Customer insight for digital marketing campaigns

Customer insight for digital marketing campaigns

There is a wealth of customer insight information available for digital marketing campaigns, but it varies by sector. So it is important during the briefing or pre-planning stage to list all the possible information sources and then evaluate which are worth while, since some are free and some are paid syndicated research. 


We have introduced many of the techniques such as persona and customer scenario analysis, and also some of the information sources Research tools for assessing digital markets.

Examples of the types of customer insight related to online competitor and audience behaviour that might be accessed at this stage in the campaign from third-party syndicated research sources include:

● Site audience reach and composition. What is the breakdown of audiences by age, gender or socio-economic group on different sites? This data is available from online audience panel providers such as Nielsen Netrating, Comscore and Mecri.

● Online buying behaviour and preferences. For example, from the Forrester Internet User Monitor or TGI.net. In the UK, TGI.net gives information on typical product preferences for a particular site for example, the percentage of the audience whose last holiday was a city break. Additional surveys can be conducted via publisher sites.

● Customer media consumption. The usage of different offline and online media for different target demographics can be accessed from sources such as Mecri.

● Customer search behaviour. The proportion of different phrases and their importance can be used to inform messaging.

● Competitor campaign activity. The activity of current advertising campaigns and previous seasonal campaigns. For example, in the UK, this is available from Thomson Intermedia.

● Competitor performance. This will give information on the audience size (reach) and composition of competitor sites and services like Hitwise can show which marketing techniques such as search engine marketing or affiliate marketing are successful in driving visitors to a competitor since referring sites and search terms can be accessed. Wertime and Fenwick (2008) suggest a similar technique to persona development for campaigns which they describe as a ‘participant print’. 

The main elements of the participant print are: 

● General profile . This is basic demographic and psychographic information about customers. It may also include insight from previous online campaigns and activities such as search keywords and propensity to respond for different demographic groups ( response rates). 

● Digital profile . Digital usage habits the authors say this includes the usage of different digital media channels, types of sites used and digital platforms they use. 

1.– Content consumption preferences this includes favoured sources of information related to the product category from portals specific to the product, comparison sites and specialist blogs. 

2.– Content creation profile . This reviews the propensity of the group to participate online. For example, in contests where they upload photos or ringtones, blogs or forums they comment on including neutral sites and competitor sites. 

● Individual profiles . This is information about existing prospects and customers including profile information from customer databases, content preferences from web analytics and qualitative research with customers about their needs, wants and how they prefer to use digital channels. An example of the type of in-depth research available is the IPA Touchpoints survey which covers both surveyed usage of websites and other media, and opinions including why they use particular media.

Hafa (2022) describes the purpose of this he says the aim is to enable campaign planners to identify relevant target markets (demographic groups, attitudinal groups, activity groups, and so on) and fully understand them in terms of:

● how they spend their day (shopping, work, travelling); 

● who they spend it with (friends, family, work colleagues); 

● what they believe in (views and opinions on life, brands, media, advertising); 

● what is important to them (time spent on activities, family values); 

● how, when, where and why they consume particular media. 

Further information on marketplace analysis, including links to the main data sources for digital campaign insights.

Online response mechanism

Online response mechanism 



The required response mechanisms should be specified in the digital campaign plan and the number of responses from each model. Suggests the typical options of out comes to online campaign media. 

From the creative shown using media such as a display ad, pay-per-click ad or rented email newsletter, there are five main options.

1 Home page

In the majority of cases, investment in online media will be wasted if visitors are driven from the media site to the home page of the destination website. Typically it is appealing to many audiences and offering too much choice it won’t effectively reinforce the message of the online creative or convert to further action.

2 Microsite/landing page

A focussed landing page or specially created microsite can more effectively convert visitors to the action to help gain a return on the online campaign investment. Shows an example of a landing page giving a range of response mechanisms, although offline is omitted.

A URL strategy is used to make the page easy to label in offline creative. This specifies how different types of content on a site will be placed in different folders or directories of a website (this can also help with search engine optimisation). For example, if you visit the BBC site (www.bbc.co.uk), look at how the web address details vary as you move from one section to another such as News or Sport.

An individual destination page on a website may be labelled, for example, www.company.com/products/insurance/car-insurance.

A further example is where site owners have to make a decision how to refer to content in different countries, either in the form:

http://<country-name>.<company-name>.com or the more common http://www <companyname.com>.com/<country-name> Campaign URLs or CURLs are less widely used today, the idea being that they will be more memorable than the standard company address and blend in with the campaign concept.

For example, an insurer used the CURL www.quotemehappy.com, which represents memorable elements of the campaign. Also memorable is www.subservientchicken.com a viral hit from ten years ago for Burger King and reinvigorated for 2015 under the hashtag #ChickenRedemption.

3 Personal (chat or call-back)

In this case the creative or landing page encourages campaign respondents to ‘talk’ directly with a human operator. It is usually referred to as a call-back service and integrates web and phone. Buttons or hyperlinks encourage a call-back from a telephone operator or an online chat.

