Reversing your Advertising Process

Most of the time advertisers work in one direction. We come up with an advertising concept or message, create an ad that matches, and then fill in the missing pieces between that ad and a completed scale: landing pages, forms, lead magnets, promotions, sales collateral and so forth. Then we want to improve things, we go back to our pieces and try to figure out how we could improve them. Poor CTR – Try tweaking the ad copy. Not enough sales – offer promotion.

Many big companies recognize this and use surveys or focus groups to try to get inside the heads of their target audience. However, that sort of in-depth research can be a bit hard to pull off. So we end up taking our best guess and making tweaks instead. This works well enough most of the time, but what do you do when your best advertising ideas still aren’t delivering adequate results? In this situation, it may be helpful to try reversing your advertising process. Instead of coming up with different ways to catch your customer’s eye, start by looking at what your customers are responding to on your website and landing pages.

Google Analytics – The easiest way to do this is to take a look at the messaging on the top-performing pages of your site. Landing page reports tells you how many people landed on a particular page and then went on to convert on your site. In other words, regardless of how they got to your site, these people saw something they liked on your site and converted. Once, you’ve identified the elements that make a particular page deliver the results you’re looking for, you can use that information to come up with a great ad.

Right Ad Strategy – When you get right down to it, you don’t really want people to click on your ads. You want people to convert. If people aren’t converting, every click you pay is a waste of money. Typically, most people recommend that you match your landing page to your ad and then split test your landing page. Instead of keeping the ads the same and testing the landing pages, keep the landing page the same and test different ads.

Identify one of your top landing pages and come up with a few different ads that match the messaging of your landing page. Then, set up a split test in your ad platform of choice and see which ad produces the best conversion rates. Most online advertisers see the journey from click to conversion as two separate processes, CTR and Conversion rates. Since we’re trying to reverse-engineer our advertising, we’re going to assume that the conversion rate of our landing page is directly influenced by the type and quality of traffic we’re sending to it. So, if our ads send better traffic to our landing page, our conversion rate will naturally improve.

Limitations – Reverse-engineering your ads from your landing page and site content comes with its own set of disadvantages. Conversion data only tells you what worked for the people who have converted, it doesn’t tell you much about what might work for new audiences. This approach is most helpful when you have quite a bit of existing conversion data and want to use that data to come up with new advertising ideas.

Online advertising is something of a tricky process. You know what you want to say and who to say it to, but figuring out the best way to say it can be hard. Your current customers have already given you a lot of information on what makes them want to convert. All you have to do is use that data to reverse-engineer an advertising strategy that really speaks to your audience.

Implementing Cohort Analysis Modeling

When reporting paid search results, marketers often field a few recurring questions “How does search contribute to retention?” However, the ability to strategically and correctly answer these questions about search campaign effectiveness over time requires both deep reporting capabilities and a strong grasp of your organization attribution model.

Adoption of Cohort analysis as part of paid search reporting can be a powerful means to assess trends, retention and path to purchase. It also allows for greater accuracy when analyzing campaign results over a dedicated window of time based on the time it takes users to move through the funnel. In marketing, the term “cohort” describes segments of users who share specific events or experiences within a specific time frame. Cohorts include purchasers, email subscribers, trial and/or demo downloads or any other conversion action in the funnel.

Shifting to a Cohort model requires diligent up-front assessment and work, it’s crucial to ensure accurate data is being collected. The most important spreadsheet columns in this instance are the date and time stamps, such as “Original created date for the lead” and “Date when the lead transformed into its next stage” and so on. The date allows measurement of the time it takes for users to move through the funnel and application of that knowledge to paid search reporting and insights.

Once the right data is flowing and a statistically significant lookback window of results to review is available, it’s time to analyze the time it takes our users to pass through the sales funnel from paid search. To set up a Cohort analysis with ample data, shoot for a 6 – to – 12 month window of data. It’s vital to have a large enough date range so we don’t misinform paid search contribution to the marketing platform.

The Cohort model can be used to make faster and smarter search optimizations. It’s not practical to wait for 100% of our leads to move through the funnel before making decisions. Choose the right percentile to use instead. For example, taking the 75^th percentile will help determine how many days it takes for the fastest 75% of our paid search leads to move through the funnel. This may significantly reduce the days between stages from previous analysis.

The key to developing accurate reporting is to ensure prospects; opportunities and customers aren’t being reported outside their time windows. This means if a customer window is 30 days, we’re not viewing any customer results unless they’re 30 days old and have had that time to mature. To get an accurate cost per customer in this instance, we also want to exclude spend from the most recent 30 days. We should only view spends in the maturity window for our customers or opportunities.

