 Email marketers, when did you last spend some good quality time with your Web analytics data? If your answer isn't "just a few minutes ago" or "yesterday", you're missing out. If you're serious about improving your email marketing results, there's a goldmine of information waiting for you in your Web analytics program - and it's called behavioral data. Introducing these two words into your email marketing planning and implementation will help you more effectively target (and convert!) email subscribers. Here's what you need to know.
For many email marketers, the quest to improve email marketing results is focused solely on email elements like subject lines, opt-in lists and deliverability rates. But focusing only on email elements ignores the valuable information that Web analytics programs put at your fingertips.
More than just hits and bounce rates, Web analytics can provide you with insights about user behavior that you just aren't able to get from a user survey or a landing page contact form. Savvy marketers understand how effective Web analytics data can help create meaningful email list segments that enhance your ability to put relevant, valuable offers in front of your customers.
Declared versus Behavioral Data
When it comes to marketing, there are three main types of data:
1. Self-reported (declared data)
2. Previous transactions/conversions (past purchase data)
3. Actual user actions captured by Web analytics tools (behavioral data)
I’ve written recently about the way that past purchase data can be effectively used to improve relevance (Read: Using Past Purchase Data in Email Marketing is like Shelling Peas), so let's take a closer look at declared versus behavioral data and talk about how they can be used to create positive email marketing outcomes.
Declared Data Is What the Customer Tells You
At its essence, declared data is simply anything that a customer or prospect tells you about themselves. In most cases, it starts with just a name and an email address as they're filling in a landing page form for a free newsletter or coupon code. But as you continue to build the relationship and show value, you can (and should) encourage customers to share more information with you.
For example, imagine that you run an online store that sells DVDs. As you gain your subscribers' trust and the relationship moves forward, the types of information that customers might provide to you could include:
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Basic info: Their name, email address
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Advanced personal info: Their physical address, phone number, birth date, information about their children/other family members
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Preferences and opinions: The movie genres they most enjoy, their favorite directors, their preferred format (HD-DVD v. Blu-Ray)
The Pitfalls of Declared Data: Subjectivity & Timeliness
While declared data is an important part of any subscriber data set, be aware that it is highly subjective. Human beings are notoriously bad at describing themselves clearly and honestly. As a result, declared data sets are often not the most accurate representation of your subscribers. After all, who hasn't put in a fake email address when trying out a potentially “too good to be true” offer with a new company? And did Barack Obama really sign up for your email marketing list five separate times?
The second caution is around timeliness: even if the declared data was complete, honest and accurate, much of it may be true only at the moment it was offered. Tastes change, and so do circumstances.
Don't get me wrong: declared data is valuable, but it is only one part of the picture. What your users are doing is even more important, because it provides evidence of the actions that people take which lead to conversions and revenue for your business - and in real time.
Behavioral Data is What the Customer Shows You
Web analytics programs gather data about the actions visitors take on your website. This behavioral data is NOT subjective - the visitor either went to the FAQs page or did not; and either searched for a Disney movie or The Shining. Because it is based on the undeniable facts that Web analytics provide, it isn't subject to what the person wants you to think (that their phone number is 555-5555 because they'd rather you not call them), or even what they may wish was true (that they like highly intellectual art films rather than trashy chick flicks). Behavioral data simply shows you what actions took place.
With behavioral data, your visitors' actions speak louder and truer than any customer survey or landing page ever could. By collecting and interpreting behavioral data, you'll be able to create relevant email offers that appeal to what customers have proven they are interested in. Both you and your customers will benefit.
Interaction + Behavior = Better Segments and Better Results
Using your Web analytics program to integrate your website's transaction and interaction data with your user behavior data will allow you to measurably boost the results of your email marketing program. How? By being able to more effectively create email list segments based on user behavior.
Think about it like this: the better you are at mapping your offers to your subscribers, the more relevant your email communications will be and the more likely they will be to take the desired action - and to stay tuned to what you say next time.
Behavior-based segmentation also serves another valuable purpose: pinpointing those email subscribers who are your most profitable. By identifying these subscribers and spending time to better understand their needs and preferences, you'll be better able to focus your limited marketing time (and budget) on customer groups who are the most likely to respond positively to your efforts.
Email List Segmentation can be Self-Refining
The beauty of segmentation is that, once it's put into place, it essentially keeps going and refining itself. As subscribers continue to interact with your email marketing and your site, more Web analytics and transactional data is generated, meaning that additional segmentation and analysis can be performed.
With every email you send and every interaction subscribers have with your site, your Web analytics data will help to refine an initial subscriber group into even smaller, more highly targeted segments. And based on these targeted segments, you can take action to improve your email marketing results and your profit margins.
To go back to our earlier example, imagine for a moment that your online DVD store has developed an email segment of 1,500 subscribers who regularly purchase children's movies. Let's explore how behavioral data can help you create smaller, more targeted segments, and discuss what action you might take as a result:
*Your Action: Why not reward some of your best customers with special perks that encourage them to order more often? An email offer like “Every 10th Movie is on Us!” gives these high value customers an extra benefit for continuing to shop with you, and may help push this group's buying frequency up a notch.
*Your Action: Consider developing an email campaign that includes a PBS package offer, bundling a variety of PBS children's programs in one pack. By including a few of the less well-known PBS titles with some of the more popular programs, you'll be able to move inventory that may have otherwise been gathering dust and will be introducing your customers to additional programs they may enjoy.
*Your Action: Entice these holiday gift shoppers to purchase movies for other special occasions like birthdays, Easter and even summer break by crafting email offers that remind them of the joys of gift-giving outside of Christmas and Hanukkah.
The examples above are just a small sampling of the kinds of segments you'd be able to create. It's easy to see how a larger email list can quickly be refined and segmented into even more targeted groups as you dig deeper into the behavioral data your Web analytics can provide.
The Possibilities are Endless
When it comes to improving your email marketing results, behavioral data provides a wealth of information that allows you to reach new levels of customer targeting. Instead of making all of your email campaign decisions based on subjective declared information, combine it with the insights gleaned from Web analytics behavioral data. By doing so, you can increase your email marketing ROI and revenue while simultaneously better serving your customers by providing them with offers that better meet their needs - a win-win all around!
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About the Author
Mike Weston is a senior vice president at Lyris, and General Manager for the EMEA organisation. He's a leading figure and a regular speaker on the London digital marketing scene, with a particular focus on customer communication tools including email marketing and social media marketing.
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