Hear about opinions earlier – make changes quicker
• In App through Appentive
Live chat
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
51. 51 FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION
Future opportunities
Get in there quick
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
52. 52
• Instagram – 8 mins a day – 130 Million active users
– Owned by Facebook
– Looking to monetise
– First ads for large businesses – Mixed response
• Pinterest – 15 mins a day – 50 million active users
– Personalised pin recommendations
– Rich pins – Recipes, articles, product
movie and now place
Looking to the future
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
53. 53
• Facebook Power editor
• Adwords Editor
• Google Keyword Planner – Keyword research.
• MailChimp for email
• Google Analytics or Mixpanel
• Strikingly – Simple landing pages
• People per hour – Freelancers
• Mouse flow and Crazy egg
• Olark Live chat
early stage Tools
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
54. 54
Takeaways
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
• Targets, budgets and funnels
• Measure everything - TIMITI
• Know your customers
• Test your channels
• Consider conversion
• Engage
55. 55
Wider reading
FAST TRACK USER ACQUISITION GENERAL ASSEMBLY
• http://www.hubspot.com/
• http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog
• http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/
• http://www.searchenginejournal.com/
• http://unbounce.com/blog/
• http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/
• http://growthhackers.com/
• https://www.growthhacker.tv/
This is Edward Davidson. That is an FBI mugshot. If you’re a fan of googling yourself, I will find it difficult to shift this man. Fast Eddie. The Spam King.
Until his unfortunate early demise, he was one of the US’s most prolific email spammers.
Now we should be pushing the boundaries in early stage marketing, and there are a lot of phrases around the fake it till you make it. But I think this is a step too far.
Don’t want to dwell too much on frameworks, but I think it’s important to think about a few grounded framew
How you can use Lean start-up mentality in marketing activity and channels – it’s not just for the product flyboys and girls
How this can be applied to different channels – how you can get results back quickly and make decisions on validation of your results
Optimise throughout all stages of the the conversion process and use quick wins to improve your results
Ideas on good taps? Hacker news impact Great for ego, not great for validation & scaling – Quantblocks.
Reach - Build awareness KPIs – UV, fans, Audience share
Act - Interact with the brand online. KPIs – Bounce rate, Pages per visit, product page conversion
Convert – Get them to take an action
Engage - Building customer fans and relationships through time to achieve – Delight them through the process
Net or gross profit you expect to gain over the entire lifetime with that individual
Measure, build, learn – a cycle of knowledge building.
Be Nimble. Quick. Agile. Flexible.
Be fluid. Spend more time executing and less time planning. See the results and then optimise.
What this means for marketing:
Ryan holiday: Growth hacker marketing
Move fast but keep a back log of upcoming work
Stay focused – Have weekly standups and review bum downs, so that you know exactly what’s going on with the data – enabled to make quick decisions
Tackle projects with foresight
Think in terms of sprints
Structure your team to work in the same way as a Product Scrum
Targets set in terms of costs and conversion
Steady improvements will show progress of how marketing spend is being converted as the product improves
Once you have a feel for the traffic light process you can start developing “what if” scenarios to forecast improvements in the type of traffic is going to convert. Play with each of these scenarios to see what is likely to have the best effect
Some are variable costs, some are fixed
COGS = cost of goods sold
At the earliest stage, your looking to test, and learn as quickly as possible. You may get sales from the people you know, but this may actually distort perceptions and lead to you going down the wrong track.
Driving traffic to a very simplistic site enables you to prove your assumptions more quickly and learn faster.
At the earliest of stages, you don’t even need any form of product. You can be just validating through a customer’s interest
Going back to the Media overlays
“Owned” media takes time to develop, test and scale. “Earned” is even longer as you have to build up the trust and engagement with internal and external communities.
Paid traffic sources can be set-up - within hours to start validating
Think again of that Framework of the Conversion funnel – well it also goes far further up into thinking about the awareness stage – channels that you select often are targeting people at different times in their purchasing funnel. A message in Facebook’s news feed will be very different from an adwords creative served after someone has searched for a longtail term.
Indiegogo is an alternative to Kickstarter.
