Episode 10: Measurement & Reporting

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Quote of the Episode

“So that month over month is great, but the year over year is gonna give context of how you’re actually performing.”

Tim Lowry

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Transcript

Robbie (00:00):
So, Tim, you mentioned you had a client that had some, some questions about, about what you’re doing.

Tim (00:06):
Yeah. They asked me to create a report. They wanna know what I’m doing is actually working. Like why would, why would they worry about what I’m doing?

Robbie (00:13):
Why, why? It’s marketing. It’s not supposed to work. It’s supposed to make you feel better. It’s supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy. Who cares about if it works or not?

Tim (00:21):
Yeah. What’s all this defined success stuff.

Robbie (00:22):
I don’t, I don’t. This is snake oil. This is snake oil. You need to cut, you need to cut this client right now.

Tim (00:27):
Gone. Done.

Robbie (00:28):
It’s done. It’s over.

[Intro]

Robbie (00:40):
Hello everybody. Welcome to the Content Community Commerce podcast where Tim and I talk about topics of the convergence of content community in commerce. Today we’re gonna be talking about something that’s near and dear to both of our hearts and as marketers hopefully should be near and dear to all of your hearts. Or something that’s causes a consistent pain point. But we’re gonna talk about measurement guys.

Tim (01:02):
Yeah, I was, I was gonna say like, I’m not sure about the dear to my hard part. It’s, it’s near to my heart. It is an essential but man, sometimes when you’re doing a lot of reporting, it brings a lot of stress too. And it’s, it’s how to define that success and be able to articulate that can sometimes be the difficult part.

Robbie (01:22):
Yeah. So, so this is where we’re trying to step out of the warm and fuzzy, make it pretty department and try to actually show the results you’re doing. You’re, you’re creating as a marketer, and in some cases, this is really easy because again, we, in digital we have so many different platforms, we have so many different ways of measuring. We have so many different insights. So basically everything’s a big information system on the backend, but when you can measure everything, like how do you measure the right things, how do you make sure that’s communicable through your organization and really focusing on the, on the, on the right goals, not just the bright goals.

Tim (01:56):
Yeah. So like, well that’s it. Like why, why is it important? Like what is the benefit as a marketer to be able to, to get a good report out? Like why, why bother?

Robbie (02:09):
So basically like, again, you’re trying to, as a marketer, you’re always, again, likely strapped and starving for resources, but also you wanna prove the value of the work you’re producing.

Robbie (02:21):
So you wanna prove that it’s making an impact for yourself and your team, but you’re also going to want to make sure that you are, again, ideally performing at a high enough level where you’re gonna justify the work you’re doing. So it really helps us to understand, hey, what am I focusing on? How is actually moving the needle? And then how am I moving, moving away from like, again, warm and fuzzy to actually making a business impact. Because at the end of the day, we can measure everything. And I noticed this really, really closely while I was working in social, but like, again, likes, comments, and chairs are not gonna feed anyone’s family. You’ve gotta drive a business outcome for it to be be successful or you’re not gonna have budget, you’re not gonna have to do this for very much longer.

Tim (03:02):
Yeah. But everybody loves those performance metrics. Like that is the downfall of many, many companies and strategies is the focus is on performance and not always that long-term aspect of like, where we start, where are we going, how are we getting there, and where are we on that, basically that journey to it. Yeah. And I think that’s where the report comes in, where it’s, it’s helping to prove that long term value of like, Hey, we set this goal and this is how we’re moving towards this. But it can, it can get a little bit muddy at times as you’re trying to go through it. And I personally have been guilty of the person that sends over the report to the client that’s like 70 pages long and they probably look at it and they’re like, what did you just say?

Robbie (03:42):
What is this hieroglyphic you’re sending me?

Tim (03:44):
Why is there so much information here?

Robbie (03:46):
So, so, so boiling it down and making it translatable, like that’s something that again, when a client receives that, they’re gonna be, they’re gonna be dancing in the street as opposed to be singing like, like, oh my gosh, I don’t know what I’m doing. They’re just gonna be like, (singing) “Dancing in the street, dancing in the street” . It’s gonna be joy all around. They’re gonna be excited, they’re gonna know the work is, they’re gonna know the work is actually working and they’re gonna be able to translate it from their team to make it actionable there. But they’re also gonna be able to ideally translate it to their, to their management team, to their, to their C-suite because it’s something that ideally is gonna hopefully validate them as a, as a team member. And hopefully, again, if you make, if you make your clients look good, like that’s a good way to keep clients.

