SlideShare a Scribd company logo
1 of 19
How to Identify Your Most Valuable Customers & Keep Them Coming Back
Table of Contents 
2. Introduction 
3. Understanding the mechanisms 
that drive predictive analytics 
4. Leverage data to put customers’ needs first 
5. Case Sudy: QVC.com 
6. Validating impactful customer segments 
7. Connect customer insight with real-time marketing action 
9. Automate post hoc segmentation for every experience 
10. Applying the mechanisms to 
personalization and optimization efforts 
10. Customizable segment inclusion based on business needs 
11. Challenges associated with mining for insights 
12. Content evaluation by customer segments 
across multiple success events 
13. Case Study: Threadless.com 
14. Focus on customer segments and their impact across experiences 
15. Case Study: Clothing retailer uses predictive 
analytics to extend testing practices 
15. Conclusion 
16. About the author 
16. About Web Analytics Demystified 
17. About Monetate 
1 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Introduction 
When the customer wins, the marketer wins. This statement reflects how 
organizations should approach their marketing efforts to succeed in these 
highly competitive times. Organizations that put the customer first and 
focus on the relationship, rather than the transaction, see their customers 
respond positively, driving loyalty, retention, and additional business. 
But it’s often challenging for marketers to understand how to identify their 
most valuable customers, let alone have the ability to interact with them 
and influence their behaviors. Couple this with a challenge to communicate 
the value that delivering personalized experiences through segmentation 
discovery and targeting has on the bottom line of the business, it becomes 
clear why many organizations have yet to adopt initiatives that allow them 
to put the customer first and at the center of their marketing efforts. 
Marketers can use data effectively to understand where they should focus 
their attention and resources. There are many paths that marketers and 
business teams can go down. In this paper, sponsored by Monetate, we 
describe strategies for organizations to identify key customers and create 
winning relationships. 
“Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing” highlights organizations 
that are discovering new opportunities in marketing based on confirmation 
of their hypotheses, learning more about their customers, and taking 
further action. By seeing the value in the time and effort mining for 
insights and, subsequently, taking action on them, these organizations 
are focusing on the customer relationship and putting their customers at 
the center of their business. 
2 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Understanding the mechanisms that drive predictive analytics 
The mechanisms that drive predictive analytics can be quite complicated. 
Marketers have many challenges identifying where to look for insights, 
and the first is often just getting started. 
The answers lie within customer segments. A segment of customers is 
simply a subset of the visitor population that consumes an organization’s 
digital content. These segments have shared attributes—both known 
and unknown—that allow organizations to derive insights and provide 
the experiences consumers want. The insights help indicate where 
organizations should focus and spend their additional marketing efforts. 
Depending on how a company is organized and what data is being used, 
getting insights from customer segments can be a challenge. While the 
website’s analytics tool can be of some help, it often does not include all 
the data sets available to get a complete picture. 
On the right is a report showing where key visitors segments have a 
positive impact on a website’s conversion rate. The general population has 
a mean conversion rate of 2.71%, while the key customer segments have 
significantly higher conversion rates. 
Reports like these allow organizations and marketers to narrow their 
focus on where to begin. Organizations are speaking directly with their 
customers through this data and are using this information to predict key 
customer segments. 
Monetate LivePredict’s reporting interface shows where key 
customer segments have been identified as having a positive 
impact on the conversion rate of the digital property. 
3 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Leverage data to put customers’ needs first 
The definition of big data is often debated and comes with many different 
interpretations. Organizations often assume big data simply refers to 
gargantuan amounts of information so massive and unwieldy that it 
essentially stifles a marketer’s ability to use it effectively. 
But there’s another way think about data—one that empowers marketers 
to use it as an asset. In a recent Forbes article, big data is interpreted 
as collection of information from traditional and digital sources inside 
and outside your company that represents a source for ongoing 
discovery and analysis. 
Looking at big data from this perspective allows marketers to envision 
themselves using it to put their customers first. There are many data 
sources that fall under this interpretation, including: 
• Website analytics 
• Email campaign results 
• Data collected from test participation 
• Mobile data 
• Third-party data 
• Display ad data 
• CRM data 
In these data sets, customers show where and when their needs are being 
met and where they are not. Conversion rates, bounce rates, time on site, 
interaction with content rates, revenue data, and page consumption are all 
signals of what visitors want when they visit a website. 
Smart marketers evaluate these data sets to get a better understanding of 
what their visitors want. When they take action based on this data, they 
put the customer first—and when the customer wins, the marketer wins. 
4 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
QVC.COM: 
Extracting customer insight with data 
At QVC.com, Steve Loving, senior project manager, works with the 
consumer insights and business intelligence teams where he focuses on 
quantitative insights. His responsibilities include managing and running all 
of the experiments that take place on QVC.com. 
Loving leverages marketing solutions, including Monetate LivePredict, 
primarily to extract insights—both broad and deep—on digital consumers. 
QVC.com uses basic analytics and then adds more than a dozen additional 
data sets for advanced segmentation, running analysis at the member 
level for insights into specific actions customers take as a result of highly 
targeted tests. 
“This effort allows QVC to make a much more efficient use of optimization,” 
says Loving. “There has been a lot of quantitative data showing that 
weekends are different from weekdays, and the same can be said for time 
of day. We have been able to exploit these differences and speak better 
to our customers. 
“Segmentation is the most powerful tool that one can have in an optimization 
toolset. Segmentation by way of data collection has allowed QVC to 
be more strategic in our testing initiatives as we move to explore known 
segments better and focus attention and resources on broader segments 
as directed by the data. For example, strategies have been developed where 
we present different creative for customers versus prospects.” 
5 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Validating impactful customer segments 
Key customer segments can be identified based on data collected from 
their performance on conversions and other important success events. 
Once the data is collected and organized, specific processes need to 
be established to validate the impact that these customers are making, 
including developing iterative campaigns directed at these customers. 
For example, if visitors from a certain geographic location convert at 
a higher rate than those at another location, processes should include 
examining the visitor experience and then coming up with hypotheses as 
to why these visitors convert at a higher rate. These hypotheses should be 
turned into ideas of what other content—or what other experiences—can 
be presented to these visitors. 
The result of such processes has the potential to further validate the 
findings and could lead to even higher conversion rates. These processes 
also should include hypotheses as to why other geographic regions are 
underperforming, also leading to the creation of alternative experiences 
that could increase the conversion rates of underperforming segments. 
5 Processes to Help Validate Impact 
1. Identify trends of customer segments from any and all data 
sets available. 
2. Validate these trends across data sets (i.e., if Mac users convert 
higher on a website than PC users, correlate how Mac users respond 
to email or display campaigns). 
3. Outline several hypotheses as to why key segments respond 
positively or negatively to digital experiences. 
4. Turn those hypotheses into ideas, identifying the potential for 
alternative experiences or content to change the behavior. The latest 
technologies streamline this process by automatically correlating the 
performance of a segment with the campaigns or experiences seen. 
5. Speak directly to these segments and focus on the relationship 
rather than the transaction. 
6 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Connect customer insight with 
real-time marketing action 
As visitors identify themselves based on their impact on key performance 
indicators (KPIs), marketers can use this information to create hypotheses 
and ideas about why these visitors react one way to a digital experience 
