What is digital analytics?

At the heart of it, digital marketing analytics is the utilisation of data to inform and evaluate your marketing strategies. By analysing your customer’s reactions and subsequent actions to your content, you can better understand what is working and what isn’t, as well as where you may have information gaps.

Overall, the goal of digital marketing analytics is to have a better sense of your client’s behaviours, motivations and purpose so you can make better, more personalised content.

Benefits for financial marketers

It goes without saying that understanding your clients better will always improve your financial marketing content strategy. When you have implemented strong analytics into your marketing strategy, you will always beat out the finance brands that haven’t.

When you begin producing better content that not only attracts an audience but also retains them and pushes them through the acquisition tunnel, you have a winning marketing strategy. Digital analytics can help you achieve this.

Here are some benefits to understanding your digital analytics:

• Remove the guesswork from your content creation
• Reduce risks
• Personalise and improve the customer experience
• Understand your clients better
• Identify information gaps
• Predict customer behaviour

How to use your digital marketing analytics effectively

To gain a better understanding of how financial marketers can utilise their digital marketing analytics more effectively, we spoke to The Dubs’ Social Media Director, Andrew Frith.

“Analysing how specific content is performing relies on the ability to identify specific content in the analytics platforms,” Andrew explains.

“A common technique is to add a UTM tag at the end of clickable URLs that attach categorisation information for the content clicked. This allows campaign, distribution platform and content identification to be captured in the analytics platform and then analysis on specific content can be applied.”

“Once a target audience has landed on a finance brand’s website, it is their website behaviour that determines whether your content is working or not,” Andrew says.

“First, the desired actions of the audience on the website content needs to be defined. For a website article, that may be having the audience read the article in full. Analytics platforms allow a finance brand to see how long a user spends on a page, or ‘scroll rate’, which will give a good indication as to whether visitors are actually reading the article or not.”

Alternatively, a finance brand may want the target audience to read a series of articles to understand a topic in depth. In this instance, analytics platforms allow a finance brand to see the ‘multi-page’ journeys, as well as user-journey path visualisations, that will give insight into whether visitors are clicking through to more content after their initial entry onto the website.

Bear in mind that website UX will play a part here such as strong CTA’s and intuitive navigation systems.

In addition, video content can also be measured via digital marketing analytics.

“The effectiveness of video content on the website can be measured by capturing video completion rates whilst also looking at partial completion times,” Andrew says.

Finally, Andrew explains events such as button clicks on the website can also be tracked to determine if more bottom-of-the-funnel activity such as signups to newsletters, downloads of reports, request form submissions are making a desired impact.

There is a myriad of information available at financial marketers’ fingertips that can be used to make informed decisions. “The key to successfully interpreting data is establishing what website behaviours are desired and then configuring the analytics platform to capture that information,” Andrew says.

What is A/B testing and how can finance brands make use of it?

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is an important tool in a financial marketer’s arsenal. A/B testing is simply a randomised experimentation process, that involves two or more variables being shown to different website visitors. This is used to identify what variable works best and enables your finance brand to optimise accordingly.

Andrew says a range of tests can be used such as testing the length of written content, short vs long; testing the visual component of the content e.g. photos vs illustrations; or testing the actual content format e.g. video vs static images.

“The most important thing is to test only one component at a time so that clear conclusions on the A/B test can be made. Changing two elements at the same time will defeat any analytical conclusions on content effectiveness.”

Final thoughts

Ultimately, if your finance brand is not utilising digital marketing analytics to the best of your abilities you’re making a mistake. Analytics is designed to provide you with real client data that can inform your marketing and content decisions. Not using it is a waste of your finance brand’s potential.

The post How to use analytics to supercharge content marketing appeared first on Financial Marketer.

 “We are not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm.” Originally a quote from writer Damian Barr, it’s a sentiment that was requoted a number of times in 2020, and one that continues to hold relevance in 2021. As wealth and health inequalities continue to impact the global population during the everchanging COVID-19 pandemic, it couldn’t be a more accurate statement. Combined with the political chaos and housing shortage in the United States this first quarter, it’s safe to assume that the uncertainty from 2020 has bled into the new year. We’re all traveling troubled waters, and as financial service providers, it’s our duty to build bridges during these difficult times.  

Both financial brands and customers approached 2020 as a year of uncertainty and it seems we’ve begun 2021 on the same foot as well. With new COVID-19 strains emerging, the general population is feeling a continued lack of stability. Disjointed, uncertain and capricious are ways our customers may feel – during this time, it’s important to remember an economic recession affects minds before wallets.