Tim (04:32):
Yeah. And those expectations are there. So that’s the other part. It’s like if you’ve properly set expectations on the front end of like, here’s what we’re doing and here’s what we’re going, then this is basically like those mile markers as you go down the interstate, like they can see like the journey, like we’re moving towards this and that expectation.

Tim (04:49):
And like, it’s not going to be a Ferrari, or at least for seo, it’s not a Ferrari like coming out of the like starting line. Like it’s, it takes a while to build that momentum, but then they start to see that compounding effect of like, the work we’ve been doing is now starting to multiply and it happens rapidly, but that’s, that reporting each month is gonna help move them towards that. And I’m saying each month I find that’s a really good consistency for, for reporting, at least in what I do.

Robbie (05:15):
Yeah. And each month, like if you get into too much granular efforts, like it’s really easy to get caught in the weeds. Like if you’re, if I’m an e-commerce owner or if I’m looking at Shopify every single day, that’s really easy to get like drawn into the weeds. And honestly, looking at reporting too frequently is one of the reasons I always think that, again, you can kind of fall into the trap of kind of focusing too much on, especially in the e-commerce space, people get really focused on things they can manage in the near term.

Robbie (05:42):
Mm-hmm. So again, that’s why Roaz plays such a large role in terms of reporting or things that you can manage because you can adjust it and tweak it and see instant results with SEO or with email. You can’t necessarily see those same exact instant results. Mm-Hmm., or at least you generally won’t. If you’re working with like a long-term stable strategy, it’s gonna be a more gradual ramp up. Yeah. so that’s where you want to be focusing on, again, building consistency, building sustainability, and you don’t wanna let those like quick wins overshadow the long-term growth and long-term strategy.

Tim (06:12):
Yeah. And the thing that I was reading a book over, over a break there recently and it was talking about reporting such a fun topic to read about, but I thought it was really insane. Okay.

Robbie (06:23):
This is your, this is your, this is your evening reading.

Robbie (06:26):
This is my, this is my, my curling up beside the fire with like a, a, a glass of wine and, and, and reading about.

Tim (06:32):
Just moving it around to my hands, sniffing and then like, ah, sweet smell of reporting, reporting. No, I thought it was really solid insights from, from another marketer where if you’re working with other companies, agencies, whatever it is, if there’s a reporting style that is familiar within that organization, don’t try to make them learn your reporting style. If your metrics and the way you translate things can fit into a style that they’re used to, it’s gonna make things much more beneficial and probably move the needle more for you and get more buy into what you’re doing because they can just, very quickly, we talked about that simplified report from like a high level, interpret the success of what you’re doing versus Hey, here’s how you’re used to reading this information and then here’s something in a completely different language and now you gotta translate that you don’t have the time or energy. So it’s like, this isn’t working, drop this.

Robbie (07:24):
Yeah. may, it may be easier for you. You’re again, European, like Americans like we, we can’t, we can’t even convert to the metric system. Like this is, this is like, we got inches we you put into centimeters or meters like we are done. So again, make it easy for people. .

Tim (07:40):
Well, yeah. So I thought that was again, just really insightful and that’s something that, you know, this year as I’m like talking with clients, like getting familiar with like how are you currently reporting and tracking things internally and then how do I fit some of the measurements into, into that language where it makes sense to fit it in. Because it’s just gonna be much easier for them to be able to, you know, get the stakeholders just continue to have them buy in through the process versus them ingesting all this information I send and then somebody internally having to take that and translate it and put something into the, you know, the hands of the stakeholders of that company.

Robbie (08:16):
So yeah. So, so that’s again a really good insight. So if they’re, if they may be using, I know again, we work with a lot of e-commerce groups, like OKRs is like a big reporting, a big measurement structure that people will use at a high level because again, they can simplify things if you put it inside that same OKR structure they’re already working with. Like, it really works well to kind of help them streamline that process of understanding and reporting like performance and mm-hmm. . Yeah. If they’re winning or losing.

Tim (08:42):
That’s your, that’s your top level stuff. Like we’re not talking about like, you know, how are your keywords doing for the sake of it. It’s like you can have a top level thing of that. This is not the, the granular detail, but it’s giving that top level, like here’s where we, we were, here’s where we’re going, here’s the revenue it generated and you know, are we on track with the goals that we set on the front end?

