Engagement Marketing Metrics, ROI & Open ID

I have been reading a lot about how conversion tracking isn’t enough data to make the best decisions and engagement is the new black. It is frustrating because no one defines engagement in the same way and no one can really tell you what it is.

I do agree though that engagement is the next evolutionary step in tracking onlinemedia for ROI purposes. I think the trouble people will have will be in customizing it rather than standardizing it. I think the meaningful parts of the process will be totally different depending on the company, the media, the process and the product.

What I consider the next thing for my own tracking purposes is prior ad exposures. This is an engagement metric for the ads leading up to conversion rather than site visitors for our own site. I don’t work with analytics usually or determine how to get someone to engage with a process over and over again. I do try and figure out ways to advertise affordably and get people to complete the conversion process. This prior exposures report should provide more insight into how many, where, when and how people come to the conversion site. I am thinking it should provide us information we won’t anticipate as well as show some information we knew would be there.

I am also a bit pissed off with this stupid marketing sherpa execuitive summary report. Pretty much everything written in it is complete bunk since there are a ton of caveats to each graph and I would bet more is according to how people track and assess results than how the media actually performs. If people would track media post impression they would see the value of banners rather than just for clicks. This is so frustrating until you see the data. Then it just makes sense.

People are influenced by banners (branding) and that whole banner blindness thing had to do with the crap companies that were allowed to buy ads with spammy business practices and scams.  They are still out there and as long as they are allowed because of corporate greed, people will keep ignoring some of the good ads for things they really do want and need. Targeting is part of the equation, but as far as targeting goes, we are still in the dark ages.

This brings me to another beef I have with the online ad industry right now. Everyone LOVES behavioral targeting, even if they don’t know what that means. (It has nothing to do with your behavior most of the time by the way.) It is a tracking of people who have been selected as a target by their profile info (Yahoo) or by visiting your site before and the ads follow you around on the web. The latter is the better way to do this (indicating actual interest rather than categorical inclusion) although we don’t know nearly enough about our target customers to really be able to target them online.

I am always asked why someone targeted for one category converts in an opposite one. Why? I have no F-ing clue dude! People are multi-faceted. They can belong to more than one interest or category even if marketers feel it shouldn’t be allowed. People have many aspects to their life and interests and they will always be that way. We won’t know all that data about them or how to process it for a long long long time.

That is what this stupid open ID thing will eventually lead to. A one stop shop for all your profiles and data so marketers can target you on hundreds of variables like what you do for fun, what you do for work and where you shop and live. (they have to sell out sometime) It would take literally hundreds of actual customer profiles to understand the marketability of each of these demographics, and then targeted messages to serve specifically to each profile type. It will take a few years to get there but I think it will get there sooner than I am personally ready for. I don’t know how to collect, assess or value those metrics about customers nor do I really want them targeting me like that.

Oy! Anyway, I am most interested in the overlapping cloud of ads that all influence someone to buy or sign up for something rather than I am in trying to figure out how to track a million personal profiles and target them with individual ads. Also, contrary to that stupid exec summary, pop-ups and unders still suck ass and you know it.

Hippo – the highest paid person’s opinion in Marketing

I am not a huge fan of AdAge since it seems to revolve around old advertising techniques/media and big behemoth brands and agencies that I don’t work with, but this article about why most company websites suck was very interesting and very true. I believe that the highest paid person’s opinion (hippo) is what drives the development and makes decisions on what happens with most products and web sites. Even in a web site company.

I saw this happen at my last job, and the decisions were so contrary to what should have been happening that it nearly drove me mad. I left thinking I would find a better place to work and I did, but the rule still applies here to a lesser extent. The subtle difference is that I am higher paid now, so I have somewhat more say and my data and research disprove a lot of bad ideas from the start. 

In the interest of getting things done quickly and quietly without any discussion or debate, management usually critically limits the decision makers in most every decision to less than 3 people who share the same brain. (epic fail!) One, (a hippo) to make the decisions, and two others to say “yes” and find a way to justify it with data, research and sell it to everyone else. This may be the entire reason that the newspaper industry can’t make any money on the web.