Writing from the US, with all that is going on in our country this may seem like the worst time to talk about performance marketing – but it’s not. In fact, it’s probably the single most important time (especially during Q1) to review your performance marketing and what it’s achieving. Evaluating cost per lead, cost per application and cost per acquisition are all important KPIs for financial services marketing  – but where financial marketers should be focusing their attention in these unsettled times is finding the gaps where customers most need their support. Of benefit to customers and brands alike, there’s opportunity in providing customers with the support they need. Below are a few ways financial marketers can leverage technology to provide support and instill customers with confidence.

Big data AI // machine learning and big Data to build relationships

It’s no secret that technology is a bridge used to reach customers; however, tracking effective communication and conversion can be tricky. At NRL Mortgage, we utilise big data AI through Salesforce to reach customers based on their activity or lack thereof. We all report on data, such as opened emails, clicks and time spent on website, but big data goes deeper. Deep learning tracks customer behavior by anticipating customer needs and opportunities, resolving support issues before they happen and creating predictive one-on-one journeys personalised to each customer. 

quote]At NRL Mortgage, we utilise big data AI through Salesforce to reach customers based on their activity or lack thereof.[/quote] 

Lead scoring // making sense of your database

Chances are, your financial sales reps haven’t stopped picking up the phone during the pandemic. In fact, I bet they’re making valuable touches even more than before. Lead scoring is an effective model that has allowed our business to organise a list of customers that need to be “touched” based on different actions or previous interactions. Gone are the days of “calling lists” based on time spent in a database. With lead scoring, sales reps are able to make meaningful touches, based on different actions within a sales funnel, thus converting leads. 

Account based marketing // nets vs. spears

For financial service brands that are B2B focused, account based marketing (ABM) is an advantageous model compared to traditional sales funnels. The difference can be explained by fishing with a net (left) vs. fishing with a spear (right). ABM starts with targeting a specific account, target market or audience within a market. Using personalised campaigns to the specific market, ABM takes a holistic approach of marketing that extends beyond lead generation. The customised communication that focuses on specific attributes and needs of the target market are more productive in converting leads to customers. 

While we may not be in the same boat as clients, we’re all navigating the same storm and by utilising the right marketing tools and tactics you can help both your business and customers stay afloat. 

The post Building bridges over troubled waters appeared first on Financial Marketer.

While it might seem all well and good to have a cheap click and a high CTR, you need to consider what’s happening to these users once they’ve clicked and left the social platform to engage with your content? Are they the correct audience and therefore sticking around to engage with, your content? Or, are they outside your target audience, barely hanging around long enough to glance at your page? To really understand what’s driving the success of your content campaigns on social media you need to arm yourself with the right data and insights. Here’s how to set your finance brand up to do just that.

Website engagement for content campaigns

To measure the success of a content campaign on social media you need to consider and track website engagement, which initially will require some work to set up. There are a number of ways to do this, but the simplest and most effective way is to use Google Analytics in conjunction with your chosen social platforms, be it Facebook, X, LinkedIn or Instagram.

This includes setting up a variety of Google Analytics goals and events to track, including:

• Page view duration
• Page scroll rate
• Video plays to 50%
• Clicks on Contact Us or product pages
• Pages per session 3+
• Conversion (purchase or form completion)

This alone will help you to establish a good understanding of how users are engaging with your website. But you can take it a step further…

UTM codes

Tagging all your content with UTM codes is an essential step in measuring the success of your social campaigns. A UTM code is a simple code that you can attach to a custom URL in order to track a source, medium, and campaign name. It will allow Google Analytics to tell you where website visitors came from and the specific campaigns that got them there.

By including targeting details in your campaign name, you will be able to track the success of that targeting and the effectiveness of every single campaign line, attributing a cost value to each website engagement metric. Armed with this data, you will then be able to change tact where necessary to achieve the best possible results.

UTM codes should be added at the end of every ad. There are multiple UTM Code builders available for free on the internet, including this useful template.

A UTM code allows Google Analytics to tell you where website visitors came from and the specific campaigns that got them to your site.

Attribution

Along with tagging, it’s best practice to run multiple campaign lines at once, promoting the same content with variations on targeting. And because all ads have appropriate UTM codes, you will be able to attribute the best Goal Conversion Rate and Cost per Goal Completion to various source, medium and campaign names. You can access this in Acquisition in Google Analytics.

Optimising your content

Once you have goal data and platform spend per campaign line you can attribute a cost per goal completion for each campaign line. This will give you an idea of how well your money is being spent, optimising your content where you identify inefficiencies.

Collating data and insights

Tools such as Funnel IO allow you to collate multiple data sources into dashboards, making it easier to track, review and act on performance insights.

Not enough to simply measure the success of your social campaigns, you need to be responding to these insights and optimising your approach in real-time to achieve the best results.

