This document discusses achieving real-time relevance in digital marketing. It explains that relevance means understanding customer behavior across channels to take action in real-time. There are four key steps: 1) measure behavior across all channels, 2) analyze the data to understand customer behavior, 3) segment customers based on shared behaviors, and 4) test and target content to segments. Real-time relevance requires continuous optimization based on data to improve the customer experience.
1. ®
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Achieving Real-Time Relevance:
Driving More Revenue From
Your Digital Marketing
Steve Earl, Director of Product Marketing at Webtrends
& Bob Garcia, Director of Optimization Solution Sales at Webtrends
2. Why Relevance Matters
Consumers are using multiple channels to interact with your brand. They’re on social media, mobile devices and
other consumers.
step and become a customer?
campaigns, the more likely they will convert to customers and drive revenue.
Relevance Applies Customer Intelligence
In digital marketing, relevance means understanding a
consumer’s behavior across all digital channels and then
being able to use that intelligence to take action in real-time “Before working with Webtrends, I
would be worried about making
consumers. changes to our sites for fear of negative
But the application of relevance differs greatly across
companies, industries and geographies. What remains make alterations because I have the
consistent, however, is the value of highly relevant data and results to show what the
interactions brings, such as engagement levels, conversion impact will be:
rates and brand loyalty. +7% lift in online bookings, with an
increase of +$2 million in sales per
complete view of their target customers across all channels. year.”
It is only through truth and value — objective measurement Claire Evans,
Head of Customer Experience,
and how to appeal to that person. It’s every marketer’s job to On The Beach Online Travel Agency
solve that problem. Without performance marketing,
delivering the most meaningful product offering or
4 Steps to Delivering Real-time Relevance in Digital Marketing
To be relevant every time, everywhere requires a deep understanding of your customers’ behavior across all
digital channels, and then the ability to use those insights to drive your marketing – in real time. How do you this?
There are four important ingredients needed to deliver real-time relevance to better engage with your customers
and prospects. It represents a continuous process of iterations, leading toward personalization: ¬
1. Measure online behaviors, no matter where or how your customers connect with you (web, social or
mobile)
2. Analyze the collected data in order to identify opportunities
3. Build segments of your customers according to their shared behaviors and activities
4. Use a discipline of testing to drive relevant targeting of content and offers to these segments
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3. Real-time relevance is not a one-time project or activity, but rather a continuous cycle of iterations to
optimize your digital marketing.
1. Measure behavior across all channels
digital presence provides the essential foundation for optimizing your digital
marketing. Without them, you won’t succeed, or the few successes you do Measure Behavior
have will not be noticed or effective in the long term.
Collect data on user
Measurement and data collection spans all your digital properties, the behavior and activity from
marketing campaigns you run across them, and the ongoing interactions you all the visitor interaction
have with your customers online. Do not under-estimate this step of the channels, including
process. Be sure to align it with your business goals and take the time to websites, social media
measure what matters, whether that is the time of day your mobile app is and mobile devices.
anticipate what data will matter in downstream analysis, as you cannot
analyze what you haven’t planned to measure.
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4. 2. Analyze data and understand visitor behavior across digital
channels
The data collected about your customers contains valuable information about Analysis
what they care about as well as how you can provide them with a better
After data is collected,
analyze it to obtain a holistic
critical to glean those opportunities in order to rationalize, justify and prioritize
view of customer behavior
your digital marketing investments.
across channels and over
time.
data, the ability to consume the data collected and gain insights from it has
become much more challenging than ever before. Analysis and consumption
of data is achieved through a combination of reports and dashboards enabling an accurate and objective “truth.”
Advanced visualization techniques are used to bring the data to life so that marketers and brand managers can
take action on the data, in real-time.
1. What customer segments matter? Consider: referrers, geo-location, favorable behavioral
traits, purchase lifecycle state, etc.
2. What pages need work? Consider: bounce rates, time on site, shopping cart
abandonment, etc.
3. What channels are delivering the most value? Consider: PPC cost per lead, sales attributed
With this insight, you’re empowered with the critical data to identify your high-value segments as well as areas to
optimize.
3. Segmentation enables relevant marketing
Building on analytics, segmentation moves digital marketing to a 1:1 point of view. Analytics helps prioritize the
some or all of the following as a basis for moving to more relevant
digital marketing:
Source - where do visitors come from?
Behaviors - what types of activities have they engaged in?
Engagement - which visitors engaged the most in some
activity?
Scoring - which visitors are the best across multiple types of
activities/interests, and how are they prioritized?
Segments
Visitors who share one or more preferences or
characteristics.
Segmentation
Division of visitors into groups (or segments) that are then
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5. relevance into targeting should include the ability to:
View lifetime values associated with individuals across multiple sessions
Look at multiple behaviors in different time windows
Segment based on both presence and absence of behaviors or attributes, such as a list of people that
clicked through on a campaign but didn’t convert.
4. Drive relevance through Testing and Targeting
Optimization is fueled by analytics and segmentation as those inputs drive testing, targeting and personalization.
A/B and multiviratetesting will ensure you deliver the optimal experience for your online visitors,
presenting them with the content that is relevant to them.
There is tremendous value in testing and targeting as it provides an objective and data-driven approach to digital
marketing. Site optimization should be viewed as a revenue creation engine for your business as you should get
out more than what you invest.
A/B/n Testing
Compares two or more alternatives of a single element, page or funnel.
Split Testing involves even proportions (50/50) or uneven (such as
Multivariate Testing
Simultaneous testing of multiple variations of multiple content
elements to determine the most effective combination.
Targeting
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6. Real-Time Relevance is King
channels, media, technologies and measurement approaches have evolved, and customer touch points have
gotten more fragmented and diverse, digital marketing has become more challenging.
No matter what you're trying to accomplish with your digital marketing efforts, fundamentals remain the same – if
And if you're not improving, you're wasting marketing dollars. That’s why it’s so important to understand what
works and what doesn’t, the interrelationship and cycles between the touch points, and the ability to easily take
action on this understanding.
True one-to-one relevance is enabled through a deep understanding of the customer and across all channels of
interaction, coupled with the ability to leverage that information in real-time to improve the conversion of your
digital campaigns. In this new world of digital marketing, relevance is king.
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