Cohort Analysis application for Paid Search

Forecasting - Understanding the flow and evolution of paid search cohorts in correlation to pipeline or revenue makes it much easier to forecast the behavior of a new subset of customers.

Retention strategy – Comparing cohorts by day, week or month of acquisition by revenue generated from that group over the next 6 – to – 12 months will shine a light on purchase and engagement habit changes. If repeat purchases don’t increase, it may be best to implement a retention or re-engagement strategy to guide users back to the sales journey.

Seasonality - Assessing date of first customer/purchase against repeat purchase will highlight users who fall off after a holiday or busy season. Using this data can help inform marketers whether they should double down post-season.

Geo-specific purchase behaviors – If employing international or geo-focused paid search initiatives, measuring revenue incurred month over month by location will make it clear where LTV thrives or dives by region.

Analysis models vary greatly, and shifting to a cohort analysis or model can be a big decision. For many marketers, such a move is necessary for working with lead-gen campaigns. Implementing cohort analysis into paid search reporting is often a powerful means of charting true long-term trends for retention, churn and attribution at a more granular level — and more importantly, bringing to light opportunities within paid search programs.

Why Marketers should focus on Indian Language Content

English once dominated the Internet in India, but not anymore. According to the 2001 census, there are more than 1.600 dialects spoken in India, with 22 official languages recognized by the government. Interestingly, only 8% Indians read English language newspapers while others prefer consuming news in their local language. Clearly, these regional languages are now taking center stage, and the Internet too is transitioning into a diverse amalgamation of Indian languages.

According to a recent Google – KPMG report, India has 234 Million Indian language users online while only 175 Million are English language users. The Indian language user base is poised to account for 75% of India’s Internet user base by 2021. These projections are set to have a profound impact on the existing and future content on the Internet, where a paradigm shift is now imminent.

Rapidly growing Internet penetration, affordable mobile data connections and improving digital literacy have appeared as the key drivers for the growth of Indian language content within the Internet ecosystem. It is interesting to note that apart from digital content platforms, several chat applications, online government services, digital payment services, classified ad platforms and e-tailing platforms are witnessing a steadily growing Indian language user base. Currently, 68% Internet users feel that Indian language content is more reliable than English.

However, there is a huge gap between the demand and supply of quality Indian language content across categories from digital news to online payment platforms. 60% Internet users claim that limited Indian language content acts as a major obstruction in the adoption of online services. Therefore, Internet based enterprises are losing out on a lot of businesses and have a untapped client base. In fact, Indian language content drives almost twice the engagement and exponentially increases the reach of online content. So, the transition from English to Hindi languages will benefit content creators as well as brand managers experts for SMEs.

As brands comprehend the persuasion power of Indian languages, regional content is increasingly being leveraged to increase brand recall through vernacular based digital advertising. Additionally, Indian language users find it challenging to read product descriptions and reviews in English. Research suggests that the share of digital advertisements in Indian languages is set to increase from 5% to 35% by 2021. This proves to be a massive opportunity for SMEs.

90% of new Internet users over the next five years are projected to be Indian language users. Government is planning to propagate digital literacy among 60,000 rural households by 2021. The adoption of Indian language content across categories such as entertainment, news, online shopping and digital payments will consequently skyrocket. Business will continue to capture a larger share of consumers by giving them access to quality Indian language content.

This shift in the Indian language consumption trends within the Internet will push e-commerce firms, digital entertainment platforms, online payment platforms and other Internet based players to continually invest in creating content that covers the most consumed regional languages. The creation of vernacular based content will lead to higher internet inclusion, especially among the rural population in India and hasten India’s journey towards becoming a truly digital country.

Book Review: The Fuzzy and the Techie

If you had majored in the Humanities or Social Sciences you were a fuzzy. If you had majored in Computer Science, you were a techie. This informal division quietly found its way into a default assumption that has misled the business world for decades – that it’s the techies who drive innovation. This book clearly articulates the importance of the liberal arts in our techno centric world.

But in this brilliantly contrarian book, Hartley reveals the counter-intuitive reality of business today; it’s actually the fuzzies not the techies who are playing the key roles in developing the most creative and successful business ideas. Author looks inside some of the world’s most dynamic new companies, reveals breakthrough fuzzy – techie collaborations and explores how such associations are at the centre of innovation in business, education and government and why the liberal arts are still relevant in our techie world.

The book’s early chapters explore how, underappreciated and largely unnoticed, “fuzzy” skills have already proven themselves to be complements to coding talent. Numerous examples, from Palantir’s national security insights to Stitch Fix’s wardrobe recommendations, make the point that combining human and algorithmic intelligences often leads to better results than a purely automated approach. Fuzzy insights provide the driving force for new businesses, whether it is social messaging application Slack or school/parent communication tool Remind. In later chapters, Hartley uses example after example to make the case that the liberal arts’ concerns for ethics, understanding of human motivations, and insights into social dynamics can find a productive home in the technology world.