Kickstarter – create slick videos and images
44% of Kickstarter projects have reached their funding goals
Ideas on good taps? Hacker news impact Great for ego, not great for validation & scaling – Quantblocks.
60% of adverting spent through PPC
90% marketshare in the UK. When you are doing your first tests, it makes sense to do them through G first
I could do a whole week of sessions on Adwords. You can start off simple and then scale it up. But it’s really important you get the basics right as you’re starting to build up your campaign in order for you to have the best results and build a decent structure for your account which is going to put you in good stead for when you start building momentum
The user finds the ads that are relevant to what they’re looking for
Advertisers connect to potential customers at the lowest possible price
Google remains the go to place for this matching potential and rakes in Billions of dollars in ad revenue
Higher the ads rank the more likely they will be to be clicked on and therefore to drive traffic to your site
Relevance, relevance, relevance
Smaller highly targeted ad groups – use of negative keywords will help quality score
Put in place a structured approach to improve relevant ad creative for different keywords based on copy effectiveness and campaign structure
Standard ad targeting through text ads, display media creatives, even video
Partner advertising options like here on Ask Jeeves
Placement targeting enables you to increase your reach
Other opportunities to retarget to the users that came to your site
Search network
Google itself, Google maps, images, shopping and AOL
Display network
Google partnering network; Youtube and Gmail
An adwords account can have up to 25 campaigns and each campaign can have 100 ad groups, each ad group can have 100s of keywords.
Get the naming conventions right in your account from the start
Search network with display select
Search network only
Display network Only
Online video through True View
One goal per campaign – e.g. separate out product lines.
At least 3 ad groups per campaign – but use as tightly themed ad groups as possible. If in doubt better to err on the side of more ad groups then less
Use automated rules – Pause campaigns at a particular threshold
5. Daily budget is set at campaign level and cost per click at Ad group level
The heart of your campaign. Create a killer keyword list:
Do some background search first. What references to your customers use.
Use tools to help you. Use the free Keyword planner to understand average search volumes for search term, levels of competition and likely CPCs. The more variations you find, the greater your reach is likely to be. Use these tools with a pinch of salt as the results suggested are estimations
Try and cut out generic, irrelevant or obscure
If the terms are too specific they will be unlikely to generate any results – and we’re looking for quick results.
Broad match – widest possible group – Missspellings, synoyms, related variations
Broad match modifier – Close variations but no synonyms – missspellings, singular and plural forms, Abbreviations and acronyms
Exact match – Exact term and close variations of that term
Negative match - List of negative keywords – works that will stop your ads from being shown – “free” or “returns” for example
Make sure you don’t use the same keyword multiple times in the same campaign as this will count against you
The heart of your campaign. Create a killer keyword list:
Do some background search first. What references to your customers use.
Use tools to help you. Use the free Keyword planner to understand average search volumes for search term, levels of competition and likely CPCs. The more variations you find, the greater your reach is likely to be. Use these tools with a pinch of salt as the results suggested are estimations
Try and cut out generic, irrelevant or obscure. If the terms are too specific they will be unlikely to generate any results – and we’re looking for quick results. Phrase match is the best option.
Broad match – widest possible group – Missspellings, synoyms, related variations
Broad match modifier – Close variations but no synonyms – missspellings, singular and plural forms, Abbreviations and acronyms
Exact match – Exact term and close variations of that term
Negative match - List of negative keywords – works that will stop your ads from being shown – “free” or “returns” for example
Make sure you don’t use the same keyword multiple times in the same campaign as this will count against you
High level of relevance; clear, specific and compelling
Make sure your ads get approved
Landing pages need to work not have a pop up or squeeze page
Who are your ads for? Who are you competing with for each search term? What is your unique selling point?
Starting a story that continues in your landing page
As close as possible to the search query
Use numbers – save up to 30% - this will break up the text. Make a compelling offer. Manage people’s expectations – tell them what they’re going to do
What is the benefit to the user. Intentional space. Use symbols if you’ve got them – trademarks
It’s not possible to specify creative for desktops and Tablets
Using Ad extensions – these can only be used at campaign level – Enhanced campaigns were launched in July of last year
Local extensions – Help people who are nearby find a local shop
Call extensions – Connect users to your business directly by phone
Seller ratings
Review extensions
App extensions
Site links – enable the customer to quickly navigate directly to areas of your website
Test different ads for each ad group
Use the ad preview and diagnosis tool to make sure your ads are actually appearing
Exercise – which one of these ads would you be most likely to click on?