while another group of visitors reacts differently. 
This report highlights a common scenario: Different customer segments— 
for instance, geographic regions—respond quite differently than the mean 
when it comes to many KPIs. For instance, visitors in the South might 
spend, on average, more than visitors in the mid-west. By looking at this 
data, you can derive many opportunities to take action on, including: 
• Language used in marketing material/content 
• Proximity to physical stores (including 
those of competitors) where goods might 
be more or less readily available 
• Localized popularity 
• Urban versus rural 
• Weather in those areas 
There might be an opportunity to present or target what could be 
more appropriate messaging to different regions of the country. This is 
reminiscent of the whole “soda vs. pop” nomenclature debate, or even 
different words that have similar meanings, i.e., sales tax or VAT, which 
can cause customers to not make a purchase because they don’t think the 
website wants, or is able, to do business with them. 
Another way for marketers to understand geographic differences would 
be to examine exactly what consumers in certain regions purchase. For 
instance, customers in warmer climates will purchase different products 
than those people battling cold weather and snowstorms at the same time. 
Scenarios like these occur frequently in the physical retail space. Visitors 
likely will not be purchasing outdoor furniture or similar items in the 
dead of winter in the Northeast. If what is happening helps reframe your 
hypothesis, the action to take is a no-brainer. Marketers would then target 
or promote appropriate items based on what data—and a little bit of 
common sense—tells them. 
7 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Monetate LivePredict reveals where key segments 
of the general population and their impact on Average Order Value. 
8 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Automate post hoc segmentation 
for every experience 
For organizations that are new to predictive analytics or even website 
optimization, it’s imperative that processes be established to include key 
segments for analysis in all experiences, including tests. These processes 
will add time and a potential need for additional resources if your goal is to 
drive revenue and move the business forward. 
Organizations can start off simply down this path, and in little time see 
the fruits of their labor. Opportunities will quickly present themselves as 
customer segments reveal themselves through data, including segments 
that can provide virtually limitless opportunities to iterate: 
• Traffic sources. Identify the top website referrers, including paid 
or organic search, affiliate traffic, display, and email traffic. 
• Visit stage. First-time and repeat visitors often tell different stories. 
• Date and time. Visitors behave differently throughout the day, for 
instance at work compared to relaxing at home. Weekends and 
weekdays can also tell interesting stories. 
• Technographics. Consider different operating systems, browsers, and 
devices. Without a doubt, there are nuggets to consider based on 
the massive adoption of smartphones and tablets to access the web. 
Browsers can also speak through the data, especially if quality assurance 
issues arise. 
• Geography. Visitors from different regions and countries behave 
differently. Look at analytics and identify top-performing and under-performing 
locations. 
This process also helps to benchmark key segments and their behavior 
with the end result being that organizations think of the customer first, 
rather than the transaction. This process allows for further discovery 
and iteration on key segments. For example, the segment of ‘first-time 
visitor’ soon evolves into ‘first-time visitor from paid search’ and then 
‘first-time visitor from paid search who visited on the weekend.’ The path 
to personalization and optimization is by way of segmenting and iterating 
on these segments. 
9 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Applying the mechanisms to personalization and optimization efforts 
Customizable segment inclusion 
based on business needs 
There are many customer segments that are applicable across all 
organizations regardless of industry. These are often standard segments 
included with most analytics or optimization tools. Segments can include 
device, visit stage, traffic source, time of day or geography, and could extend 
to on-site behaviors such as categories/products viewed or purchased. 
Although these segments might seem basic, they are tremendously 
valuable. When organizations take a hard look at these standard segments 
and how they differ in terms of performance, they are often surprised. 
Retailers, for example, often see major differences between weekends and 
weekdays. Media organizations are likely see major differences between 
different sources of traffic, while financial organizations could see stark 
differences in behavior between repeat and new visitors. 
Organizations serious about their personalization and optimization efforts 
have to take segmentation to a higher level if they truly want to get the 
most from their programs. If a robust analytics program is in place, it 
will likely be a great source for customer segments that you will want to 
standardize for analysis. 
There are many places to look internally for these additional segments, 
which can vary based on specific industry. 
• Financial Organizations: Customer account types (visitors with checking 
accounts/visitors with savings accounts, etc.), account balances, time 
since last visit, source of traffic (helpful for targeting prospect content 
versus branded content). 
• Media/Publishing Companies: Content affinities (i.e. repeat sports 
section visits on a newspaper website), subscribers who consume more 
than a certain number of pages per visit, subscription series. 
• B2B: Firmographics, content affinities, source of traffic, demand 
generation/funnel status. 
• Retail: Content affinities, source of traffic, previous purchase history, 
cart abandoners, amount purchased (above or below the mean average 
order value), third-party data sets. 
Each business is different and has its own unique set of customer segments. 
Although not immediately crucial to get more customized segments in 
place at the onset, it becomes more important as your organization gets 
more strategic and advanced. 
10 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Challenges associated with mining for insights 
Now it’s time to put the words “when the customer wins, the marketer 
wins” into action. In this section, we walk through the challenges 
experienced by organizations that do segmentation analysis and then put 
forward strategies to make it more effective, laying the groundwork for 
putting the customer first and at the center of their business. 
Although many organizations test first, smart marketers will create 
website experiments only after they obtain at least some insight into their 
customers. But testing is not easy, and analyzing the results of tests can 
be even tougher. 
Testing involves robust processes around execution and analysis. Many 
organizations find themselves spending countless time, energy, and money 
on tests that only seem to result in flat performance with no significance. 
That is, the results at the end of the tests show no detrimental or positive 
impact on visitor behavior. 
Generally speaking, there are two contributing factors to flat test results. 
The first is because the test and control experiences are not different 
enough to cause changes in visitor behavior. The other cause relates to 
what was described earlier, when different segments respond to different 
experiences. When the results are flat—and there’s no positive or negative 
impact in the test results—it’s very likely that there are different customer 
segments whose performance cancelled each other out. 
Tests that show no significant lift occur so often that organizations 
need to drill deeper to discover sub-segments for which significant lift 
did occur. Don’t just look at the test overall, but focus on how different 
sub-segments performed within the experiment. Some solutions make 
these sub-segments available for manual analysis, while other products 
automate the discovery of these sub-segments and make them available 
for experiments within the same solution. 
11 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Content evaluation by customer segments 
across multiple success events 
As mentioned earlier, not all visitors react the same to one message. Time 
and again, different segments react differently to website experiences, 
potentially impacting success events across all of an organization’s digital 
properties, including email (opt-outs) and social media (sharing negative 
experiences with others). 
If you consider all that is possible on the website, it becomes clear that the 
area of focus for an organization should not always be a primary conversion 
event such as making a purchase. Organizations have to shift their focus 
away from just looking at primary success events if they are going to learn 
from their customers and how they consume their messages and content. 
Organizations that apply this layered approach to their analyses see this 
occur all the time. For example, on a lead generation website, paid search 
traffic could have higher conversion rates for filling out a web form, while 
first-time visitors or organic traffic result in a lower rate of form completes, 
and visitors on smartphones have a lower average page view rate. All of 