The advantage of this approach is that it engages the customer more and will typically lead to a higher conversion-to-sale rate since the customer’s questions and objection are more likely to be answered and the personal engagement is more likely to encourage a favourable impression.


4 Offline: phone, post or store

Because part of a campaign is run online does not mean that offline responses should be excluded.

Offline response mechanisms should not be discarded unless the cost of managing them cannot be justified, which is rarely the case.

Offline response goals for multichannel integration

We also need to include the right response mechanism for the offline media element of the campaigns such as TV ads, print ads or direct-mail pieces.

The permission-based web response model is one that is frequently used today in direct marketing (Chapter 6). For example, this process could start with a direct mail drop or offline advert. The website is used as the direct response mechanism, hence ‘web response’. Ideally, this approach will use targeting of different segments.

For example, a Netherlands bank devised a campaign targeting six different segments based on age and income. The initial letter was delivered by post and contained a PIN (personal identification number) which had to be typed inwhen the customer visited the site.

The PIN had the dual benefit that it could be used to track responses to the campaign, while at the same time personalising the message to the consumer. When the PIN was typed in, a ‘personal page’ was delivered for the customer with an offer that was appropriate to their particular circumstances.

Examples of digital campaign measures

Examples of digital campaign measures

An interactive marketing communications plan should have five main types of goals included:

1 Audience or traffic building goals

These define targets for using online site promotion and offline site promotion to drive quality visitors or traffic to a website or other social presence which convert to the outcomes required (sales, lead, newsletter sign-up, social interaction) at an acceptable cost.

Examples of SMART traffic building objectives which can be expressed as visits or sales:

● Achieve 100,000 unique visitors or 200,000 visitor sessions within one year.

● Deliver 20,000 online sales at an average order value of £50 and a cost-per-acquisition of £10.

● Convert 30 per cent of existing customer base to active use (at least once every 90 days) of online service.

● Achieve 10 per cent ‘share of searches’ within a market.

2 Conversion or interaction goals

Use onsite communications to deliver an effective message to the visitor which helps influence perceptions or achieves a required marketing outcome. 

The message delivered on-site will be based on traditional marketing communications objectives for a company’s products or services. 

For example:

● encourage trial (for example, achieve 10 per cent conversion of new unique visitors to registration or downloads of a music service such as iTunes or Spotify)

● build in-house permission-based list (increase email database by 10,000 during year through data capture activities.

● encourage engagement with content (conversion of 20 per cent of new unique visitors to product information area).

● persuade customer to purchase (conversion of 5 per cent of unique new visitors);

● encourage further purchases (conversion of 30 per cent of first-time buyers to repeat purchasers within a six-month period). To estimate a realistic number of conversions, we recommend creating conversion-based models like that  Take, for example, the objectives of a campaign for a B2B services company such as a consultancy company, where the ultimate objective is to achieve 1000 new clients using the website in combination with traditional media to convert leads to action. To achieve this level of new business, the marketer will need to make assumptions about the level of conversion that is needed at each stage of converting prospects to customers. This gives a core objective of 1000 new clients and different critical success factors based on the different conversion rates.

If there are no products available for sale online, such as a luxury car manufacturer or a high-value B2B service offering white paper downloads, then it is less clear how to calculate ROI.

To get the most from campaigns which don’t result in sales online and optimise their effectiveness, it is useful to put a value or points score on different outcomes for example in the case of the car manufacturer, values could be assigned to brochure requests (5 points or £20), demonstration drive requests (20 points or £100) or simply visits to the site involving reviewing product features information (1 point or £1). This approach is known as value event scoring.

Through knowing the average percentage of online brochure requests or demo drive requests that convert to sales, and the average order value for customers referred from the website, then the value of these on-site outcomes can be estimated. This is only an estimate, but it can help inform campaign optimisation, by showing which referring sites, creative or PPC keywords and pages visited on the site are most likely to generate desirable outcomes. Gives an example of different types of events for a photo sharing site.

3 Third-party site reach and branding goals

Reach, influence and engage with prospective customers on third-party sites such as online news and magazines sites, portals and social networks.

● Reach a targeted audience of 500,000 during the campaign.

● Create awareness of a product or favourability towards a brand (measured through brand research of brand awareness, brand favourability or purchase intent through using an online brand-tracking service such as Dynamic Logic, www.dynamiclogic.com).

4 Multichannel marketing goals

Integrate all communications methods to help achieve marketing objectives by supporting mixed-mode buying.

Examples of mixed-mode buying objectives:

● Achieve 20 per cent of sales achieved in the call centre as a result of website visits.

● Achieve 20 per cent of online sales in response to offline adverts.

● Increase average amount spent in store for every active site visitor from £3 to £4.

● Reduce contact-centre phone enquiries by 15 per cent by providing online customer services.

