Episode 11: How A Call-to-Action Makes the Whole Funnel Work

CTAs

This is part of a series on Elements of Every Funnel. Fifty years ago, Author and Ad Age writer Bob Stone gave a framework for direct marketing funnels: list, offer, creative. Today, we will focus on the ‘Offer,’ otherwise known as the call-to-action.

In this episode, we look at both sides of website interaction. We discuss how visitors progress through a website and how marketers make conversion offers for visitors to complete. Marketers make a critical choice when deciding the conversion actions they use, so we go through the most common call-to-action offers used on leading-edge websites. Listen in for answers to these topics:

  • Why do we have conversions?
  • How to optimize your conversion offers
  • How to choose what call-to-action to put on your webpage
  • How to effectively use chatbots, contact form, call buttons, questionnaires, etc

Ideas and Products mentioned in the episode:

Chat tools

Botacademy

Drift

PureChat

Zendesk

Intercom

Snapengage

Olark

People mentioned in the episode:

Karl Blanks and Ben Jesson, author  “Making Websites Win”

Chris Goward, author “You Should Test That

Brad Geddes, author “Advanced Google AdWords”

Tim Ash, author “Landing Page Optimization”

Sangram Vajre, Flip the Funnel

Reboot:

Enjoy this list of Conversions/Calls-to-Action from “You Should Test That” (reprinted with permission)

Lead-Generation Goals

If lead generation is your overall purpose, the goals might include any of the following specific user actions:

  • Request a quote
  • Create an online quote
  • Request an in-person demo
  • View an overview video
  • Request a phone call
  • Take a quiz or poll
  • Request a situation analysis
  • in a contest
  • Request market information
  • Fill out a needs-analysis
  • Book a meeting
  • questionnaire
  • Use a needs-analysis wizard
  • Ask a question
  • Use an interactive savings or RO
  • Complete a contact form inquiry
  • calculator
  • Download software
  • Click to call
  • Sign up for trial offer
  • Click to chat
  • Request a printed brochure
  • Make a phone call
  • Request a catalogue
  • Register for a webinar
  • Download an online brochure
  • Register for a conference
  • Download a whitepaper
  • Sign up for a newsletter
  • Download an ebook
  • Sign up for a blog subscription
  • Download a worksheet
  • Sign up for an RSS feed Subscription
  • Download a case study

E-Commerce Goals

For e-commerce, your goals might be based on any of these common metrics:

  • e-commerce purchase conversion rate
  • Average order value
  • Return on ad spend
  • Revenue per visitor

Or they might include any of the following user actions:

  • Sign up for an RSS feed
  • Request a catalog
  • Subscription
  • Ask a question
  • Add to cart
  • Click to cali
  • Save to a wish list
  • Click to chat
  • Sign up for auto-reordering
  • Sign up for a newsletter
  • Add accessories (up-sell)
  • Sign up for a blog subscription

Affiliate Marketing Goals

For affiliate marketing, your goals might include a specific revenue-per-visitor value, along with any of the following actions:

  • Click through to an affiliate site
  • Sign up for a newsletter
  • Sign up for a blog subscription
  • Fill out a needs-analysis questionnaire
  • Sign up for an RSS feed subscription
  • Use a needs-analysis wizard
  • Find a service provider
  • Use an interactive savings or ROI calculator
  • Find savings in your area
  • Create an online quote

Subscription Goals

Subscription goals might include any of the following actions and metrics:

  • Sign up for a free trial subscription
  • Upgrade subscription
  • Paid subscription signups
  • Average subscription signup value

There are many more goals you can track, depending on your business model. For each test, choose the one that drives the most revenue. Once you have identified the goals for your test, you’ll be ready to set up your conversion-optimization experiment and get testing.

Episode 10: How a Tracking Infrastructure Makes the Whole Funnel Work

tracking infrastructure

This is part of a series on Elements of Every Funnel. Today’s focus is the infrastructure that needs to be in place to know everything about people’s interactions with your website.

This episode covers what needs to be in place to know everything about people’s interactions with your website.

Listen in for answers to these topics:

  • What are the main pieces of a funnel infrastructure
  • What are the skills you need to set up and maintain your infrastructure?plinko
  • How to track what’s happening in your site through Google Analytics, everything from a video view to use of a chatbot
  • Which tools manage the tags behind these conversions
  • What you need to run A/B testing

You’ll also hear how Mother Hubbard, Gas Tanks and the game of Plinko all relate to tracking on your website.

Ideas and Products mentioned in episode:

Installing the Google Sheet add-on

Google Analytics

Search Console

Google’s Campaign URL Builder

Uptime Robot

VisualPing

Google Tag Manager

Google Optimize

HubSpot

Eloqua

Marketo

Pardot

Google Analytics Suite

People mentioned in episode:

Sayf Sharif

Sangram Vajre

Reboot:

Please go see the Google Marketing Platform by going into https://analytics.google.com and clicking the 2 by 2 grid icon shown below.

Episode 9: How Dashboards Make the Whole Funnel Work

dashboards

This is the first of a series on Elements of Every Funnel. The graphic here shows how they all work together to generate a conversion.

Though it’s not an outwardly facing element, something that’s always part of the mix is the management metrics (top-right). Today’s episode focuses on how to make the dashboards that contain those metrics work for you.

Here is the 7-step process described for building a marketing dashboard:

  • Interview stakeholders
  • Review Technology
  • Select KPIs
  • Group requirements
  • Select Charts
  • Prototyping/Wireframing
  • Launch

Ideas and Products mentioned in episode:

Entity relationship Model (ERM)

Database Schema

Extract Transform Load (ETL)

Supermetrics

Domo

Tableau

Klipfolio

Geckoboard

Google Data Studio

People mentioned in episode:

Special thanks to Doug McCaffrey who collaborated on this dashboarding initiative with me.

Ben Yoskovitz

Alistair Croll

James Hebdon

Robert Rose

Matt Heinz

Christopher Berry

Reboot:

Look at Nicholas Kelly’s site, Nicksight.com for ideas and products related to dashboard-making

Episode 8: Top Paid Search Updates of 2018

paid search updates 2018 recap

This episode looks at 2018’s Top Changes in Paid Search Marketing. We have three PPC Professionals who reviewed the long list of features that PPC platforms made in 2018 and cut it down to a handful that are having the largest impact on B2B companies. Hear what we think are the best and worst changes made this past year, and what advertisers should to in reaction to them.

2018 Top Paid Search panel

Special thanks to two people who know their way around all the major PPC platforms, Pierre Levasseur and Olga Gladycheva, for joining as guest panelists in this episode. The updates covered include:

  • Google Analytics Audience Report
  • Bing Native Intent Ads
  • Responsive Search Ads
  • Smart bidding Display campaigns
  • Click to Message Email Forwarding
  • Bing’s new LinkedIn targeting abilities through Microsoft Audiences
  • Google Ads Removal of some Budget Limits
  • Custom Intent Audiences for Display/Retargeting
  • New Script GTAG.JS in Response to Browsers dropping cookies
  • Google Ads Suggested Ad copy
  • Smart display campaigns
  • Increased targeting of mobile traffic on display campaigns

Episode 7: Integrating CRM and Marketing Automation into your Funnel, with Ed Goffin

Ed Goffin of Pleaora Technologies talks about CRM and Marketing Automation

In this episode, we hear from a company that’s successfully using two enterprise applications to run sophisticated digital marketing programs.

Shownotes:

Ed Goffin works at Pleora Technologies and can be reached at ed.goffin@pleora.com

They use Salesforce as their CRM and Pardot for Marketing Automation.