this analysis is incredibly important as marketers develop hypotheses to 
what the ideal experience is for each segment of traffic. 
Reports that help organizations understand how the many segments of 
traffic could impact the multiple success events on the website provide 
ideas on how to change the segments experience for the better. These 
reports are some of the best idea-makers available. 
Monetate LivePredict shows how a marketer can manipulate the 
different digital success events and get visibility as to how key 
customer segments responded to those success events. 
12 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Threadless.com: Using segmentation 
strategies to drive content decisions 
Threadless is a community-based company that prints graphic designs 
created and chosen by a very passionate and talented group of artists. 
Visitors to Threadless.com vote on thousands of monthly submissions. 
Winners receive cash rewards and Threadless gift cards, and have their 
work printed on clothing and other products sold on the website and in 
physical retail stores. 
Todd Lido, head of marketing at Threadless, has his hands full encouraging 
participation, creating opportunity for artists, and selling products. 
Threadless.com’s segmentation strategy helps the company gain insight 
into where to focus its marketing efforts. For example, the company was 
able to confirm that people who viewed kids’ products converted at a 
much higher rate than visitors who did not view those products. 
Threadless also rolled out new functionality called “Threadpics” where 
users can supply their own pictures with Twitter hashtags. Threadless was 
able to derive that visitors who engaged with this content on the website 
had a 4x higher conversion rate than other visitors. 
Based on findings like these, Lido and his Threadless team know where to 
focus their efforts not only online, but for off-site marketing efforts such 
as display advertising. They are being “informed as to what the customer 
wants, and it is influencing what they do next,” he says. 
13 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Focus on customer segments and 
their impact across experiences 
The quickest way for an organization to shift from generalized testing 
of all audiences to targeted testing of valuable customer segments is to 
establish sound segmentation strategies. That said, there is an inherent 
challenge here. Although segmentation reports within a particular test 
are valuable, the insights are limited to that particular experiment. For 
organizations to better learn about their segments of traffic, they need to 
understand how these segments respond to all experiences delivered on 
the website, regardless of whether they are tests or not. 
There are many ways to approach this challenge, which can include highly 
detailed record keeping and consolidation of segments after each test 
or campaign. But no matter the approach, it’s certainly worth the time 
and effort. Organizations are able to get a better understanding of their 
customers, allowing them to fine tune their hypotheses around segments, 
which enables better idea creation around what alternative experiences 
might lead to differences in behavior. 
Additionally, this mechanism of analyzing customer segments around 
all tests or campaigns enables organizations to iterate on their customer 
segments. For example, the image to the right shows the segment ‘South 
Central’ and its impact on recent tests and campaigns. This report also 
breaks down that segment into sub-segments. Note that the city of 
‘Findlay’ is an outlier within the greater segment of ‘West South Central.’ 
This deeper analysis allows organizations to get a better understanding of 
the visitors that make up these segments. 
As seen in Monetate LivePredict, marketers are presented with 
an analysis of a segment, in this case ‘West South Central,’ and its 
impact across all experiments. In this example, ‘West South Central’ 
performed well in three campaigns and positively in three other 
campaigns, including ‘Referring Traffic from mysavings.com.’ 
14 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
Clothing retailer uses predictive 
analytics to extend testing practices 
A well-known niche clothing retailer incorporates predictive analytics into 
its optimization initiatives to extend the capabilities of its testing solution. 
This effort also validated some key overarching themes that the retailer 
thought existed, but didn’t have the supporting data. For example, the 
company always suspected that when a particular clothing style was 
selected or purchased by males that females had similar preferences. The 
retailer now uses this knowledge to direct important marketing initiatives 
that would have otherwise not been a priority. 
Another key learning that the retailer has seen since adopting a data-driven 
segmentation program is discovering that its best-performing segment 
is married working couples. Although it long believed that this was true, 
confirmation through data had a powerful impact on how they managed 
their personalization and optimization programs. 
And not only did this organization find and confirm key segments, but it 
also identified those segments that were underperforming such as mobile 
traffic and visitors from specific states. 
Conclusion 
Organizations that spend time and resources putting the customer 
first, and deriving what’s important to them based on all data available, 
are discovering new opportunities to use predictive analytics that drive 
personalization and optimization. They learn what their visitors want— 
and what they don’t want—and then take action, speaking directly 
to their customers. 
This is not an easy process by any means, but success is possible given the 
tools available on the market today. Once in place, processes need to be 
flexible, allowing for iteration and constant learning about visitors as the 
digital landscape changes incredibly fast. 
Organizations can get started today with relative ease using their current 
optimization solutions. Begin simply with a few general segments to 
include such as traffic source, operating system, or geography. Don’t 
overload yourself, which could lead to analysis paralysis. Be assured 
that you soon will be able to find new nuggets of gold that will enhance 
your personalization and optimization strategy, adding further value to 
your organization by automatically identifying the attributes of over- and 
under-performing segments, and helping you prioritize the opportunity 
each one represents. 
15 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
About the Author 
Brian Hawkins, partner at Web Analytics 
Demystified, has worked in the optimization 
space since 2006 when he started at 
Offermatica, which is now Adobe Target. He 
worked in a variety of roles over the years in 
the testing and optimization space in both a 
technical and strategic consultative capacity, and has helped scores of 
companies get value out of their testing platforms by laying the groundwork 
for the incorporation of strategic best practices and by providing roadmaps 
that allow organizations to adopt a culture of optimization. 
About Web Analytics Demystified 
Web Analytics Demystified, founded in 2007 by internationally known 
author and former Jupiter Research analyst, Eric T. Peterson, provides 
objective strategic guidance to companies striving to realize the full 
potential of their investment in web analytics and optimization. By bridging 
the gap between measurement/optimization technology and business 
strategy, Web Analytics Demystified has provided guidance to hundreds 
of companies around the world, including many of the best known retailers, 
financial services institutions and media properties on the Internet. 
For more information on Brian Hawkins and Web Analytics Demystified, 
please visit www.webanalyticsdemystified.com, email brian.hawkins@ 
webanalyticsdemystified.com, or call (415) 735-4295. 
16 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
About Monetate 
Monetate generates billions of dollars of new revenue for businesses, 
helping them grow 33% faster than the industry average. Brands such as 
Best Buy, National Geographic, and Celebrity Cruises rely on Monetate to 
put the customer first, creating winning customer experiences that drive a 
sustained, competitive advantage. 
The Monetate Acceleration Cloud connects two crucial elements that have 
always been treated separately within organizations: knowledge about the 
customer and marketing actions to deliver a better experience. Delight 
your customers with winning customer experiences that build authentic 
relationships and drive new revenue across any channel, all within one 
seamless solution. 
• Interact with your customers through winning website experiences that 
take place in the moment and across every page. 
• Engage your customers with relevant emails that are personalized at the 
time recipients actually open them. 
• Reach and attract the customers you love, and convert lost visitors, with 
intelligent display and retargeting campaigns. 
Start your journey to a winning customer experience. Request a demo 
today at http://monetate.com/demo or contact us at 877-MONETATE 
(US and Americas) and +44 207 099 2101 (EMEA). 
17 
Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
©2013 Monetate Inc. All Rights Reserved 
Expert Optimization Resources 
Valuable case studies, eBooks, white papers, webinars & infographics 
monetate.com/resources 
Request a Demo 
Call 877-MONETATE (US) l 484-323-6313 (around the world) 
demo.monetate.com 
1-877-MONETATE | 484-323-6313 
monetate.com/facebook 
monetate.com 
monetate.com/twitter monetate.com/linkedin

