Does your e-mail marketing make the grade?

Next week, Stratigent will be participating in Exact Target’s Connections '08 Conference in Indianapolis. Last year’s conference was a big success, so naturally we are looking forward to it again. If you haven’t checked out the agenda or registered to attend, take a few minutes to do so now.

The conference reminded us that now is a good time to bring out our 5-point checklist to grade the health of your e-mail marketing program. Our checklist focuses on the intersection of e-mail marketing, web analytics, testing and CRM data with the goal of helping you deliver more relevant and tailored e-mails to different segments of your audience.

Consider these questions to find out if your e-mail marketing program is as productive as possible in growing your business.

1. Collecting data about your visitors. While not the most glamorous work, proper page tagging, campaign tracking standards, and report configuration are essential for tracking visitors from click to conversion. This data provides the foundation for all of your customer analysis. If it’s not configured correctly – that is, to provide answers to the questions you’re asking - it won’t help you much down the road.
   
2. Capturing website click stream data. Click stream data provides key insights into how visitors are behaving on your site. That data, in turn, can be used to create more relevant campaigns that result in better response rates and conversions. Obviously, you want to do everything in your power to turn an email campaign into actual revenue, and this can help.
3. Improving e-mail effectiveness with CRM data. Are you integrating offline customer purchase behavior with online behavior? If so, you know this too can help you deliver highly targeted, personalized e-mails to previous customers.
4. Selling what you have. You might be doing everything right in your e-mail marketing program, but what happens if you are promoting a product that isn’t in stock or available to customers? Integrating inventory levels into e-mail marketing programs is necessary for avoiding the dreaded out-of-stock dilemma and customer dissatisfaction.
5. Performing A/B and Multi-variable Tests. Do you change the content and copy of your e-mails? Are you performing A/B and multivariate tests on your landing pages and other heavily trafficked pages on your site? Testing isn’t a hassle – it’s a process and an opportunity to test specific messages to different segments of your audience.

Email programs can successfully bring visitors to your site and ultimately convert them into customers. By using web analytics to optimize the email message, timing, landing page, and other key points along the conversion funnel, you can make it easier for your organization to increase conversion rates and improve the ROI of your email marketing program. For more information about Stratigent’s 5-point checklist for effective email marketing, contact us.

WebTrends Tag Builder is a Must

WebTrends recently released Tag Builder, a dynamic online tool used in creating advanced base tags for your site. Tag Builder produces a much improved set of tags from the one generated by the WebTrends user interface.

For starters, the Tag Builder uses a cleaner code structure that employs a single function to store global variables. Consequently, a lot of the configurable components (i.e. DCS ID, timezone, first-party cookie domain, etc.) are declared at the top in the global function, making it easier to make necessary changes before deployment. Most importantly, Tag Builder has the ability to create more advanced custom code that subsequently produces more meaningful reports tailored to your type of site.

A few of Tag Builder’s features include:

• The option to use a single first-party cookie or multiple-first cookies for your subdomains
• Automated click event tracking for download links, off-site links, and form buttons
• The ability to specify single or multiple on-site domains
• Tracking by navigational area (through DIV or TABLE tags)
• Usage of a separate DCS IDs based on domain(s)
• Capturing custom META tags
• Configuration for use with WebTrends Dynamic Search.

Along with the Tag Builder tags, the tool also outputs an XML configuration file to store Tag Builder configurations. You can upload a configuration file to Tag Builder and it will remember all the configurations performed as specified in the file. This feature also makes it easier to keep track of different tag versions that you apply to your site over time.

Overall, the Tag Builder is a nifty tool that you should consider keeping in your WebTrends toolbox.

Nestor Archival, Jr.
Senior Analyst
Stratigent, LLC

My Data Doesn’t Match!

As you track your web initiatives, think about how much time you spend reconciling or explaining the differences between the numbers contained within your web analytics platform and other data sources (i.e. paid search, offline data, etc.) in a given week. Extending that across an entire year, my guess is that you spend a large percentage of your time going to bat for the validity of your data.

All of the data you are collecting exists for one reason: to provide you with the insights needed to drive the optimization of your web presence and online marketing programs. However, you can’t harness that value until you can trust the data and get past the hurdle of having numbers that just don’t match.

So here is my question to you: Does the data across your data sources need to match? The answer is “It depends.” It depends on how you are planning to use the datasets and who the intended audience is for the reporting and analysis that you provide. In the online world alone, each dataset collects and presents information in a different way. As a result, numbers generally aren’t going to match 100%. However, your offline transaction data with your analytics transaction data should match without question. So, there is a use case and scenario for each dataset which generally aligns across the visitor lifecycle. Here at Stratigent, we generally analyze the visitor lifecycle across the following stages:

• Reach
• Acquire
• Engage
• Convert
• Retain
  

You need to determine which datasets, or integrated datasets, you are going to use to address each of the above stages. For example, you might use your analytics package for the last three. If that is the case, then don’t use the reporting in your other datasets to address those areas. If you only configure the reporting to address the predetermined use cases you can avoid many of the fire drills that companies face today.

Now, having a strategy in place for the datasets is only half the battle. The other obstacle that lies ahead deals with establishing confidence in each of your datasets. To clarify a bit further, let me ask the following question:

“Are you confident that your company’s data collection process delivers accurate and complete datasets?”

Chances are, you are not entirely confident in the data you are collecting, and you are definitely not alone in that sentiment. Establishing confidence allows you to use the data to make business decisions, which will ultimately enhance the visitor experience on the web for your customers.

How do you establish this confidence? Here’s a short list of areas to assess:

• Is every page on your website tagged properly?
• Are your campaigns tracked properly?
• Are the appropriate filters in place to cleanse the data?
• Do you understand the different ways data is being collected by these systems?
• Are the reports configured correctly?
• Have you established a use case for each dataset?
• Are your business requirements being answered?
• Have you adopted analytics into your business processes?

When dealing with multiple systems, you will never be able to get the numbers to match. I’m sorry to break that to you, but only concern yourself with what you can actually control. That is, validate that you have everything set up correctly and establish a solid foundation for your online efforts. If you can get there, you’ll be ready to spend much more of your time each year being proactive with your data. Your customers will thank you.

Bill Bruno
Principal
Stratigent, LLC