Background
Objectives
Solution
ResultsObjective
To understand the impact of online marketing activity on offline sales.
To understand the impact of online marketing activity on offline sales.
We created an ROI measurement framework, demonstrated the value of their digital marketing efforts and improved user experience, content and creative relevance to drive response rates.
Vodafone was able to measure the value of their digital marketing efforts and shift budget spend to better performing channels confidently.
Date: 2016
The Vodafone New Zealand marketing team wanted to understand the impact online marketing activity has on offline sales. They recognised their customers spent significantly more time online than in-store or on the phone, yet Vodafone’s dominant channels were still offline based.
Specifically, Vodafone knew that it was common for customers to research phone plans online, but then go and purchase face-to-face in a store. Datalicious was engaged in helping demonstrate the value of Vodafone’s online media efforts and justify the case for marketing budget relocation.
Create a return on investment (ROI) measurement framework for online media by attributing revenue correctly across channels.
Demonstrate the real value of online marketing by including offline sales in measurement, to support an internal business case for an increased budget.
Improve user experience, content and creative relevance to drive response rates.
The project was divided up into three phases, with each stage addressing a specific objective. Solving the attribution problem for digital sales was a vital step towards resolving the online to offline challenge. The solution was to:
The first phase was to create a ROI measurement framework for online media by attributing revenue correctly across channels. Google’s Data-Driven Attribution (DDA) model featured in Google Analytics Premium was put forward as the most effective means of accurately attributing this credit.
In a last-click attribution model, 100% of the conversion credit goes to the final customer touchpoint, which means the role of digital channels that appear earlier in the conversion path are not recognised. This is particularly the case with channels whose success is better measured in impressions rather than clicks.
Through Data-Driven Attribution, Vodafone can:
To drive greater efficiencies and increase return on marketing investment, insights from DDA and DCM were automated, enabling future advertising spend to be automatically adjusted based on historical performance data.
The second phase was to demonstrate the true value of online marketing by including offline sales in measurement, to support Vodafone’s internal business case for an increased budget.
To do this, offline conversions had to be tracked back to online touch points, giving Google Analytics Premium full visibility on which sales were driven by digital activity. Templates for all welcome emails sent out to new customers post-purchase were updated to include an offline purchase parameter that segmented offline users. The new model meant the customer data from the post-purchase click-through was tied to other online identifiers, effectively stitching together an accurate online purchase path that influenced the offline sale.
In addition, standardised and correct campaign naming standards were prioritised. These naming standards are essential for consistent, accurate measurement, particularly when assigning ‘virtual’ events for offline conversions back to online touch points.
The third phase was to improve user experience, content and creative relevance to drive response rates. Cross-channel targeting was used to achieve this, by:
Also, website behavioural data from GAP was exported to Google BigQuery to combine behavioural data with transactional data from the Vodafone NZ CRM (customer relationship management). This data was then integrated with the Google BigQuery Prediction API to generate product recommendations.
The Datalicious solution demonstrated the value of digital marketing. Online marketing campaigns were found to drive 1.7 offline sales for every 1 online sale – a ROI multiplier of 2.7.
Data-Driven Attribution provided the Vodafone NZ marketing team with accurate insights into media performance and a better understanding of the conversion path. Compared to a last-click attribution model, a Data-Driven Attribution model allocates credit for a sale based on the analytically determined importance of a channel at particular points in the path to conversion. It was able to prove a significant lift in measured conversion volume for some channels. For example, display advertising received an increase in conversion credits of 253%, which brings the cost per action (CPA) for display and paid search channels to a more economical level.
DDA insights also showed that some channels are just as effective, if not more, at earlier stages of the purchase path, which would usually be penalised by a last-click model.
Based on these insights, Vodafone was able to shift budget spend to better performing channels confidently.
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