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

Three Poisonous B2B Marketing Metaphors
Three Poisonous B2B Marketing Metaphors Three Poisonous B2B Marketing Metaphors
Three Poisonous B2B Marketing Metaphors Velocity Partners
 
B2B Cross-Channel Customer Experience
B2B Cross-Channel Customer ExperienceB2B Cross-Channel Customer Experience
B2B Cross-Channel Customer ExperienceGeert Martens
 
Industrial marketing
Industrial marketingIndustrial marketing
Industrial marketingmehak90
 
Business to Business Electronic Commerce
Business to Business Electronic Commerce Business to Business Electronic Commerce
Business to Business Electronic Commerce Nurhazman Abdul Aziz
 
Sales, Sales Management, Sales Strategy
Sales, Sales Management, Sales StrategySales, Sales Management, Sales Strategy
Sales, Sales Management, Sales StrategyBrian Halligan
 
Business to business marketing ppt
Business to business marketing  pptBusiness to business marketing  ppt
Business to business marketing pptSukriti Mal
 
How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales - #1 Tool for the Dream Sales Team
How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales - #1 Tool for the Dream Sales Team How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales - #1 Tool for the Dream Sales Team
How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales - #1 Tool for the Dream Sales Team Daniel Nilsson
 
The Search for Meaning in B2B Marketing
The Search for Meaning in B2B MarketingThe Search for Meaning in B2B Marketing
The Search for Meaning in B2B MarketingVelocity Partners
 

Viewers also liked (11)

Three Poisonous B2B Marketing Metaphors
Three Poisonous B2B Marketing Metaphors Three Poisonous B2B Marketing Metaphors
Three Poisonous B2B Marketing Metaphors
 
Ppt
PptPpt
Ppt
 
B2B Cross-Channel Customer Experience
B2B Cross-Channel Customer ExperienceB2B Cross-Channel Customer Experience
B2B Cross-Channel Customer Experience
 
Industrial marketing
Industrial marketingIndustrial marketing
Industrial marketing
 
Business to Business Electronic Commerce
Business to Business Electronic Commerce Business to Business Electronic Commerce
Business to Business Electronic Commerce
 
B2B Marketing Strategy
B2B Marketing StrategyB2B Marketing Strategy
B2B Marketing Strategy
 
Business marketing
Business marketingBusiness marketing
Business marketing
 
Sales, Sales Management, Sales Strategy
Sales, Sales Management, Sales StrategySales, Sales Management, Sales Strategy
Sales, Sales Management, Sales Strategy
 
Business to business marketing ppt
Business to business marketing  pptBusiness to business marketing  ppt
Business to business marketing ppt
 
How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales - #1 Tool for the Dream Sales Team
How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales - #1 Tool for the Dream Sales Team How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales - #1 Tool for the Dream Sales Team
How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales - #1 Tool for the Dream Sales Team
 
The Search for Meaning in B2B Marketing
The Search for Meaning in B2B MarketingThe Search for Meaning in B2B Marketing
The Search for Meaning in B2B Marketing
 

More from Sinergia Labs

Guia marketing digital - tendencias 2015 - Inglés
Guia marketing digital - tendencias 2015 - InglésGuia marketing digital - tendencias 2015 - Inglés
Guia marketing digital - tendencias 2015 - InglésSinergia Labs
 
Social Business Textbook
Social Business TextbookSocial Business Textbook
Social Business TextbookSinergia Labs
 
The State of Home Delivery 2014 : Issues and Answers - industry benchmark
The State of Home Delivery 2014 : Issues and Answers - industry benchmarkThe State of Home Delivery 2014 : Issues and Answers - industry benchmark
The State of Home Delivery 2014 : Issues and Answers - industry benchmarkSinergia Labs
 
Build the Perfect WordPress Website
Build the Perfect WordPress WebsiteBuild the Perfect WordPress Website
Build the Perfect WordPress WebsiteSinergia Labs
 
El comercio electrónico en España - Observatorio Cetelem 2014
El comercio electrónico en España - Observatorio Cetelem 2014El comercio electrónico en España - Observatorio Cetelem 2014
El comercio electrónico en España - Observatorio Cetelem 2014Sinergia Labs
 
Claves Estrategia ecrm eficaz
Claves Estrategia ecrm eficazClaves Estrategia ecrm eficaz
Claves Estrategia ecrm eficazSinergia Labs
 
Tecnologias orientadas a la movilidad, valoracion y tendencias
Tecnologias orientadas a la movilidad, valoracion y tendenciasTecnologias orientadas a la movilidad, valoracion y tendencias
Tecnologias orientadas a la movilidad, valoracion y tendenciasSinergia Labs
 
Los beacons en Expansion.com
Los beacons en Expansion.comLos beacons en Expansion.com
Los beacons en Expansion.comSinergia Labs
 
Customer Experience Innovation
Customer Experience  InnovationCustomer Experience  Innovation
Customer Experience InnovationSinergia Labs
 
50 ideas for using beacons
50 ideas for using beacons50 ideas for using beacons
50 ideas for using beaconsSinergia Labs
 
Informe completo sobre tendencias logísticas en e commerce
Informe completo sobre tendencias logísticas en e commerceInforme completo sobre tendencias logísticas en e commerce
Informe completo sobre tendencias logísticas en e commerceSinergia Labs
 
E Magazine Num 01 Marzo 2012
E Magazine  Num 01  Marzo 2012E Magazine  Num 01  Marzo 2012
E Magazine Num 01 Marzo 2012Sinergia Labs
 

More from Sinergia Labs (12)

Guia marketing digital - tendencias 2015 - Inglés
Guia marketing digital - tendencias 2015 - InglésGuia marketing digital - tendencias 2015 - Inglés
Guia marketing digital - tendencias 2015 - Inglés
 
Social Business Textbook
Social Business TextbookSocial Business Textbook
Social Business Textbook
 
The State of Home Delivery 2014 : Issues and Answers - industry benchmark
The State of Home Delivery 2014 : Issues and Answers - industry benchmarkThe State of Home Delivery 2014 : Issues and Answers - industry benchmark
The State of Home Delivery 2014 : Issues and Answers - industry benchmark
 
Build the Perfect WordPress Website
Build the Perfect WordPress WebsiteBuild the Perfect WordPress Website
Build the Perfect WordPress Website
 
El comercio electrónico en España - Observatorio Cetelem 2014
El comercio electrónico en España - Observatorio Cetelem 2014El comercio electrónico en España - Observatorio Cetelem 2014
El comercio electrónico en España - Observatorio Cetelem 2014
 
Claves Estrategia ecrm eficaz
Claves Estrategia ecrm eficazClaves Estrategia ecrm eficaz
Claves Estrategia ecrm eficaz
 
Tecnologias orientadas a la movilidad, valoracion y tendencias
Tecnologias orientadas a la movilidad, valoracion y tendenciasTecnologias orientadas a la movilidad, valoracion y tendencias
Tecnologias orientadas a la movilidad, valoracion y tendencias
 