Tim (09:03):
Do we need to pivot? And that’s where with SEO and other performance marketing, there are differences because we, you know, they might be reporting weekly on the performance of ad campaigns for the sake of it. Whereas SEO, to go into a weekly reporting thing, you would pull your hair out, it’s like monthly and then quarterly is more where you can like see if things are on track or on course or do we need to pivot over the next month towards something else? Because the nuance of like month to month, your content might not even have started ranking that you posted the month prior. So it’s like you just, you can’t do those kind of things.

Robbie (09:34):
Yeah. You can’t, you can’t start thinking in that, in that granular detail. And that’s, but also like that’s where we get a lot of, like, we have a consistency in cadence reporting. We have a consistency in kind of what you’re, what you’re measuring for, but also you brought in a really great insight. It’s like you’re not getting granular, like those metrics and those insights may help you in the individual level as a practitioner, but those aren’t something a C-suite needs to necessarily understand or, or really focus on. So you don’t want to be putting those into every single report, like mm-hmm. , individual keyword performance that may not be relevant for everything. Yeah. So again, you’re gonna be looking at a more high level like business outcome focus goals to really translate the value that you’re bringing.

Tim (10:14):
And, and you say that, and I worked with an organization in the past where they were more obsessed about individual keyword goals and we’re overlooking then the big picture of like, but here’s the performance of all of these things that we put into place. So there’s also that trap too where, you know, if your goals get misaligned, so helping, helping the client or helping, you know, the internal team, whoever it might be, like understanding like where those important goals are. Like don’t get obsessed over like, we must have this one key word and only that and you ignore all the other things that are out there performing. It’s like, that’s, that’s great. That’s our, you know, long term or stretch goal, whatever you want to call it. Like, here’s something that’s for down the road, but here’s the wins that we have on the things that we’re currently pursuing. Because if you’re not actively pursuing something and trying to track a goal next to it, everybody’s gonna go insane if that’s what you’re measuring. So again, it’s measur measuring the right things sometimes.

Robbie (11:11):
Yeah, yeah. Measuring the right things, not the bright things. And like the church of the single keyword may not be Yeah. May not be as, as as reputable as an organization is

Tim (11:20):
I want that one word and only one.

Robbie (11:22):
So again, you can, it’s easy to see people fall into that trap and like when they don’t necessarily understand the platforms or how they work or they don’t understand the high level strategy around it, like they can’t make those decisions. That’s where they’re, they’re leaning on you as the experts. You’re giving them the best guidance you can if they don’t wanna take that guidance. It’s like a doctor prescribing pills though. So like, again, I’m your doctor, I want you to take the pills, I’m gonna prescribe you the pills, but it’s on you to take the pills so I can’t make you do it. Yeah. So again, at that point, like they, they that.

Tim (11:52):
You need need to slow down and pound on those ribeyes, nah, I’m not gonna take that advice.

Robbie (11:57):
Yeah. Yeah. No more red meat or you could die. Yeah, that’s your decision . So again, it’s, it’s that that kind of insights you’re trying to, again, kind of maybe lack of insights you’re trying to overcome Yeah. But also ways you’re trying to again, continue to move forward and to help them. Yeah. So if I’m looking at SEO and we’re trying to get out of warm fuzzy, we’re trying to make more foundational and concrete mm-hmm. , what are some of the things I’m looking at? Yeah. Or what are some of the things you’re communicating to your clients or how, what’s that structure look like to you?

Tim (12:27):
Yeah, so one thing before I dive into that, that, that I’ve started adding in reports and for other SEOs might be helpful is it’s, it’s explaining the landscape. Like it, I don’t think it’s just me. I think pretty much anybody that’s in SEO can tell you that the result page is changing so much and what, what the user is interacting with is so different like year on year and in even over the last six months just new features.

Robbie (12:53):
Even from mobile to desktop.

Tim (12:54):
Oh man. So sometimes just opening with like, here’s, here’s what’s going on. Like here’s some of the changes that are happening in the result page. Here’s the things where you might be interacting with your device and as a user or a stakeholder of a company, not even thinking about how that change could potentially just shake up what you’re currently doing. So I find it’s really helpful to track those on a month to month basis of like, here’s some things that have changed, here’s some new features that are coming along. And that’s just that first high view of just like, we’re aware of this and if we need to pivot or work on something towards it, then we do. But at least just chronically, like what’s changing, what’s happening helps people that are, you know, internal where if they had, you know, I want this basic ranking position one, if that no longer exists, if it’s now become, you know, a block of videos at the top of the page, then it’s like, hey, that’s great, but here’s changes that have happened since our first goal was set.

