Ad spend down, conversions up (the Semrush story)

Mediocre brands are doing guesswork. Their decisions are largely based on intuition.

Top brands are getting all the value from their data, using it to fully understand consumer behavior, and making smarter, data-driven decisions. 

Olga Denisova is showing you an example of how this is put to practice at Semrush - just after growing 24% YoY in revenue last year.

We've also got you covered with the Google Analytics 4 course that will take you from beginner to proficient in 5 hours.

Keep reading to learn what's going on in the CXL community and how companies are driving 48% YoY growth with our trainings.

TODAY'S HOST

Olga Denisova, VP of Digital Marketing @ Semrush

I bet the most common 2023 marketing goal is to keep growing… and optimize your budget.

Challenge accepted. 

Here's the Semrush recipe for growing conversions and optimizing the advertising budget at the same time. 

The company has grown 24% YoY in revenue and 36% in free active customers. No bad, hah?

Here’s the how-to from us:

 
1. Say no to last-click attribution and to optimization towards it.

If you continue using last-click, your biggest budget will always go to end-of-funnel like branded paid search, where people are likely to convert without your efforts, regardless.

On the other hand, a top-of-funnel channel like display with its view-through conversion will lose its budget while contributing towards nurturing a user. 

It’s time to build multi-channel attribution. You can partner with your internal analytics team like we did - or use third-party solutions.  

Your goal here is to take into account all touches and use it for building your budget and optimization model.

2. Stop measuring marketing with marketing KPIs. 

Yes, you read it right. We don’t measure marketing with marketing KPIs like MQLs or using data from advertising platforms or Google Analytics. 

Instead, we measure our marketing by the generated revenue. 

Once you do that, your budget should be distributed proportionally to the revenue, your effectiveness should be measured by ROI. 

3. Assign a $ value for each KPI for advertising optimization.

You need to educate the advertising algorithms on how much $ value each action brings you and optimize towards it.

For example, a registration’s value can be $1, a trial = $50, a purchase = $150. 

4. Use data-driven optimization in combination with $ value.

This way you connect historical advertising data and business value. Google (and any other platform) will be able to better understand what users you need to attract.

You may test lack-click vs data-driven optimization vs data-driven + assigned values. And it’s very likely that the latter is going to drive the majority of results for you. 

5. Proceed with predictive modeling - connected to revenue. 

Partner (again) with the data analytics team to assign scoring and forecast estimated potential business value. E.g. LTV.

Analyze your existing customer base and outline key parameters that signal the likelihood of converting: geo, age, device, tools used, email type...

Then, score all incoming registrations and trials - and feed this scoring into your advertising platforms. This will help you target better and optimize accordingly. 

To sum it up, there are 3 key parts to growing your conversions - at 0 extra advertising spend:

1. Connect marketing and business data

2. Make analytics your main partner  

3. Be ready for multiple iterations 

It’s not an easy journey, but the results are totally worth it. Good luck!

Connect with Olga on LinkedIn.

From beginner to proficient in 5 hours: new Google Analytics 4 course

GA4 is packed with new capabilities that help you improve acquisition, engagement, revenue, and retention for your website.

In five hours, we’ll have you confident, capable, and armed with new insights into your business and your website. This course pays back for you real quick.

Check out the course here.

Marketing attribution: mediocre brands guess, top brands know

Olga's study is a perfect example: it’s the data-driven understanding of what works—and what doesn’t— that separates sophisticated marketers from the pack.

Mediocre brands guess: “It seems like our latest run of Facebook ads is working well.”

Top-tier brands know: “Our current Facebook ad set is driving traffic, but it’s our retargeting pixel that’s converting customers.”

Marketing attribution helps marketers assess the data behind user touchpoints and conversions to understand the impact on ROI. This guide will help you finally understand it.

Read the entire article.

Unpopular opinion: analytics aren't about looking good

Digital Analytics Marketers are the truth-tellers of any marketing team.

They understand that the point of analytics isn't to produce a report that makes you look good.

Other marketers, the PPC guys, the email guys, the CRO guys, sometimes spin out reports that try to make a bad story look good by:

• Leaving out key metrics
• Claiming causation where there's only correlation
• Choosing one of multiple data sources, based on it giving the most attractive data in support of their cause
• Altering data ranges to make a local maximum look better than it is
• Reporting on the behavior of people who are never going to buy (like reporting on all web traffic when you're a gym chain that only operates in Scandinavia)

Analytics shouldn't make you look good. They should make you learn.

Share your problem metrics upwards. Show the ones that hint at bad news, underperformance, or a disconnect between resource invested and measurable results.

That's how you learn and how you get internal challenges. That's how things get better.

Check out our Digital Analytics training.

Have your say: What matters most in e-learning?

Help us understand how people approach premium online e-learning. We want to know what is important for people, what isn't, and how much they're willing to pay to get high quality education online. 

Tell us here.

Community sneak peek

Join the 22k members of the CXL Facebook community sharing real-world tips and tricks.

This week's star question is:

"Should you use the same or different landing pages for Meta and Google ads for better tracking and optimization?"

Join the debate now.

Customer Stories: Achieving 48% YoY Growth and a 300-Strong Workforce

Cloudways, a cloud hosting provider, recently reached 48% YoY growth shortly after being acquired by DigitalOcean for $350 million.

CXL was part of the story too, influencing their content marketing efforts to reach 90,000 customers worldwide.

Read the Cloudways story here.

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