Los beacons en Expansion.com
Los beacons en Expansion.comLos beacons en Expansion.com
Los beacons en Expansion.com
 
Customer Experience Innovation
Customer Experience  InnovationCustomer Experience  Innovation
Customer Experience Innovation
 
50 ideas for using beacons
50 ideas for using beacons50 ideas for using beacons
50 ideas for using beacons
 
Informe completo sobre tendencias logísticas en e commerce
Informe completo sobre tendencias logísticas en e commerceInforme completo sobre tendencias logísticas en e commerce
Informe completo sobre tendencias logísticas en e commerce
 
E Magazine Num 01 Marzo 2012
E Magazine  Num 01  Marzo 2012E Magazine  Num 01  Marzo 2012
E Magazine Num 01 Marzo 2012
 

Recently uploaded

Strategic CX: A Deep Dive into Voice of the Customer Insights for Clarity
Strategic CX: A Deep Dive into Voice of the Customer Insights for ClarityStrategic CX: A Deep Dive into Voice of the Customer Insights for Clarity
Strategic CX: A Deep Dive into Voice of the Customer Insights for ClarityAggregage
 
CCS336-Cloud-Services-Management-Lecture-Notes-1.pptx
CCS336-Cloud-Services-Management-Lecture-Notes-1.pptxCCS336-Cloud-Services-Management-Lecture-Notes-1.pptx
CCS336-Cloud-Services-Management-Lecture-Notes-1.pptxdhiyaneswaranv1
 
Optimal Decision Making - Cost Reduction in Logistics
Optimal Decision Making - Cost Reduction in LogisticsOptimal Decision Making - Cost Reduction in Logistics
Optimal Decision Making - Cost Reduction in LogisticsThinkInnovation
 
The Universal GTM - how we design GTM and dataLayer
The Universal GTM - how we design GTM and dataLayerThe Universal GTM - how we design GTM and dataLayer
The Universal GTM - how we design GTM and dataLayerPavel Šabatka
 
Master's Thesis - Data Science - Presentation
Master's Thesis - Data Science - PresentationMaster's Thesis - Data Science - Presentation
Master's Thesis - Data Science - PresentationGiorgio Carbone
 
Rock Songs common codes and conventions.pptx
Rock Songs common codes and conventions.pptxRock Songs common codes and conventions.pptx
Rock Songs common codes and conventions.pptxFinatron037
 
CI, CD -Tools to integrate without manual intervention
CI, CD -Tools to integrate without manual interventionCI, CD -Tools to integrate without manual intervention
CI, CD -Tools to integrate without manual interventionajayrajaganeshkayala
 
ChistaDATA Real-Time DATA Analytics Infrastructure
ChistaDATA Real-Time DATA Analytics InfrastructureChistaDATA Real-Time DATA Analytics Infrastructure
ChistaDATA Real-Time DATA Analytics Infrastructuresonikadigital1
 
5 Ds to Define Data Archiving Best Practices
5 Ds to Define Data Archiving Best Practices5 Ds to Define Data Archiving Best Practices
5 Ds to Define Data Archiving Best PracticesDataArchiva
 
Elements of language learning - an analysis of how different elements of lang...
Elements of language learning - an analysis of how different elements of lang...Elements of language learning - an analysis of how different elements of lang...
Elements of language learning - an analysis of how different elements of lang...PrithaVashisht1
 
Cash Is Still King: ATM market research '2023
Cash Is Still King: ATM market research '2023Cash Is Still King: ATM market research '2023
Cash Is Still King: ATM market research '2023Vladislav Solodkiy
 
Mapping the pubmed data under different suptopics using NLP.pptx
Mapping the pubmed data under different suptopics using NLP.pptxMapping the pubmed data under different suptopics using NLP.pptx
Mapping the pubmed data under different suptopics using NLP.pptxVenkatasubramani13
 
Virtuosoft SmartSync Product Introduction
Virtuosoft SmartSync Product IntroductionVirtuosoft SmartSync Product Introduction
Virtuosoft SmartSync Product Introductionsanjaymuralee1
 
TINJUAN PEMROSESAN TRANSAKSI DAN ERP.pptx
TINJUAN PEMROSESAN TRANSAKSI DAN ERP.pptxTINJUAN PEMROSESAN TRANSAKSI DAN ERP.pptx
TINJUAN PEMROSESAN TRANSAKSI DAN ERP.pptxDwiAyuSitiHartinah
 
Persuasive E-commerce, Our Biased Brain @ Bikkeldag 2024
Persuasive E-commerce, Our Biased Brain @ Bikkeldag 2024Persuasive E-commerce, Our Biased Brain @ Bikkeldag 2024
Persuasive E-commerce, Our Biased Brain @ Bikkeldag 2024Guido X Jansen
 
How is Real-Time Analytics Different from Traditional OLAP?
How is Real-Time Analytics Different from Traditional OLAP?How is Real-Time Analytics Different from Traditional OLAP?
How is Real-Time Analytics Different from Traditional OLAP?sonikadigital1
 

Recently uploaded (16)

Strategic CX: A Deep Dive into Voice of the Customer Insights for Clarity
Strategic CX: A Deep Dive into Voice of the Customer Insights for ClarityStrategic CX: A Deep Dive into Voice of the Customer Insights for Clarity
Strategic CX: A Deep Dive into Voice of the Customer Insights for Clarity
 
CCS336-Cloud-Services-Management-Lecture-Notes-1.pptx
CCS336-Cloud-Services-Management-Lecture-Notes-1.pptxCCS336-Cloud-Services-Management-Lecture-Notes-1.pptx
CCS336-Cloud-Services-Management-Lecture-Notes-1.pptx
 
Optimal Decision Making - Cost Reduction in Logistics
Optimal Decision Making - Cost Reduction in LogisticsOptimal Decision Making - Cost Reduction in Logistics
Optimal Decision Making - Cost Reduction in Logistics
 
The Universal GTM - how we design GTM and dataLayer
The Universal GTM - how we design GTM and dataLayerThe Universal GTM - how we design GTM and dataLayer
The Universal GTM - how we design GTM and dataLayer
 
Master's Thesis - Data Science - Presentation
Master's Thesis - Data Science - PresentationMaster's Thesis - Data Science - Presentation
Master's Thesis - Data Science - Presentation
 
Rock Songs common codes and conventions.pptx
Rock Songs common codes and conventions.pptxRock Songs common codes and conventions.pptx
Rock Songs common codes and conventions.pptx
 
CI, CD -Tools to integrate without manual intervention
CI, CD -Tools to integrate without manual interventionCI, CD -Tools to integrate without manual intervention
CI, CD -Tools to integrate without manual intervention
 
ChistaDATA Real-Time DATA Analytics Infrastructure
ChistaDATA Real-Time DATA Analytics InfrastructureChistaDATA Real-Time DATA Analytics Infrastructure
ChistaDATA Real-Time DATA Analytics Infrastructure
 
5 Ds to Define Data Archiving Best Practices
5 Ds to Define Data Archiving Best Practices5 Ds to Define Data Archiving Best Practices
5 Ds to Define Data Archiving Best Practices
 
Elements of language learning - an analysis of how different elements of lang...
Elements of language learning - an analysis of how different elements of lang...Elements of language learning - an analysis of how different elements of lang...
Elements of language learning - an analysis of how different elements of lang...
 