Tim (13:52):
But moving from there for seo, you’re always looking at month over month and year over year, month over month is not always gonna be an apples to apples comparison because you’re going to have seasonality, things that are changing and you can listen to previous podcasts that we’ve done on seasonality. But if your peak season is, you know, summer and then all of a sudden like things just drop off in September. Well comparing August to September, it’s gonna look horrible. All of a sudden it’s like your traffic’s in the toilet and everybody’s in pen and it’s Oh yeah.

Robbie (14:23):
Yeah. This is a, this is not just a dumpster fire, this is a dumpster fire being, being washed away by a flood. Yeah. This is Defcon five. Yeah. That’s terrible. Terrible. Yeah.

Tim (14:33):
And I’ve had some of those where like I’m new to the client and I’m, I’m trying to figure out some of their stuff and I’m looking in that first response when I look at their analytics, it’s like, what in the world happened? But then when you zoom out and get the year over year, you’re like, oh, this pattern repeats every season. So this is not Google slapping a penalty on them. It is not. They have, you know, just done something shady and just destroyed the site. It’s just what to expect. So that month over month is great, but the year over year is gonna give context of how you’re actually performing. Like is your traffic growing? Is your revenue increasing? So we look at all of the different buckets that we track on from that context of month over month and year over year. So the first thing I usually look at is, is traffic. Because obviously we wanna know is traffic going up, traffic going down? Is is what we’re doing performing? And then from that traffic, if it’s e-commerce, is our revenue going up? Is our revenue going down?

Tim (15:30):
If it’s B2B, it’s going to be more of like a lead or a conversion. Are we increasing our number of leads? Are we increasing conversions? And then taking into consideration like anything that may have changed with new products, new offerings, things that could be different year over year. So we can speak clearly around then, you know, last year we had this amazing product and it was flying off the shelves. However, this year we don’t have any inventory of that. So traffic is up, but revenue’s slightly down because we don’t have this hero product that drove so much of that. Or we had another, you know I have a client that I’m working with at the moment. They had, you know, basically a celebrity endorse a product and whenever that happened in and off that moment, it generated this huge swell of, you know, traffic and revenue.

Tim (16:18):
Well that person’s not doing a big promo at the moment. So it looks very different this year. Like their traffic may may be up cause we’ve grown the audience, but the purchases are not at that same level because there’s that difference. So being able to again, you know, an out things in there that are, that are speaking to what was going on in that season as well as like tracking that. Um.

Robbie (16:38):
So the context, the content you’re sharing is important, but also the context around that, around that.

Tim (16:44):
Context is huge. Because again, just looking at a, a line graph, you know, of traffic, you, you could spin any story you wanted behind that. You know, so it’s being able to give the context as to like, here’s what’s happening, here’s what influenced that. You know, have you done one heroic post and all of a sudden the traffic is doubled in the site.

Tim (17:05):
But the reality is it’s like one page is, is making that increase. Well then that’s great but it’s, it’s going to totally skew Well, our conversion rates look totally different now. Well it’s like, well you now have half of your traffic coming in through this one post that’s just excelling. So it’s gonna drop your metrics down because here’s, here’s what that influencing factor is. So being able to again convey like what is it that’s changed and done that is really gonna help. And you can do that at a high level. You don’t have to get, you know, 50,000 foot deep on it. It’s just, here’s the traffic, here’s the performance, here’s what influenced us a year ago and here’s potentially what’s changing that this year and why the numbers look how they do. From there, of course there’s keywords we want to track them.

Tim (17:52):
If you want to get granular, you can share a whole list of keywords. If you want to make it more simplistic, you have basically your targeted group of keywords that you can report. You know, here’s our top 10, 20, 30, where they are in relation to, you know, position one through three, position three through 10 outside of 10. So we can see like, are they moving down into top 10? Are they into the top three? So again, there’s different ways you can report next to that. And it just depends on client type, how simple. And that’s something that I’m still still experimenting with. Like what is the right way to the right way to do that because some clients they love line by line looking at every keyword and how are they performing versus where they were other ones. It’s just like we got five key words we really care about where are they in relation to what we’re doing.

Tim (18:41):
So for a client like that, there’s no point bringing them into a hundred dollars keywords or whatever number it is. Just here’s where we are on those five important keywords. This is the progress we’ve made next to them.