The article points out that these hippos are the people least in contact with the customer and therefore have the least information possible about what the customer needs, thinks and wants. Golfing at country clubs and jetting around to accept awards does not put you in contact with customers or vendors or really at all with your company’s processes. This kills me. I can’t resolve how this happens and people get away with it except that once you have gained the trust of the upper management they pull you further and further away from your purpose with bonding exercises and sporting events. Management should be hands on without micromanaging and still interact with the finite details of the day to day operations. Without this you get one hand erasing what the other has accomplished, opposing directions for initiatives and a general clusterfuck in processes. In general this also plagues most of American businesses and I think contributes to our crap economy not evolving fast enough.

/end rant

What did you spend your economic stimulus rebate check on?

I have not yet received my rebate check from the US government for economic stimulus purposes. I have read though that people are planning on saving it, paying down debts or using it for necessities like food and gas. All very good things. I think the people who will loose out will be the ones that think it is good for another fancy handbag or 100th pair of red shoes.  I think some Americans are coming to the conclusion that you are not what you own and that a simpler lifestyle has less financial risk in these uncertain times.

I have lived on both sides of the fence, a child of a uber-frugal dad and a spendy mom. I currently feel the urge to get a pair of dark jeans trouser pants even though I have plenty of pants. I feel the urge to pay extra principle on my mortgage every month even though I probably won’t be living there in 20 or 30 years. I feel the need to buy a car that gets 35 mpg or better AND has leather heated seats AND an automatic transmission AND costs less than $20K (used). Why do none exist? I guess I am a paradox that car makers don’t accommodate.

I am not suprised at the high cost of gasoline right now and fully expect it to get higher. (it’s not that they don’t want to increase oil production, it’s that they can’t because there isn’t more to be tapped) That said, it is scary that I spent $120.00 in May on Gas and I only drive on Weekends since I take the train and walk to work. If I was still driving every day to and from work that would be about double at $240.00. A full tank just cost me $65.oo and I have a 16 gallon tank.

What I didn’t see coming is the rising cost of food. Everything is not only going up in price at the grocery store, there is a difference in the regular prices of food depending on where you buy it in Chicagoland. I have started shopping at the super target in far west suburbia where Steve lives rather than pay about 10% more in Oak Park. And that doesn’t even include the difference in sales taxes by county.

I think people’s budgets will be pushed even further to the edge and breaking point in the rest of 2008 and that it will be a lean Christmas because the high cost of basic necessities will make it hard to afford non-necessity gifts. I would say that a good place for the rebate check would be an ING savings account and hopefully it will generate some interest before it becomes a Christmas gift fund.

I am glad Microsoft didn’t buy Yahoo

Am I the only one who thought that Microsoft and Yahoo didn’t have the first thing in common? Microsoft is still deeply rooted in the OS/Software/Desktop culture, biz model and products. Yahoo is all about the web and always has been. They aren’t winning the battle of the web right now but they are certainly better at it than MSN. (yeesh) Yahoo handles classifieds, news, advertising sale and products as well as their home page better than Microsoft and MSN. And Microsoft wanted to own them and tell Yahoo what to do? Stupid.

Its odd to think that there are incompatible sets of engineers, technology and visionaries, but these to were never destined to be together.  It almost seemed like a hair-brained distraction tactic to keep everyone’s eyes away from something else. What else could Microsoft be trying to do with this kind of deal? And buying up companies that are better at something than you are is such an old school tactic. Why not be affiliates? Lisence their ad network? Become associates so you can foster some kind of working relationship and trust first before you go in for the kill and it will be taken as a lot less hostile.

I just think this whole thing was bungled and made no sense from the beginning. And I don’t even know anything internally about it. I don’t work for nor know anyone who works for these companies. This is just my feeling based on the news reports on the internet and radio.

It does make me worried about the future of Microsoft in a world where they are so off base and desperate like this and no one really has any affinity for them anymore. That said, I am typing this in IE but on a free blog platform and on a chinese computer. Things sure have changed in the past 10 years.