Being A Diagnostician In Paid Media

An important part of my work with clients is being able to diagnose the root cause(s) behind performance trends. This requires me to dive in deeper beyond surface level data.

For example, if performance starts trending down after a few weeks of profitable results, I often have to look beyond the initial symptoms. Ad platform metrics might indicate that we’re experiencing ad fatigue. Metrics like CTR, hook rate, and CPL may have all seen declines in performance, however, this may just be ad fatigue masquerading as audience fatigue.

I like to take my analyses a level deeper by looking at CRM data. More specifically, I look at the below data points:

• Self reported attribution sources

• MQL to SQL rate

• Win rate (total closed deals / total SQLs)

These three metrics aren’t 100% comprehensive, but they give me a much better understanding of customer behavior.

Self reported attribution (SRA) provides me with a better understanding of how leads actually discover my clients’ brands. In the audience fatigue example linked above, I found that the direct response ads we were running actually weren’t all that effective. The SRA data revealed that we were inadvertently targeting a warm audience. As a result, we shifted strategies and audience structure to better align our marketing approach with buyer expectations.

Digging into the conversion rate from MQL to SQL can provide a lot of insight into how clear a client’s messaging positions their brand in the marketplace. For one particular client, this data revealed that even though our CPL was decent, a solid portion of the leads we were driving were looking for a slightly different service. This led to some messaging updates across ad copy and the landing page which helped to improve down-funnel performance.

Lastly, analyzing win rate has illuminated when and how clients should be pitching for a sale. For example, a client may be generating qualified leads (SQLs), but these leads simply aren’t ready to purchase. This insight has resulted in multiple clients adding more than one CTA to their site. While this may break marketing “best practice” the goal is to better align interactions with prospects based on where they stand in their buyer journey. Not everyone is ready to buy just because they fill out a form. Some of these inquiries are more explorational, so it would be a waste of time to try to force a sales call on these prospects.

In the end, I like to lean on CRM data to supplement my ad platform analyses when possible. I believe that a core competency of any marketer should be thoroughly understanding customer behavior, and the CRM is a great place to uncover these insights.

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn.