I began writing this column on marketing optimization in 2001; yet this morning, 12 years later, I find myself in LA to train a well-known company that wants to start “crushing it” by developing an optimization culture, rarer than running a few tests a month. This is the third such training I’ve done this year already, and I am willing to bet this client will be one of the most successful of the three. Why is that? “A growth team that ‘crushes…
Last week, an article in TechCrunch offered an opinion on “Why We Need to Kill Big Data.” Perhaps it was inspired by this tweet that was embedded in the article: “I hate the term ‘big data’. Its all just data. Someday we’ll all just call it data – but for now it’s big.” -Arun Jacob of Disney at #BDBN — Dr. Martin Wells (@BigDataInsights) September 13, 2012 Perhaps big data as a buzzword is used too often and inappropriately, but…
Google+ may be growing, but anyone who spends time on it wishes it had more engagement with their connections and more content being shared. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Why is this happening? It is not just lack of people, it is the lack of integration with the content marketing ecosystem. Even though there is a great mobile app for Android and iOS, it is still very web-centric. People will share content when they come across content they encounter on the web…
In the last Conversion Optimization challenge I asked readers to review a series of promoted Tweets and the corresponding landing and thank you pages. The most important thing to consider for your ads or landing pages is the nature and context of your visitor. Social media traffic is fundamentally different than search traffic; social media landing pages must be thought of differently than search landing pages. The social visitor isn’t seeking out your brand, your category or even your solution.…
In my last column, I shared recent research about how CEOs have lost trust in CMOs’ ability to be focused on business performance. Hopefully, when asked how your company currently measures its digital initiatives you don’t get an answer like this (LOL, well done Adobe): Seriously, the issue is that most analytics frameworks don’t tie all essential marketing metrics back to financial statements. We have been preaching about how this needs to be done since 2001. I suspect, that I…
When you consistently deliver a great customer experience, build a great product and develop a brand people trust you don’t have to try as hard to convert your visitors. Check out an old version of the DropBox home page: Check out what their home page looks like today: What are your plans to deliver that kind of reputation in 2013?
In the last Conversion Optimization challenge I asked readers to review a series of promoted Tweets and the corresponding landing and thank you pages. The most important thing to consider for your ads or landing pages is the nature and context of your visitor. Social media traffic is fundamentally different than search traffic, therefore social media landing pages must be thought of differently than search landing pages. The social visitor isn’t seeking out your brand, your category or even your…
Last week Adobe and IBM both came out with studies about how little impact Facebook had on referrals to sales on Black Friday’s online shoppers. Facebook then countered with their own evidence showing how they impacted traffic for retailers. Yes, there is surely an attribution modeling issue at hand here. But that is not the end of the discussion. Facebook has been working on a new conversion tracking program that will allow advertisers to track view-though conversions. View-through conversion rate is…