MKT-640: Digital Marketing Analytics

Digital marketing analytics
Second Edition

Chapter 3
Choosing Your Analytics
Tools

Copyright © 2022, 2018, 2016 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Evaluating New Marketing Technologies
Proprietary data sets—You might be wondering how something is proprietary if it’s clearly
a marketing technology solution that’s marketing itself to end consumers? The answer is
actually quite simple. Almost every organization collects data on its key audiences,
whether those are marketing audiences or customers. There will be data sets that you
come across that provide more information on those audiences or customers, and when
joined with your proprietary data, add significant value to the organization. If you come
across a data set like this, consider it of maximum priority.

Audience data—This should be fairly self-explanatory if you have been in the
marketing or communications profession for almost any length of time, but any data set
that allows you to understand your audiences more effectively should be prioritized. A
number of solutions are on the market that can help, whether you work in
pharmaceuticals, technology, or consumer industries. Again, consider whether or not this
data set can be joined with proprietary data or if collecting this data set can give you a
competitive advantage in your market.

Evaluating New Marketing Technologies
Better measurement—We talk throughout this book about the value of measuring
bottom-line impact. It shouldn’t be the only thing you measure, as we discuss later in
Chapter 7, “Return on Investment,” but understanding return on investment from your
marketing programs is critical. If collecting a set of data helps you perform better
measurement, prioritize it for evaluation.
Content performance—Many of you have likely heard the expression, “content is king,”
and because of that a number of solutions are on the market that help you evaluate
content engagement effectiveness. Similarly, a number of tools on the market can help
you distribute content effectively to your target audience(s). If a marketing technology
solution could help you understand content marketing performance or do better
distribution, evaluate it.
Channel mix—After audience and content, another critical evaluation criterion is
understanding the right channel mix. We realize that this criterion could be broad. It could
incorporate anything from social media listening vendors to syndicated research partners.
This is where a marketing technology leader could be extremely effective for your
business because it can understand the business requirements and the technological
capabilities of the various vendors available. Our best advice, in the absence of a
marketing technology leader, is to follow the business requirements. If the requirements
take you toward a social media listening vendor for you to understand the right channel
mix, follow it.

Evaluating New Marketing Technologies

Ability to integrate and adopt—One of the barriers to adoption, which we discuss
toward the end of this chapter, is a marketing capability’s inability to integrate with
another data set. If you are exposed to a solution and you think it might be tough to
achieve adoption or integrate with something else that might already be part of the stack,
pass on the evaluation altogether.

Cost—We list cost last in this list intentionally. In most cases, if you focus on the value
a marketing capability could deliver to your organization first, then the cost will become
easier to justify. Cost should not be the primary consideration when evaluating a
marketing technology solution.

Organizing Your Marketing Technology Stack
Essential to adoption—In most cases, when you are evaluating marketing technology
solutions, you are doing so on behalf of other stakeholders within your organization. Given
the wide range of tools available to you, it’s likely clear that there isn’t one solution that
can do everything that your organization needs. If it isn’t clear to those stakeholders how
the tools are organized for their benefit, it’s likely that they will not be adopted.
Continued investment—Marketing technology solutions, particularly for large
enterprises, are not cheap. The investment in them requires senior management
approval, in many cases, before purchasing. It is also almost a given that you will need to
continue justifying the investment as new solutions become available that can help your
business. If the marketing stack isn’t clearly organized, then the investment isn’t likely to
follow.
Success measurement—We do not discuss it in significant detail in this chapter, but an
important component of any marketing technology program is establishing clear key
performance indicators (KPIs). Those KPIs could be anything from adoption, to return on
marketing investment as a result of having the capability in-house, or delivering marketing
programs more efficiently (cost savings). If the technology stack isn’t organized well,
properly evaluating effectiveness becomes hard.

Examples of Marketing Technology
Stacks

Identifying Critical Marketing
Technology Solutions
BlueKai or similar data management platform (DMP)—In Chapter 2, “Understanding
Digital Analytics Concepts,” we talked a little about what a data management platform is.
As a refresh, a DMP is a way for companies to organize first-, second-, and third-party
data that they can use to create strategies and tactics to reach core audiences more
effectively. A number of DMPs are on the market today, but one that we consider to be
best-in-class is BlueKai from Oracle. Google and Adobe both have competitive DMP
solutions, and a number of smaller solutions are available to customers. Regardless, our
view is that the DMP is the central component to any good marketing technology stack.

Social media listening vendors—A number of social media listening vendors exist, as
we make mention of throughout this book. However, our view is that one of the best-inclass solutions comes from Crimson Hexagon. Crimson’s platform integrates with other
content distribution platforms (more on this in a moment), offers sophisticated machine
learning techniques to understand conversational trends, and has a robust capture of
social media data. Regardless of the solution that you select, social media listening
should be a part of your technology stack.

Identifying Critical Marketing
Technology Solutions
Sprinklr or Spredfast—Over the last four years significant consolidation has occurred in
the social media content distribution market. The two primary vendors today that most
large companies turn to are Sprinklr and Spredfast. Both offer strong capabilities, rich
data, and excellent customer support teams to manage the implementation. Before
picking one or the other, please refer to the evaluation criteria that we outlined at the
beginning of this chapter.