Robbie (18:51):
Yeah. Keeping it simple.

Tim (18:52):
Keeping keeping it, yeah. Keep it simple, weird. And then content, if that’s part of your strategy, then you wanna report on the content. So how’s that content performing? What does traffic look like? Are we getting conversions out of that content? Are we generating leads from it? And then that’s where the context of helping people understand that, you know, time to rank could be three to six months for this. So we’re gonna write this piece of content in January, but you’re probably not gonna see it servicing in a report until further down the line. Yeah. And I typically keep the focus on our top 10 pieces of content.

Tim (19:29):
Like here’s the top 10 posts that are performing and that’s gonna change as new things command and move up. This seasonality happens. But that way we’re not going through an archive of, you know, here’s how a hundred pieces of content are performing. They don’t need that level of granular detail is just, what are the big ones? Either by traffic or revenue that are, that are helping the site.

Robbie (19:50):
Yeah. And and just so you’re not getting too in the weeds, you’re focusing on like, again, what’s gonna be really making the big impact you want to be making. Yeah. And and then you said conversions and revenue. So like, again, tying it back to a really foundational business effect. Yeah.

Tim (20:04):
There’s, there has to be something because again, traffic, you said, you know, social likes don’t, you know, feed the family traffic in and of itself does not feed the family either it’s, is this traffic actually buying something or are they going into your nurture sequence?

Tim (20:19):
If it’s a B2B thing, like is that now a lead that they will potentially be something a year from now? But at least you’ve captured that. And that’s, that’s the important part. And honestly like the traffic is like, if your traffic goes down but you’re driving more revenue and more leads, then that’s totally, that’s totally fine. You still wanna bring your traffic back up. But the important metric is, is like, are we actually making money or getting people in the funnel? And that’s when it all boils down. Like that’s really anybody who’s receiving a report. Like, let’s be honest, that’s all they care about it.

Robbie (20:51):
Yes. That’s the, all the other stuff is just, that’s what’s gonna have them dancing in the street. Like Yeah. From New York, from New York to LA to Philadelphia. (singing)

Tim (21:03):
Just can’t get my

Robbie (21:05):
(singing)

Tim (21:07):
Not enough to join you Robbie. But yeah, like, you know, they don’t care where the keyword is, it’s just reving up or down. Yeah, yeah. You know, but the rest is the window dressing. It’s, you know, putting, putting a dress on it and making it look pretty and giving them some context behind it. But those are when you distill everything down in marketing, like that’s ultimately what most people care about. If they’re a business that is for profit, it’s are we making money from our efforts or are we not making money? Or do we look better than we did last year? If not, what is the reason that we don’t? And being able to clear detail that that’s, that’s the big goal. But you’re using some of these metrics to help convey what’s going on. So again, we’ve got your traffic, keywords, your content, and then the other thing that I would just kind of throw in there for some organizations, if they’re active in link building or off page seo, then, you know, where did we get mentioned this month?

Tim (22:05):
Did it move the number of links up? Did our domain authority go up? There might be a metric like that that they’re trying to track, but again, not all organizations are gonna be actively tracking something like that. But if their goal is like, we want to be seen, you know, for this keyword on as many results possible on page one, what does our off page strategy look like to get into all of those results? So those are the big things that, that I would track next to. And it’s, it’s still always a work in progress as to like how to, how to distill and simplify more and then more recently how to fit that within the internal organization’s current reporting structure to where then it just becomes really easy and logical for them to understand.

Robbie (22:48):
Yeah. In transla Yeah. In a, in a language they’re gonna understand is always super important.

Tim (22:52):
What about the flip side? What about email?

Robbie (22:54):
Um so we really focus and try to get really like brutally focused on a few different things. And it sounds really crazy. And again, we, we know that email has so many different things we could look at. We really don’t focus on a lot of things that people tend to focus on. Like obvious things like open and click, like open send clicks are great directional insights and indicators that we’re doing a good job of driving, getting, driving anticipation, driving action to the site. But we want to be looking at, hey, how is our revenue? How is our, what does our revenue look like relative to our automations? How, how well are our campaigns driving revenue also? And then what does that revenue pie look like in terms of like holistic email mm-hmm. . And that’s getting really serious about those is gonna give us a way of understanding, hey, how are these performing in a long-term window?