Still struggling to argue the case for content? Here’s how to prove to the c-suite that it’s worth the investment.

And to extend the reach of your social content, familiarise yourself with the 17 reasons why people share on social.

The post Measuring the success of content-led social media campaigns appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Newsroom.ly’s number one purpose is to help content marketers make a big impact through a simplified and universal platform.

As a content marketer, competing for attention online is harder than ever. In a competitive space like financial marketing, where consumer trust can often falter, it can be even more difficult to build a relationship with your audience. It’s one thing to put a content strategy in place, but how do you know if it’s having the desired impact? Is it offering a return on your investment? How do you measure it? As Leon Bombotas explains, these are questions Newsroom.ly seeks to answer, as elegantly and effectively as possible.

What value does Newsroom.ly offer content marketers?

We help content marketers and editors easily measure the impact of their publishing activity and, more importantly, uncover insight that helps them boost page views, time-on-site, conversion and revenue. We do this by applying our proprietary scoring algorithm to determine the impact of the content. We then use a combination of text-mining and data-science to determine the ‘narratives’ that are resonating with audiences and are associated with desired outcomes.

Content is becoming more data driven, and data is becoming more crucial. Do you think this focus on data impacts negatively on the quality of content we’re seeing?

Negative? No. On the whole it will have a positive impact on the quality of content. Absolutely. For example, if we can confidently predict what won’t have a meaningful impact then we can more efficiently allocate resources to creating content what we think will. There will always be a place for publishing untested, unproven and experimental content. The opportunity is to use data and technology and turn success into repeatable success.

Organic reach on Facebook and Google has dropped precipitously over the past few years and will get worse. Both platforms are, essentially, pay to play.

Some of your biggest clients are Australian brands Medibank and MamaMia. How has your platform helped them specifically?

Each in slightly different ways. Brands such as Medibank benefit from having a single measure of success to report to their executive leadership teams. Newsroom.ly allows them to easily measure the performance of content across several platforms and various KPIs, scored and distilled into a single measure of success. Publishers such as MamaMia are able to track impact across categories, rank and compare authors, and by publish date. It’s easy to find content that’s best for new vs returning users, for social or search, for mobile or desktop or any combination thereof. In both cases it’s helping them uncover insight to make decisions that grow their audience, increase attention and drive conversion.

Can you tell us a little about the impact score you’ve devised?

The impact score is a score out of 100 that measures the effectiveness of every piece of content. It’s a single measure of success calculated by an algorithm that takes into consideration a client’s specific goals around Views, Engagement and Conversion. Every client can customise the impact score to reflect their respective content marketing objectives.

Finally, what do you think is the biggest challenge content marketers will face in the next decade?

Achieving reach is increasingly difficult. Organic reach on Facebook and Google has dropped precipitously over the past few years and will get worse. Both platforms are, essentially, pay to play. As competition for attention intensifies, bids to drive click-throughs will continue to increase. For brands this means an increase in customer acquisition costs. Increasing the effectiveness of organically produced content by measuring it and optimising it will eventually offset the need to spend so heavily on traditional methods of customer acquisition.

It’s clear that platforms like Newsroom.ly will have a major role to play in the future of content marketing. With over 130 trillion pages of information on the internet, discerning what’s valuable and what isn’t is a monumental task, but bit by bit marketers can start to build an accurate picture of what their target audience wants to hear, and start relating to them on multiple levels, across multiple platforms.

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The post Newsroom.ly: data and tech for repeatable success appeared first on Financial Marketer.

The term was coined back in 2010 by Sean Ellis, founder of Qualaroo and infamous marketing wizard – supposedly following his frustration in finding a replacement for himself while he was consulting across numerous companies. Wikipedia now defines growth hacking as: “A combination of art, and science and refers to a set of conventional, and unconventional marketing experiments that lead to growth of a business. Growth hackers are marketers, engineers and product managers that specifically focus on building and engaging the user base of a business.”

In the finance space, Mint applied growth hacking tactics by solving a real-world problem

One principle behind growth hacking is that there is no stereotyped role assigned to any given individual; someone from a marketing background will work as a growth hacker alongside a programmer. The only stipulation is that every person shares the same goal: the growth or scaling of a company, traditionally a startup. Some simple but great examples include Dropbox’s Refer a Friend scheme, which incentivised users by offering free additional storage space for each referral, and Pinterest’s ‘infinite scroll’, removing the need for additional clicks or page loads and drawing users in to spend more and more time on the visually-oriented site.

