Dancing with and Dodging Data on Madison Avenue

Whenever the mainstream media writes about what I do, I always get a queazy feeling. The breathless prose touting the obvious always leaves me cold. Such is the case with Stephanie Clifford's piece on the front page of Sunday's NYT Business Section titled "Put Ad on the Web. Count Clicks. Revise." which is more a testament to the skills of Darren Herman's publicist that an insightful look at interplay of messaging and behavior on the web.

And yet my colleagues in traditional agencies and on the client side have not embraced the promise of using behavioral data to improve communication nor have they accepted the idea that web-based data can be a good indicator of awareness, purchase intent, brand loyalty or a tool for on-demand research, So even though Ms. Clifford writes "The shift to data-based campaigns is forcing marketers to learn new skills and drawing a new breed of worker to Madison Avenue," it ain't necessarily so.

In fact, while John Lovett at Forrester predicts the market for web analytic software will grow at a compound annual rate of 17% over the next five years, a recent study of marketers found that only 30% of those who capture web data actually modified their websites as a result of the intelligence developed. So if only 1 out of 3 among those counting actually use the numbers to impact their communications or business tactics, we still have a long way to go no matter what the great Grey Lady reports.

The "reasons" for not using data are plentiful and pitiful. Consider these:

• There aren't enough data guys to process the numbers and produce insights.
• There's too much data to mine.
• There's not enough data. 
• We don't know what to measure or what to count.
• We don't know how to sequence the data. 
• We can't draw meaningful inferences from the data. 
• We can't see contingencies or dependencies within the data 
• We don't know which software tools to use or to combine.
• We trust or don't trust Google Analytics.
• We don't know which data points are predictive or significant.
• We don't know how to synchronize data from multiple sources.
• We can't understand the interplay of campaigns, search, websites and WOM.
• We don't believe the data
• We don't believe consumers know better than we do

A recent survey by Forbes.com found that 82% of those responding identified conversions as the leading data indicator of online direct marketing success followed by registrations and clicks. And while some brand guys and many online sales guys complain that counting pigeon-holes the web as a direct response or CRM medium these arguments are a red herring.

The web enables us to see and count what consumers do. By understanding what they do we can get them to do it again and we can find more people like them with a high propensity to do it as well. This gauges our ability to persuade and direct behavior. 

The web also gives us an immediate "gut check" to quickly and cheaply validate our creative intuition by testing words, pictures, offers and concepts with target customers. A/B testing allows us to present alternative approaches to matched sets of consumers and quickly determine which approach works better. And collecting data on click streams and purchase history helps us understand why people do what they do and how we can find more people likely to take the desired action.

Data collection and processing  essentially support two key assessments:

1. Effectiveness. The data tells us if we sold something -- an item, an idea, a participation. Use data to measure who bought in ways that suggest how they made a buying decision and in ways that separate buyers from non-buyers. This cues us about which appeal resonated with target customers and identifies how many steps are required to convince customers to act.  

2. Efficiency. By measuring the clicks necessary to convert a prospect into a customer, we assess the ROI of messaging and media used to build awareness and attract audiences. Understanding the cost-per-action compared to the relative value of customers acquired allows us to continuously improve our campaigns and buy media that will deliver the best bang for the buck.

All the rest are vanity metrics.

Comments

[Engago Team]

Data overflow is so true:
That's why we provide the company names of the website visitors.
This allows the marketers and sales to only focus on the data by visiting company: pages visited, time on pages, search terms used, origin on the Internet, returning visitors by company, language, location, ...

Less data, more focus, better results.