Cash Is Still King: ATM market research '2023
Cash Is Still King: ATM market research '2023Cash Is Still King: ATM market research '2023
Cash Is Still King: ATM market research '2023
 
Mapping the pubmed data under different suptopics using NLP.pptx
Mapping the pubmed data under different suptopics using NLP.pptxMapping the pubmed data under different suptopics using NLP.pptx
Mapping the pubmed data under different suptopics using NLP.pptx
 
Virtuosoft SmartSync Product Introduction
Virtuosoft SmartSync Product IntroductionVirtuosoft SmartSync Product Introduction
Virtuosoft SmartSync Product Introduction
 
TINJUAN PEMROSESAN TRANSAKSI DAN ERP.pptx
TINJUAN PEMROSESAN TRANSAKSI DAN ERP.pptxTINJUAN PEMROSESAN TRANSAKSI DAN ERP.pptx
TINJUAN PEMROSESAN TRANSAKSI DAN ERP.pptx
 
Persuasive E-commerce, Our Biased Brain @ Bikkeldag 2024
Persuasive E-commerce, Our Biased Brain @ Bikkeldag 2024Persuasive E-commerce, Our Biased Brain @ Bikkeldag 2024
Persuasive E-commerce, Our Biased Brain @ Bikkeldag 2024
 
How is Real-Time Analytics Different from Traditional OLAP?
How is Real-Time Analytics Different from Traditional OLAP?How is Real-Time Analytics Different from Traditional OLAP?
How is Real-Time Analytics Different from Traditional OLAP?
 