Robbie (23:46):
How are, how effective are we at actually driving a business outcome? And then once we can get moved from there, we can get a little bit more granular into like, how much revenue are we making from each automation month over month. Part of that is we have a, we have a indicator if something does change, then we see a, a automation fall off in terms of revenue or fall off in terms of conversions. We know, hey, internally there may be something that may not be firing properly and that’s a red flag indicator that we need to take a look at something. But those are really great ways for us to see, hey, how are we moving the needle incrementally? How are we looking at growing consistently? And then also kind of like where are we finding some wins and where are we seeing some big movement for the work we’re doing?

Robbie (24:32):
Because at the end of the day, we want to be driving those numbers and high level.

Tim (24:36):
And do you also like the, the year over year, month over month? Is that as important an email or?

Robbie (24:41):
So I think it’s just as important, like, because there’s so much seasonality to so many of those, so many things, giving that context is really helpful. Mm-Hmm. . So also too, like if there was a, a sale event or a promotion mm-hmm. The year before and we’re not having it again this year, we may not have that big pop in revenue, but we want to be giving context to, hey, we have a more consistent slow burn that’s actually driving more really strong outcomes, but we may not have that same pop in revenue we had. Mm-Hmm. again, we can have some easy wins and email generally starts generating revenue pretty quickly because we’re really trying to reengage a specific audience so we can drive revenue fast, like a little bit luxury of, it goes a little bit faster than seo, but we don’t want to be focusing too much on like these bright shiny promotions.

Robbie (25:30):
How well are we doing with our core strategy and con continually growing so we’re not just beholden to promotions events and like things that are not as replicable mm-hmm. in, in our system. We also really focus a lot on number of, number of purchases from repeat customers and then like revenue from repeat customers, AOV for repeat customers, and then like basically the number of, number of orders from repeat customers just because that’s a really great directional indicator that we’re, we’re doing a good job in kind of getting people to that end goal, which is again, lifetime value. So we’re really focusing a lot on that. Mm-Hmm. . And in some cases, depending on the client, we may, hey, if they’ve got a subscription based product, we may be incorporating how many new subscribers get to join that month? Or how many, how many subscribers are we driving?

Robbie (26:21):
Because we know the lifetime value of an average subscriber is like upwards of like, like $400. So again, that’s gonna be a really strong indicator we’re gonna be able to monetize this person.

Tim (26:31):
So where do you like for, for seo? Like the point of truth that I go to for reporting is typically into Google Analytics, into Search Console and then of course into the CMS for, you know, figures and seeing like how the revenue show up in Shopify, you know, stacks up. Like where do you go for like your, your point of truth? Like is there a tool that you found that just makes it easier or?

Robbie (26:58):
So again, we use with like e-commerce clients, we use Klaviyo a lot mm-hmm. . And that’s gonna give a good directional indicator for where we’re at. We wanna make sure the conversion metrics are actually set up properly in there. So not giving too much, not giving too little attribution but basically like how well are we doing in there? And then also that north star of Shopify really helps us understand, hey, how well are we driving repeat customers? How well is this impacting those, that number of total repeat customers? And then we can really match that in understanding how well are we driving those repeat customers back into the store, how well are we getting them to convert second, third, fourth, and fifth time mm-hmm. . And we typically see that average order value go up for second time purchasers and beyond. And that’s where we know, hey, if we’re, if we’re again, getting these to perform at a high enough level, those are gonna be more and more profitable over time. So that’s where we’re really focusing on, again, driving that, that repeat business. Yeah. And, and kind of again, taking letting SEO pass off the baton to email where we’re working to retain that customer for a long window of time afterwards.

Tim (28:03):
Yeah. And I was gonna say, like there’s, as you talk about that handoff, there’s the context that all of those, like we talked about, like things that could have influenced, but let’s say you’re an email marketer and you know, your client decides to turn off like paid or scale back on seo. Yeah. It, it then that’s something that, you know, review to be able to report on. Like all of a sudden your number of new signups is, is slowing down.

Robbie (28:26):
And, and so we see that as kind of like a red flag indicator and honestly have seen that trend and pattern in with different clients in different ways even in the last year. Mm-Hmm. , like a lot of people have been struggling to get their Pmax ads accounts mm-hmm. or ad units firing properly. Like nobody’s been able to really master Pmax as well as some others mm-hmm. .