Google or Adobe Analytics—While there are other web analytics vendors out there, most
enterprises have standardized on either Google or Adobe. Both have benefits and
drawbacks, but both offer users the ability to thoroughly understand how a consumer
interacts with an owned property. The decision on which one of these platforms to go with
is often dependent on your organization’s ability to implement these new tools, and how
often it integrates with existing tools. Again, please refer to the beginning of this chapter
on how best to evaluate these solutions.

Identifying Critical Marketing
Technology Solutions
Eloqua—A significant number of email marketing platforms are available to customers,
but our preference is Eloqua. It provides rich data and the ability to segment a company’s
audience, but it also integrates well with BlueKai and other DMP solutions. As we
mentioned earlier, the DMP is the most critical part of any marketing technology stack.
The ability to integrate that comes inherent with Eloqua makes it a clear winner in our
estimation.

Data visualization software—This is a book on digital analytics, so you must have
known that this would be a critical component of the marketing technology stack. A
number of vendors are out there, but the two we prefer are Domo and Tableau. Domo is
a cloud-based visualization platform that allows users to connect multiple data endpoints
together in a seamless way. Domo is excellent for marketers who need a clean platform
to understand marketing performance, whereas Tableau is better for analysts because it
offers its users the ability to more easily manipulate data. Tableau is also a favorite of any
IT department because it seamlessly integrates with internal data warehouses. For those
organizations that have a smaller budget but still want great data visualization,
Microsoft’s PowerBI has a lot to offer in this area as well.

Identifying Critical Marketing
Technology Solutions
Tealium—This platform offers many solutions to its customers, but its two primary
benefits are in tag management and audience analysis. If you are managing a complex
website with many different types of events that need to be tagged, having something like
Tealium is essential to managing that process cost effectively. The company’s
AudienceStream product allows users to create a unified view of the customer’s audience
across channels. This is invaluable as you consider marketing to your audiences based
on a customer journey as opposed to an individual channel.

Adobe Experience Manager—Adobe Experience Manager doesn’t receive the industry
trade publicity that the DMPs do, but that does not mean it is any less important. AEM is
critical to managing the deployment of content optimization on websites and
communities. If your organization has a web footprint, AEM is an essential tool to
consider.

Who Decides Which Tool to Buy?
PR or marketing—As mentioned earlier, one of these departments is likely driving the
ship toward an eventual purchase. Someone from the other department should be on this
team, as well.
Legal—Someone needs to be there to negotiate the final contract terms.
Procurement—Someone also needs to be there to write the check, of course.
Customer support—Many digital marketing programs now have a dedicated customer
support function. It is important that they be consulted on any specific needs related to
both a listening tool and engagement software.
IT—IT professionals have largely received a bad rap in digital media circles, but in this
case, they serve a vital purpose. Having IT in the room early might mitigate challenges
you might face technologically while adopting a marketing technology solution.

Searching for the Right Metrics
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Paid search—A paid search is any form of online advertising that ties an ad to a
specific keyword-based search request.
Organic search—Organic search results are listings on search engine result pages
that appear because of specific relevance to search terms.

Primary Research
Brand perception—We have seen a number of studies attempting to tie social presence to
overall brand reputation, and, at least at this point, those studies are incomplete. Unless
marketers ask very specific questions of the target audience, using online sentiment and
volume to ascertain how a brand is currently perceived would be very difficult. Some decent
assumptions can be made, but the story is incomplete.
Message resonance—Message resonance is a metric included in the social analytics
section, but it is still something that requires offline testing. Just because an online audience
is picking up a key message does not mean it is because of the company’s program. Plus,
hard as it is to believe, some targets are still much more likely to engage offline than online.
Executive reputation—Despite the growth in the number of brands engaging in social
media activities, the corporate executives at those brands have not adopted social media at
the same rate of speed. Those executives who do are genuinely embraced by the online
community following the brand if they communicate authentically. When the communication
is authentic, the brand does see a benefit. How much benefit? It is hard to tell without
asking the online community following your brand, “Why?”
Advertising performance—Historically, there has been very little experimentation in the
testing of ads online. Typically, the ads were produced, run on traditional channels, and
then posted to social networks. Not only is posting advertising verbatim to social networks
not interesting, there is also a small chance it will not resonate if it contains no comedic
value.

Aligning Digital and Traditional Analytics
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Traditional Media Monitoring
Traditional CRM Data
The Reporting Timeline
The Reporting Template

Key Points
Understanding Customer Behavior
● Marketing analytics helps businesses understand customer behavior,
preferences, and interests.
● It allows for the evaluation of the effectiveness of marketing campaigns
and the identification of trends.
Optimizing Marketing Strategies
● By delving into the data behind marketing campaigns, businesses can
make informed decisions that optimize resources and maximize ROI.
● It enables the refinement of marketing campaigns and the optimization of
return on investment

Key Points
Tracking and Measuring Performance
● Marketing analytics involves studying data to evaluate the performance
of marketing activities.
● It helps in tracking website visitors, understanding where they come
from, and identifying potential problems and new opportunities.
Data-Informed Decision Making
● Marketing analytics is a crucial way to develop stronger, more datainformed marketing strategies.
● It allows businesses to make more informed decisions across a wide
array of marketing initiatives

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