The Mint Success Story

In the personal finance space, Mint applied growth hacking tactics by solving a real-world problem – creating content that targeted a neglected segment – young professionals looking for financial advice. Mint was also given a huge social boost when communities such as Digg and Reddit happily pumped out their infographics and articles. Smart content partnerships, brand deals PR, SEO, Facebook and X then did the bulk of the heavy lifting.

According to Kissmetrics, “Mint officially launched in September 2007. In November 2009, Intuit bought Mint for $170 million. At the time, Mint had over 1 million users and was adding a few thousand new users every day. Four years later, Mint has over 10 million users.”
So how can established businesses benefit from the growth hacking approach? Startups such as Mint tend to run lean, have minimal budget and are not weighed down by the same internal pressures faced by larger companies. This means they are at liberty to take much greater risks in the name of growth. There are however some elements of the growth hacking approach that can benefit big companies:

Know Your Data

Growth hacking aims to move beyond traditional marketing techniques, combining psychology with technology to generate measurable results. Data is everything, and identifying what data needs to be measured is of ultimate importance. Focus on what data directly impacts growth, and how it can be manipulated, then make a plan of what you need to do in order to manipulate it.

Act Faster

Larger companies struggle to implement those new ideas, as planning and perfecting can often take so long that the growth opportunity is missed. Working agile is key to learning and therefore improving quickly. This means no longer striving for perfection but instead making sure new ideas are put live, even if they’re not quite as polished as you’d like. Rinsing and repeating regularly will bear fruit faster and more effectively than one perfectly executed (but potentially flawed) master plan.

Embrace Failure

As they say, “The best-laid plans…” That amazing campaign that sounded so great in the planning stages may turn out to be a dud but all is not lost. Failing means learning, and by working agile these lessons can quickly be used to build and improve the next stage.

Being a larger business or established brand can make the prospect of implementing growth hacking principles daunting, but it does also come with its own benefits. There will likely be an existing larger audience to test on, whether this is measured in site visits, social or email, which means learnings can be gained fast. Combining this with a data-centric approach, ensuring you focus on and listen to your customers, is a great opportunity to drive continual growth.

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The post The Growth Hacking How-to Guide appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Social media is a fickle world obsessed with fans, followers and Klout scores. KPIs are vague at best and campaign targets are tenuous. So how do you measure the true ‘success’ of your social media campaigns?

1. Define the Why

Before you start tracking anything, define why you’re tracking that metric. This is more important to your campaign than any ‘defined’ metric out there. Okay, so you’ve doubled your number of followers, but why is that helping your business? What do you want from these followers? Are you building a long-term relationship? Do you need to convert them to an action in the short-term such as signing up to your mailing list. Once you have defined goals, only then can you make the most of tracking your metrics.

2. Engagement

Engagement is a catch-all word in social media. We know that we want our audience to interact with us but we also need to measure that interaction. It’s easier said than done when tracking across multiple platforms but a simple formula breakdown for this is something like: Number of audience comments/replies per post.  The higher the conversation rate, the more your audience is truly interested in what you’re saying. Don’t assume a like is an act of engagement with your post, it requires little effort and should be considered a separate metric. Analytics expert Avinash Kaushik defines likes as an Applause metric  rather than an engagement metric, which is a great way to better categorise these metrics.

3. Amplification

Aside from interacting with your business, social media campaigns are unique in that they provide a series of extended networks to whom you can actively promote your wares. The metric from this is Amplification Rate, which is the number of retweets or shares for your post. Make the most of this. Don’t just look at flat numbers but take into account how other influencing factors such as time of posting, messaging and platforms, impact the metric.

Tweets provide a great opportunity to A/B test your headlines, and potentially roll out your findings to other platforms

4. Click-through-Rate (CTR)

We’re used to A/B testing across most digital marketing platforms – alternating email subject lines, showing multiple Adwords adverts etc. – but A/B testing in social media is underused. CTR measures the number of people who click through on a link after seeing your post. Tweets provide a great opportunity to A/B test your headlines, and potentially roll out your findings to other platforms.

You should be posting the same tweet multiple times across any given day (use a tool like Buffer for this) in order to be seen in the timeline of as many of your target audience as possible. Try subtly changing the text of your tweet and see what impact this has on your CTR. Learn which hashtags resonate the most. Does the URL name make a difference (use a tool such as Bit.ly to test this)?

5. Response Rate

One final metric that should not be forgotten is the monitoring of your own community management. Potential and existing customers will often use social media to reach out to you; if you do not have a clear response strategy in place you could be missing out on valuable opportunities to convert or extend the relationship you have. Ensure your team has a clear plan of how to respond, and within what timeframe, so you can avoid being on a future Social Media Fails list.

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The post 5 Social Media Metrics That Actually Matter appeared first on Financial Marketer.