Robbie (28:45):
So we see that as like kind of a leading indicator of okay, our primary like first purchase automations are, are, are slowing down. We don’t see as much traction in our, in our initial purchase automations. We still see traction in our secondary purchase automations. We soon will probably see some, a little bit of slowing in our secondary purchase automations because if we don’t have a funnel bringing new traffic in mm-hmm. , we can we can monetize that existing audience to a certain extent, but it’s not a, it’s not a like basically a, a never ending mm-hmm. , it’s not a never ending source of revenue. So again, we can only drive so much revenue.

Tim (29:24):
If the front of the funnel dries up, then it’s, it’s gonna eventually, you know Yeah, we will. It’s gonna erode over time.

Robbie (29:29):
Yeah. We will not be dancing in the street , there will not be music, sweet music.

Tim (29:34):
The music is gone, the dancing is over.

Robbie (29:36):
Dancing is over. Go music, go to bed.

Tim (29:39):
And then for B2B, like what differences would you have? I have a client at the moment and I’ve heard them talking over like wanting to get to the level of like tracking how many people are joining emails using business accounts versus like a free account. So like a free Gmail. I don’t even, I’m not in the weeds of email. Is that something that’s even worth knowing or is that one of those things where it’s like a business person can be using.

Robbie (30:03):
So, so hon hon honestly we do, we we look at that again for more like, from even just understanding, like separating like a, a experience basically those are gonna be things we’re gonna be looking at a, as part of that customer experience mm-hmm. less, less reporting on like how well we’re like actually getting those business emails to sign up.

Robbie (30:26):
But we want to be thinking about that in terms of like the customer experience. So like if we’re not collecting data directly inside of the inside of our flows and automations, how well can we segment that based on, on insights we’re getting from that email? Which like the email as itself is actually kind of powerful. So like if it’s a coffee client mm-hmm. like do they have coffee in their email? So, or in their like in their url. So like we can separate those.

Tim (30:53):
Johnandjohn’s coffee.com.

Robbie (30:54):
So, so we can separate those and we, we can take them through a different experience because we know they’re likely incorporated with a cafe so they’re likely going to need something completely different than somebody who’s working in an office. Mm-Hmm. . So we can separate like a Gmail from another url and that gives us a way of just like harnessing that experience at a lot higher level. But also we can get really serious about like, again, that audience building, that’s all one important step. And the more we can test and experiment with the audience building side of things, we do work to kind of test and optimize our forms so we can make sure, hey, if we can move it from the like 2% of people converting on a form to 3% of people converting on a form that’s a big jump. Mm-Hmm. . And we use those forms at different pages, at different parts of the customer journey. If they’ve purchased twice, we wanna get ’em onto a VIP list, we wanna collect more data. All of those things are gonna be.

Tim (31:46):
I’m special .

Robbie (31:47):
Yeah. We wanna make them feel warm and fuzzy. We want them dancing in the street. I mean we want, we want the customers dancing in the street cuz then that’s again, they’re gonna be happy. So that’s where we work to kind of like go through a process of iteration and experimentation and especially where they may not have a ton of traffic. It takes a little bit longer in some cases, but we can get those forms really performing at a high enough level where we’re able to collect the data we want to, we’re able to again, create the experience that we want them to have and where we’re using that form data to inform what messaging they’re gonna receive afterwards. So yeah, that really does create a really solid experience at the gate and that’s one of the things we’re looking to do all the time.

Tim (32:27):
Yeah. And then as you’re talking about that, another thought that came to mind was like B2B an influencing factor for like how well you can report and what you’re reporting is obviously what assets do you have to, to use and flows afterwards. Like if you, if you don’t have like great case studies or white papers or things to, you know, nurture somebody over a long period of time, it’s very different than e-commerce where you could be sending, you know, sales products, guides on how to use the product. All of a sudden it’s like we need to keep Bob top of mind for the next year while he thinks over this journey. But he does not care about the same things as like an e-commerce customer. Like he’s looking for more technical, deeper insights how this is going to improve X or generate X for his business.

Robbie (33:16):
Yeah. And that, but honestly in some cases, like that’s where like the magic can happen in B2B because if you’re investing in content, like that’s where like real magic happens because again, there’s no Netflix for plumbers, but if you have like content.

Tim (33:27):
I’m currently working on that .

Robbie (33:29):
It’s gonna be great plumber, plum fi plumfix .

Tim (33:33):
Plumtube.

Robbie (33:35):
Plumtube that sounds rather dirty but or could sound dirty. Let’s, but.

Tim (33:42):
Once you put that wording after, then anything does.