How to Identify Your Most Valuable Customers & Keep Them Coming Back

  • 2. Table of Contents 2. Introduction 3. Understanding the mechanisms that drive predictive analytics 4. Leverage data to put customers’ needs first 5. Case Sudy: QVC.com 6. Validating impactful customer segments 7. Connect customer insight with real-time marketing action 9. Automate post hoc segmentation for every experience 10. Applying the mechanisms to personalization and optimization efforts 10. Customizable segment inclusion based on business needs 11. Challenges associated with mining for insights 12. Content evaluation by customer segments across multiple success events 13. Case Study: Threadless.com 14. Focus on customer segments and their impact across experiences 15. Case Study: Clothing retailer uses predictive analytics to extend testing practices 15. Conclusion 16. About the author 16. About Web Analytics Demystified 17. About Monetate 1 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 3. Introduction When the customer wins, the marketer wins. This statement reflects how organizations should approach their marketing efforts to succeed in these highly competitive times. Organizations that put the customer first and focus on the relationship, rather than the transaction, see their customers respond positively, driving loyalty, retention, and additional business. But it’s often challenging for marketers to understand how to identify their most valuable customers, let alone have the ability to interact with them and influence their behaviors. Couple this with a challenge to communicate the value that delivering personalized experiences through segmentation discovery and targeting has on the bottom line of the business, it becomes clear why many organizations have yet to adopt initiatives that allow them to put the customer first and at the center of their marketing efforts. Marketers can use data effectively to understand where they should focus their attention and resources. There are many paths that marketers and business teams can go down. In this paper, sponsored by Monetate, we describe strategies for organizations to identify key customers and create winning relationships. “Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing” highlights organizations that are discovering new opportunities in marketing based on confirmation of their hypotheses, learning more about their customers, and taking further action. By seeing the value in the time and effort mining for insights and, subsequently, taking action on them, these organizations are focusing on the customer relationship and putting their customers at the center of their business. 2 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 4. Understanding the mechanisms that drive predictive analytics The mechanisms that drive predictive analytics can be quite complicated. Marketers have many challenges identifying where to look for insights, and the first is often just getting started. The answers lie within customer segments. A segment of customers is simply a subset of the visitor population that consumes an organization’s digital content. These segments have shared attributes—both known and unknown—that allow organizations to derive insights and provide the experiences consumers want. The insights help indicate where organizations should focus and spend their additional marketing efforts. Depending on how a company is organized and what data is being used, getting insights from customer segments can be a challenge. While the website’s analytics tool can be of some help, it often does not include all the data sets available to get a complete picture. On the right is a report showing where key visitors segments have a positive impact on a website’s conversion rate. The general population has a mean conversion rate of 2.71%, while the key customer segments have significantly higher conversion rates. Reports like these allow organizations and marketers to narrow their focus on where to begin. Organizations are speaking directly with their customers through this data and are using this information to predict key customer segments. Monetate LivePredict’s reporting interface shows where key customer segments have been identified as having a positive impact on the conversion rate of the digital property. 3 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 5. Leverage data to put customers’ needs first The definition of big data is often debated and comes with many different interpretations. Organizations often assume big data simply refers to gargantuan amounts of information so massive and unwieldy that it essentially stifles a marketer’s ability to use it effectively. But there’s another way think about data—one that empowers marketers to use it as an asset. In a recent Forbes article, big data is interpreted as collection of information from traditional and digital sources inside and outside your company that represents a source for ongoing discovery and analysis. Looking at big data from this perspective allows marketers to envision themselves using it to put their customers first. There are many data sources that fall under this interpretation, including: • Website analytics • Email campaign results • Data collected from test participation • Mobile data • Third-party data • Display ad data • CRM data In these data sets, customers show where and when their needs are being met and where they are not. Conversion rates, bounce rates, time on site, interaction with content rates, revenue data, and page consumption are all signals of what visitors want when they visit a website. Smart marketers evaluate these data sets to get a better understanding of what their visitors want. When they take action based on this data, they put the customer first—and when the customer wins, the marketer wins. 4 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 6. QVC.COM: Extracting customer insight with data At QVC.com, Steve Loving, senior project manager, works with the consumer insights and business intelligence teams where he focuses on quantitative insights. His responsibilities include managing and running all of the experiments that take place on QVC.com. Loving leverages marketing solutions, including Monetate LivePredict, primarily to extract insights—both broad and deep—on digital consumers. QVC.com uses basic analytics and then adds more than a dozen additional data sets for advanced segmentation, running analysis at the member level for insights into specific actions customers take as a result of highly targeted tests. “This effort allows QVC to make a much more efficient use of optimization,” says Loving. “There has been a lot of quantitative data showing that weekends are different from weekdays, and the same can be said for time of day. We have been able to exploit these differences and speak better to our customers. “Segmentation is the most powerful tool that one can have in an optimization toolset. Segmentation by way of data collection has allowed QVC to be more strategic in our testing initiatives as we move to explore known segments better and focus attention and resources on broader segments as directed by the data. For example, strategies have been developed where we present different creative for customers versus prospects.” 5 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 7. Validating impactful customer segments Key customer segments can be identified based on data collected from their performance on conversions and other important success events. Once the data is collected and organized, specific processes need to be established to validate the impact that these customers are making, including developing iterative campaigns directed at these customers. For example, if visitors from a certain geographic location convert at a higher rate than those at another location, processes should include examining the visitor experience and then coming up with hypotheses as to why these visitors convert at a higher rate. These hypotheses should be turned into ideas of what other content—or what other experiences—can be presented to these visitors. The result of such processes has the potential to further validate the findings and could lead to even higher conversion rates. These processes also should include hypotheses as to why other geographic regions are underperforming, also leading to the creation of alternative experiences that could increase the conversion rates of underperforming segments. 5 Processes to Help Validate Impact 1. Identify trends of customer segments from any and all data sets available. 2. Validate these trends across data sets (i.e., if Mac users convert higher on a website than PC users, correlate how Mac users respond to email or display campaigns). 3. Outline several hypotheses as to why key segments respond positively or negatively to digital experiences. 4. Turn those hypotheses into ideas, identifying the potential for alternative experiences or content to change the behavior. The latest technologies streamline this process by automatically correlating the performance of a segment with the campaigns or experiences seen. 5. Speak directly to these segments and focus on the relationship rather than the transaction. 6 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 8. Connect customer insight with real-time marketing action As visitors identify themselves based on their impact on key performance indicators (KPIs), marketers can use this information to create hypotheses and ideas about why these visitors react one way to a digital experience while another group of visitors reacts differently. This report highlights a common scenario: Different customer segments— for instance, geographic regions—respond quite differently than the mean when it comes to many KPIs. For instance, visitors in the South might spend, on average, more than visitors in the mid-west. By looking at this data, you can derive many opportunities to take action on, including: • Language used in marketing material/content • Proximity to physical stores (including those of competitors) where goods might be more or less readily available • Localized popularity • Urban versus rural • Weather in those areas There might be an opportunity to present or target what could be more appropriate messaging to different regions of the country. This is reminiscent of the whole “soda vs. pop” nomenclature debate, or even different words that have similar meanings, i.e., sales tax or VAT, which can cause customers to not make a purchase because they don’t think the website wants, or is able, to do business with them. Another way for marketers to understand geographic differences would be to examine exactly what consumers in certain regions purchase. For instance, customers in warmer climates will purchase different products than those people battling cold weather and snowstorms at the same time. Scenarios like these occur frequently in the physical retail space. Visitors likely will not be purchasing outdoor furniture or similar items in the dead of winter in the Northeast. If what is happening helps reframe your hypothesis, the action to take is a no-brainer. Marketers would then target or promote appropriate items based on what data—and a little bit of common sense—tells them. 7 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 9. Monetate LivePredict reveals where key segments of the general population and their impact on Average Order Value. 8 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 10. Automate post hoc segmentation for every experience For organizations that are new to predictive analytics or even website optimization, it’s imperative that processes be established to include key segments for analysis in all experiences, including tests. These processes will add time and a potential need for additional resources if your goal is to drive revenue and move the business forward. Organizations can start off simply down this path, and in little time see the fruits of their labor. Opportunities will quickly present themselves as customer segments reveal themselves through data, including segments that can provide virtually limitless opportunities to iterate: • Traffic sources. Identify the top website referrers, including paid or organic search, affiliate traffic, display, and email traffic. • Visit stage. First-time and repeat visitors often tell different stories. • Date and time. Visitors behave differently throughout the day, for instance at work compared to relaxing at home. Weekends and weekdays can also tell interesting stories. • Technographics. Consider different operating systems, browsers, and devices. Without a doubt, there are nuggets to consider based on the massive adoption of smartphones and tablets to access the web. Browsers can also speak through the data, especially if quality assurance issues arise. • Geography. Visitors from different regions and countries behave differently. Look at analytics and identify top-performing and under-performing locations. This process also helps to benchmark key segments and their behavior with the end result being that organizations think of the customer first, rather than the transaction. This process allows for further discovery and iteration on key segments. For example, the segment of ‘first-time visitor’ soon evolves into ‘first-time visitor from paid search’ and then ‘first-time visitor from paid search who visited on the weekend.’ The path to personalization and optimization is by way of segmenting and iterating on these segments. 