Author also highlights the human skills needed to find the “novel patterns” in big data, shows How high-tech tools such as satellites have become much more accessible to breakthrough thinkers of all backgrounds, and offers case studies of and shout-outs to blended businesses such as StitchFix, which utilizes both algorithms and skilled stylists, and Talkspace, which provides access to lower-cost therapy via an online platform. He also dips into the idea of design ethics, such as those involved in programming self-driving cars or providing people with default choices that affect behavior.

When you look at many of the great creative minds of our times and humanity in general, brilliant people are good at many things. Da Vinci, known as a painter and sculptor among other things but also the earliest person to sketch the idea for the helicopter. Many brilliant scientists and mathematicians are also often great musicians or painters too.

This is a revelatory and original book of particular importance in India, where students are unduly pressurized to gain admission into institutes of technology in the hope that they will be at the forefront of change and innovation in the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world. Our greatest leaders are those who have depth of human understanding and empathy.

Inside Pinterest Advertisement

While Pinterest has been around since 2010, it still is a vastly underutilized advertising channel for many brands. Pinterest users are on the lookout for ideas, inspiration and your relevantly targeted products and services that can help improve their lives. Expand your business efforts into Pinterest and discover Advertising opportunities that can result in a positive return.

Getting started and tag implementation –

To begin, create a business account or convert your existing personal profile into a business account. When setting up a business account, Pinterest will automatically create an ad account for user. Similar to other advertising channels, Pinterest has its own Tag, which is a piece of code that is applied to your website. With the Tag, you will be able to better measure the effectiveness of your campaigns, understand customer paths from engagements to conversions, define audiences for remarketing and track a number of events such as page visits, category views, searches, cart additions, checkouts, video views, signups and leads. To install the Tag, place the base code on all pages on your website, and then add event tags to any page on which you want to track conversions.

Goals –

Pinterest offers two types of campaign objectives: Awareness and Consideration. Awareness campaigns are a good way to introduce people to your brand, as they are bringing new potential customers into your funnel. Consideration campaigns are effective vehicles to reach warmer audiences to entice them to visit your website or app and make a product or service purchase or to download an app if they haven’t already.

Ad Types –

Promoted Pins – These are Pinterest Standard ads. They can support a variety of marketing goals, such as increasing awareness, engagement and website traffic. One of the many benefits of having a business account is that you can create private boards that are not publicly visible to Pinterest users, and with these, you can compose Pins that you later deploy as part of a campaign.

Promoted Video Pins – One of the challenges advertisers face is standing out in a sea of pins. One approach is to use autoplay videos on Pinterest for a more captivating and immersive experience for your potential customers. With consideration campaigns, video ads tend to have higher CTR and conversion rates, as they leave less to the imagination and allow users to better visualize your products and services.

One – tap Promoted Pins – With this, one can get people to website much more quickly. With these expect to see high CTRs. For a better rate of success, test One-tap Promoted Pins with warmer audiences so that they are more likely to convert after they click through.

Promoted App Pins – Looking to increase awareness and downloads of your app? This ad format is effective in doing both with a simple click of a button to “Install” within the ad unit. Users don’t have to leave Pinterest, making this an effective and seamless experience, resulting in a win for both your campaign objective and the users experience on Pinterest.

Strategies for Success –

Stand out, Naturally – Create ads that inspire, are relevant and look natural to the platform and your brand.

Repurpose successful organic Pins – Already have something that works? Expand its shelf life by using your highest engagement organic pins and promote them using one of the aforementioned ad formats to expand your reach, traffic and conversions.

Remarketing for Conversions – Entice your newsletter subscribers, website visitors, cart abandoners and leads to return to your site and complete the conversion with remarketing campaigns. Test different messaging, images and videos with these warmer audiences and present offers.

Include Call to Action in Pin descriptions – Regardless of ad format, use a strong call to action in your Promoted Pin description, especially if you are doing One-tap Pins.

Forego Hashtags – While Pinterest support Hashtags, they can appear slightly spammy, as they don’t appear on Pinterest as often as they do on other more Hashtag friendly social channels such as Instagram or Twitter. Use relevant keywords in your promoted pin description, as it will appear much more organic and welcoming.

Desktop vs. Mobile – 80% of users access Pinterest via tablet or smartphone. When browsing Pinterest, users will typically see more ads on mobile than on desktop, so take advantage of the comparably less saturated advertising environment to see how desktop ads perform with your target audience. To save time, run separate mobile and desktop campaigns to better understand performance. If you determine that one type isn’t worthwhile to run long-term, you’ll be able to easily disable one or the other.