Robbie (33:45):
Yeah. Yeah. It just sounds, sounds, sounds like it could be rough. I don’t want to, I don’t wanna get too deep into the comment section of anything. Sounds like that . But yeah, that’s, that’s a space where it, you really want supplementary content and that’s where like we always talk about like, yes, email pl like SEO plus email equal is like a one plus one equals four relationship because you use that content through your email and that’s gonna be able to engage, inform, and, and empower that audience mm-hmm. and it’s gonna give you an excuse or a reason to continue to communicate with that person. So it becomes a really important topic where you’re understanding how to, how to nurture and keep them coming down your funnel because you don’t want them just only receiving sporadic communications.

Robbie (34:31):
Yeah. You want them to expect good communication and that’s where the automations play a large role. The commu consistency plays a large role and all of those things really play together well.

Tim (34:40):
And then you report on, on that because you mentioned, you know, automations, flows, campaigns, so that’s something we’re, you know, how are we doing in those? So.

Robbie (34:48):
And and yeah, you’re able to drive incremental more revenue from, from those when they’re, if you’re incorporating content in into automations, those may be making more money every month. That’s compounding. So it works. Again, dancing in the street.

Tim (35:03):
Yeah. All right. So to get people dancing in the street, what are the three Yeah. Key takeaways for reporting?

Robbie (35:09):
And in full transparency, guys, we didn’t go over these before we, we started recording this. We normally do, but we didn’t do this today, so this is gonna be a little bit shooting from the hip. We’re gonna be cowboys.

Tim (35:19):
Key takeaway number one, dance in the street.

Robbie (35:22):
Key takeaway number one, you make them dance. Like it doesn’t matter what you gotta play, you got like if it’s gotta be dancing in the street or Abba, whatever, if they’re Swedish maybe. But basically thinking what is the, what are the North star metrics to be focusing on, on early? I think for anybody, what is your North star? And really focusing on that. What is the business outcome that that business wants to drive? And how do I, how do I understand, how am I gonna move that directionally with what I’m doing? So if you can really start there, that’s gonna be a really great place to give you a clear path and a clear goal for success.

Tim (35:55):
I like that. I would say number two, it’s gonna be self-explanatory. If you have to handhold somebody every time you give them a report and explain, then it’s too complicated or you’re not hitting the things that they need to see. So keep it simple. Keep it tight. Report on what they want to know.

Robbie (36:13):
This is not the UN you do not need, you should not need a translator for all the conversations or all the interactions that have. Make it easy. And then number three, make it consistent. So the consistency is really important. And also measuring some of those same numbers consistently. Mm-Hmm. . So it’s not like, again, you’re not gonna get, you’re gonna give an apples to apples comparison month overmonth as opposed to a apple to bananas, to pears, to donuts.

Tim (36:38):
It keeps ’em on their toes. I found it’s like this month we’re going to report on these unnecessary metrics and next month stay tuned for more unnecessary metrics.

Robbie (36:45):
This month, month one bananas, month two, milkshakes, .

Tim (36:50):
Month three, banana milkshakes.

Robbie (36:52):
Banana milkshakes, number four, monster trucks, . Yeah. Just completely, completely nonsensical. But yes, making sure that you go back to making sure that they’re consistent. That’s gonna make for consistency in the reporting and stability in that program.

Tim (37:07):
Yeah. All right. Well I know I personally have work that I need to continue to bring to this. This is something that I feel is always like a refining, fine tuning, making better and based on feedback loops as you interact with clients and see how they consume the reports and understand them. It just helps us to be better marketers. But these things, I think like this is the foundation and if you do it well, then you’ve got something that’s, you know, replicable for, for all clients. You just have to modify the numbers and the metrics and what we’re looking at for that specific one.

Robbie (37:42):
Yeah. So hopefully everybody got some good stuff out of this. If you guys have questions, let us know. We’re always, again, we kind of nerd out on this stuff or it seems like we do, but yeah, we’re always looking for more questions. We’d love, again, hearing back from you. If, is it good? Was it bad? Is my falsetto on key?

Tim (38:00):
If you wanna see Robbie dancing in the street, leave a comment requesting that he do video.

Robbie (38:04):
And is, is this a karaoke need for you guys? We can make that happen. We want to, we want to, we want to give our best for our audience. But again, this is Tim and Robbie with Content Community Commerce podcast. Hopefully you guys had a great time. Got some good insights and we’ll, we’ll see you around next time.

Tim (38:20):
Next time.

Robbie (38:20):
Bye-Bye.

[Outro]