9 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 11. Applying the mechanisms to personalization and optimization efforts Customizable segment inclusion based on business needs There are many customer segments that are applicable across all organizations regardless of industry. These are often standard segments included with most analytics or optimization tools. Segments can include device, visit stage, traffic source, time of day or geography, and could extend to on-site behaviors such as categories/products viewed or purchased. Although these segments might seem basic, they are tremendously valuable. When organizations take a hard look at these standard segments and how they differ in terms of performance, they are often surprised. Retailers, for example, often see major differences between weekends and weekdays. Media organizations are likely see major differences between different sources of traffic, while financial organizations could see stark differences in behavior between repeat and new visitors. Organizations serious about their personalization and optimization efforts have to take segmentation to a higher level if they truly want to get the most from their programs. If a robust analytics program is in place, it will likely be a great source for customer segments that you will want to standardize for analysis. There are many places to look internally for these additional segments, which can vary based on specific industry. • Financial Organizations: Customer account types (visitors with checking accounts/visitors with savings accounts, etc.), account balances, time since last visit, source of traffic (helpful for targeting prospect content versus branded content). • Media/Publishing Companies: Content affinities (i.e. repeat sports section visits on a newspaper website), subscribers who consume more than a certain number of pages per visit, subscription series. • B2B: Firmographics, content affinities, source of traffic, demand generation/funnel status. • Retail: Content affinities, source of traffic, previous purchase history, cart abandoners, amount purchased (above or below the mean average order value), third-party data sets. Each business is different and has its own unique set of customer segments. Although not immediately crucial to get more customized segments in place at the onset, it becomes more important as your organization gets more strategic and advanced. 10 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 12. Challenges associated with mining for insights Now it’s time to put the words “when the customer wins, the marketer wins” into action. In this section, we walk through the challenges experienced by organizations that do segmentation analysis and then put forward strategies to make it more effective, laying the groundwork for putting the customer first and at the center of their business. Although many organizations test first, smart marketers will create website experiments only after they obtain at least some insight into their customers. But testing is not easy, and analyzing the results of tests can be even tougher. Testing involves robust processes around execution and analysis. Many organizations find themselves spending countless time, energy, and money on tests that only seem to result in flat performance with no significance. That is, the results at the end of the tests show no detrimental or positive impact on visitor behavior. Generally speaking, there are two contributing factors to flat test results. The first is because the test and control experiences are not different enough to cause changes in visitor behavior. The other cause relates to what was described earlier, when different segments respond to different experiences. When the results are flat—and there’s no positive or negative impact in the test results—it’s very likely that there are different customer segments whose performance cancelled each other out. Tests that show no significant lift occur so often that organizations need to drill deeper to discover sub-segments for which significant lift did occur. Don’t just look at the test overall, but focus on how different sub-segments performed within the experiment. Some solutions make these sub-segments available for manual analysis, while other products automate the discovery of these sub-segments and make them available for experiments within the same solution. 11 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 13. Content evaluation by customer segments across multiple success events As mentioned earlier, not all visitors react the same to one message. Time and again, different segments react differently to website experiences, potentially impacting success events across all of an organization’s digital properties, including email (opt-outs) and social media (sharing negative experiences with others). If you consider all that is possible on the website, it becomes clear that the area of focus for an organization should not always be a primary conversion event such as making a purchase. Organizations have to shift their focus away from just looking at primary success events if they are going to learn from their customers and how they consume their messages and content. Organizations that apply this layered approach to their analyses see this occur all the time. For example, on a lead generation website, paid search traffic could have higher conversion rates for filling out a web form, while first-time visitors or organic traffic result in a lower rate of form completes, and visitors on smartphones have a lower average page view rate. All of this analysis is incredibly important as marketers develop hypotheses to what the ideal experience is for each segment of traffic. Reports that help organizations understand how the many segments of traffic could impact the multiple success events on the website provide ideas on how to change the segments experience for the better. These reports are some of the best idea-makers available. Monetate LivePredict shows how a marketer can manipulate the different digital success events and get visibility as to how key customer segments responded to those success events. 12 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 14. Threadless.com: Using segmentation strategies to drive content decisions Threadless is a community-based company that prints graphic designs created and chosen by a very passionate and talented group of artists. Visitors to Threadless.com vote on thousands of monthly submissions. Winners receive cash rewards and Threadless gift cards, and have their work printed on clothing and other products sold on the website and in physical retail stores. Todd Lido, head of marketing at Threadless, has his hands full encouraging participation, creating opportunity for artists, and selling products. Threadless.com’s segmentation strategy helps the company gain insight into where to focus its marketing efforts. For example, the company was able to confirm that people who viewed kids’ products converted at a much higher rate than visitors who did not view those products. Threadless also rolled out new functionality called “Threadpics” where users can supply their own pictures with Twitter hashtags. Threadless was able to derive that visitors who engaged with this content on the website had a 4x higher conversion rate than other visitors. Based on findings like these, Lido and his Threadless team know where to focus their efforts not only online, but for off-site marketing efforts such as display advertising. They are being “informed as to what the customer wants, and it is influencing what they do next,” he says. 13 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 15. Focus on customer segments and their impact across experiences The quickest way for an organization to shift from generalized testing of all audiences to targeted testing of valuable customer segments is to establish sound segmentation strategies. That said, there is an inherent challenge here. Although segmentation reports within a particular test are valuable, the insights are limited to that particular experiment. For organizations to better learn about their segments of traffic, they need to understand how these segments respond to all experiences delivered on the website, regardless of whether they are tests or not. There are many ways to approach this challenge, which can include highly detailed record keeping and consolidation of segments after each test or campaign. But no matter the approach, it’s certainly worth the time and effort. Organizations are able to get a better understanding of their customers, allowing them to fine tune their hypotheses around segments, which enables better idea creation around what alternative experiences might lead to differences in behavior. Additionally, this mechanism of analyzing customer segments around all tests or campaigns enables organizations to iterate on their customer segments. For example, the image to the right shows the segment ‘South Central’ and its impact on recent tests and campaigns. This report also breaks down that segment into sub-segments. Note that the city of ‘Findlay’ is an outlier within the greater segment of ‘West South Central.’ This deeper analysis allows organizations to get a better understanding of the visitors that make up these segments. As seen in Monetate LivePredict, marketers are presented with an analysis of a segment, in this case ‘West South Central,’ and its impact across all experiments. In this example, ‘West South Central’ performed well in three campaigns and positively in three other campaigns, including ‘Referring Traffic from mysavings.com.’ 14 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 16. Clothing retailer uses predictive analytics to extend testing practices A well-known niche clothing retailer incorporates predictive analytics into its optimization initiatives to extend the capabilities of its testing solution. This effort also validated some key overarching themes that the retailer thought existed, but didn’t have the supporting data. For example, the company always suspected that when a particular clothing style was selected or purchased by males that females had similar preferences. The retailer now uses this knowledge to direct important marketing initiatives that would have otherwise not been a priority. Another key learning that the retailer has seen since adopting a data-driven segmentation program is discovering that its best-performing segment is married working couples. Although it long believed that this was true, confirmation through data had a powerful impact on how they managed their personalization and optimization programs. And not only did this organization find and confirm key segments, but it also identified those segments that were underperforming such as mobile traffic and visitors from specific states. Conclusion Organizations that spend time and resources putting the customer first, and deriving what’s important to them based on all data available, are discovering new opportunities to use predictive analytics that drive personalization and optimization. They learn what their visitors want— and what they don’t want—and then take action, speaking directly to their customers. This is not an easy process by any means, but success is possible given the tools available on the market today. Once in place, processes need to be flexible, allowing for iteration and constant learning about visitors as the digital landscape changes incredibly fast. Organizations can get started today with relative ease using their current optimization solutions. Begin simply with a few general segments to include such as traffic source, operating system, or geography. Don’t overload yourself, which could lead to analysis paralysis. Be assured that you soon will be able to find new nuggets of gold that will enhance your personalization and optimization strategy, adding further value to your organization by automatically identifying the attributes of over- and under-performing segments, and helping you prioritize the opportunity each one represents. 15 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 17. About the Author Brian Hawkins, partner at Web Analytics Demystified, has worked in the optimization space since 2006 when he started at Offermatica, which is now Adobe Target. He worked in a variety of roles over the years in the testing and optimization space in both a technical and strategic consultative capacity, and has helped scores of companies get value out of their testing platforms by laying the groundwork for the incorporation of strategic best practices and by providing roadmaps that allow organizations to adopt a culture of optimization. About Web Analytics Demystified Web Analytics Demystified, founded in 2007 by internationally known author and former Jupiter Research analyst, Eric T. Peterson, provides objective strategic guidance to companies striving to realize the full potential of their investment in web analytics and optimization. By bridging the gap between measurement/optimization technology and business strategy, Web Analytics Demystified has provided guidance to hundreds of companies around the world, including many of the best known retailers, financial services institutions and media properties on the Internet. For more information on Brian Hawkins and Web Analytics Demystified, please visit www.webanalyticsdemystified.com, email brian.hawkins@ webanalyticsdemystified.com, or call (415) 735-4295. 16 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 18. About Monetate Monetate generates billions of dollars of new revenue for businesses, helping them grow 33% faster than the industry average. Brands such as Best Buy, National Geographic, and Celebrity Cruises rely on Monetate to put the customer first, creating winning customer experiences that drive a sustained, competitive advantage. The Monetate Acceleration Cloud connects two crucial elements that have always been treated separately within organizations: knowledge about the customer and marketing actions to deliver a better experience. Delight your customers with winning customer experiences that build authentic relationships and drive new revenue across any channel, all within one seamless solution. • Interact with your customers through winning website experiences that take place in the moment and across every page. • Engage your customers with relevant emails that are personalized at the time recipients actually open them. • Reach and attract the customers you love, and convert lost visitors, with intelligent display and retargeting campaigns. Start your journey to a winning customer experience. Request a demo today at http://monetate.com/demo or contact us at 877-MONETATE (US and Americas) and +44 207 099 2101 (EMEA). 17 Discovering New Opportunities in Marketing
  • 19. ©2013 Monetate Inc. All Rights Reserved Expert Optimization Resources Valuable case studies, eBooks, white papers, webinars & infographics monetate.com/resources Request a Demo Call 877-MONETATE (US) l 484-323-6313 (around the world) demo.monetate.com 1-877-MONETATE | 484-323-6313 monetate.com/facebook monetate.com monetate.com/twitter monetate.com/linkedin