We’ve had great results from people clicking on ads where the bold element of the keyword creates a triangle, and therefore gets the ads to stand out
Although you want to move fast, you also want to make sure that you don’t make mistakes early on in your company’s development
Once you’ve started your account you need to make sure that you’re considering the impact
You don’t want to fire and forget. You should be continuously managing and optimising your campaign
Usability, accessibility, Persuasion, trust in the brand
Ideas on good taps? Hacker news impact Great for ego, not great for validation & scaling – Quantblocks.
Going back to the Media states – this is where there is cross over between paid, earned and owned
Higher up the search funnel, may draw people in directly or may start the process where they will again convert
Average click through rates of under 1%
- Engagement rates for Facebook – 0.20%
- Engagement rates for Twitter 1-3%
People on average spend 2 times more as a customer when they like a page
Promoted posts & other newsfeed ads are most effective
Can bid in CPM or CPC
Optimise for Clicks or manually bid for clicks
Make sure you include social elements – these are most powerful elements if you’ve managed to build them up
Use social elements. 25 characters for ad title. 135 characters for the ad copy.
Static image – use bold images that resonate with target audience – different from Facebook colour scheme
Creative rotation
Try promotions to build interactions
Connections – Targeting people who already have a connection with you or not – Liked your page, joined your group, or used your App in the last 30 days
IPO earlier this month
Promoted tweets – at the top of every relevant search. In the search results for a Promoted trend
Also in partners like Tweet deck and Hoot suite
A promoted tweet will appear only once
Match types that are the same as adwords
Device is useful if you don’t have a responsive website
Ideas on good taps? Hacker news impact Great for ego, not great for validation & scaling – Quantblocks.
Ideas on good taps? Hacker news impact Great for ego, not great for validation & scaling – Quantblocks.
Ideas on good taps? Hacker news impact Great for ego, not great for validation & scaling – Quantblocks.
A couple of platforms who it’s worthwhile keeping track of in the future – Especially as the world gets more an more pictorial. For all of these organisations, the challenge will be to find a happy medium between mortising the platforms and hemorrhaging users. The world is going visual, so think which images define your brand
Instagram
Omnicom signed $40 million deal
Phone contests
Engage; like other peoples photos, Follow from other social media platforms, Include your hashtags
Follow other brands on Instagram
Pinterest
- Rand Fishkin – predicts that by the end of 2014, more traffic sent by Pinterest than Twitter in the US
More personalised experience through the home feed
Rich pins – product pins, Receipe pins, Movie pins
Work in the same way as Schema for your website – highlight additional information for
Loads more information from the originator site
Reasons to use
Automatically get updated with content
Additional information making it more useful and
Free price alerts – members will receive information when ever a price of an item drops
For brands to engage they need to:
Fit in with the communities unwrittten laws
Enhancing the user experience – adding something, not shouting the brand message from a megaphone
Try and be participatory with the audience – get involved in the conversation – but more important – get people involved in the activity you’re developing
Don’t just broadcast
Getting to know the brand and feel like an insider
People are more likely to follow people – be a person rather than a company
80% of the pins on Pinterest are repins
Go to active boards to pin
Wearable Tech
- Functional use to start off with – surgery, photography,
Ideas on good taps? Hacker news impact Great for ego, not great for validation & scaling – Quantblocks.
For all of these organisations, the challenge will be to find a happy medium between mortising the platforms and hemorrhaging users
More personalised experience through the home feed
Rich pins – product pins, Receipe pins, Movie pins
Loads more information from the originator site
For all of these organisations, the challenge will be to find a happy medium between mortising the platforms and hemorrhaging users
More personalised experience through the home feed
Rich pins – product pins, Receipe pins, Movie pins
Loads more information from the originator site