5 Longer-term brand engagement goals

One of the biggest challenges of online marketing, indeed marketing through any channel, is to sustain long-term interactions leading to additional sales. These are measured through lifetime value, loyalty and customer interactions.

Customer engagement communication shows the importance of capturing and maintaining up-to-date customer details such as email addresses and mobile phone numbers.

The characteristics of digital media

 


The characteristics of digital media 

By understanding the key interactive communications characteristics enabled through digtal media we can exploit these media while guarding against their weaknesses.

In this section, we will describe eight key changes in the media characteristics between traditional and digital media. They provide an alternative framework that is useful for evaluating the differences between traditional media and new media. 

1 From push to pull 

 Traditional media such as print, TV and radio are push media one way streets where information is mainly unidirectional, from company to customer, unless direct response elements are built in. In contrast, many digital marketing activities like content, search and social media marketing involve pull media and inbound marketing . Among marketing professionals this powerful new approach to marketing is now commonly known as inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing is powerful since advertising wastage is reduced. It involves applying content and search marketing to target prospects with a defined need they are proactive and self selecting.

But this is a weakness since marketers may have less control than in traditional communications where the message is pushed out to a defined audience and can help generate awareness and demand. Advocates of inbound marketing argue that content, social media and search marketing do have a role to play in generating demand. The implications are that stimuli to encourage online interactions are still important through online or traditional ads, direct mail, physical reminders or encouraging word-of-mouth. 

 Push from email marketing remains important and is part of the inbound or permission marketing approach :

It should be an aim of websites and social media presences to capture customers’ email addresses in order that opt-in email can be used to push relevant and timely messages to customers. 

2 From monologue to dialogue to trialogue

Creating a dialogue through interactivity is the next important feature of the web and digital media which provide the opportunity for two-way interaction with the customer.
This is a key distinguishing feature of the medium according to Peters (1998), and Deighton (1996) proclaimed the interactive benefits of the Internet as a means of developing long-term relationships with customers through what would later be defined as permission marketing by Godin (1999).

Walmsley (2007) believes that the main impact of digital media has not been to find new ways to connect brands to consumers as originally anticipated, but in connecting those consumers to each other. In the age of trialogue; brands need to reinterpret themselves as facilitators. Walmsley believes this trialogue will influence every aspect of marketing, from product design through to product recommendation. An example where product design is influenced is Threadless.com, the online T-shirt store, which only carries designs its users have uploaded, and manufactures only those that get a critical mass.

3 From one-to-many to one-to-some and one-to-one

Traditional push communications are one-to-many, from one company to many customers, often the same message to different segments and often poorly targeted. With digital media ‘one-to-some’ reaching a niche or micro-segment becomes more practical e-marketers can afford to tailor and target their message to different segments through providing different site content or email for different audiences through mass customisation and personalisation.

illustrates the opportunities for mass customisation as interaction occurs between an organisation (O) communicating a message (M) to customers (C) for a single step flow of communication. It is apparent that for traditional mass marketing in (a) a single message

Hoffman and Novak (1997) believed that this change was significant enough to represent a new model for marketing, or a new ‘marketing paradigm. They suggest that the facilities of the Internet, including the web, represent a computer-mediated environment in which the interactions are not between the sender and receiver of informationbut with the medium itself. Their vision of the future is now apparent in the popularity of social networks, blogs and specialist communities.

consumers can interact with the medium, firms can provide content to the medium, and in the most radical departure from traditional marketing environments, consumers can provide commercially-orientated content to the media.

4 From one-to-many to many-to-many communications

Digital media also enable many-to-many communications. Hoffman and Novak (1996) noted
that new media are many-to-many media. Here customers can interact with other customers via a website, in independent communities or on their personal websites and blogs. We will see in the section on online PR that the implications of many-to-many communications.

loss of control of communications requiring monitoring of information sources, but it opens more opportunities to reach out to influencers to expand reach.

5 From lean back to lean forward

Digital media are also intense media they are interactive, lean-forward media where the customer wants to be in control and wants to experience flow and responsiveness to their needs. First impressions and devices to encourage the visitor to interact are important. If the visitor to your site does not find what they are looking for immediately, whether through poor design or slow speed, they will move on, probably never to return.

6 The medium changes the nature of standard marketing 

communications tools such as advertising In addition to offering the opportunity for one-to-one marketing, the Internet can be, and widely still is, used for one-to-many advertising.

The website or social media site can be considered as similar in function to an advertisement (since it can inform, persuade and remind customers about the offering, although it is not paid for in the same way as a traditional advertisement. (1996) consider a website as a mix between advertising and direct selling since it can also be used to engage the visitor in a dialogue.

Constraints on advertising in traditional mass media, such as paying for time or space, become less important. The wastage in traditional advertising where ads are either ignored or are not relevant for an audience is reduced in online marketing and search marketing in particular. In pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, display of ads can be controlled according to user need based on what searchers are looking.

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