Unveiling the Hidden Marketing Treasure Trove: The Power of Marketing Analytics
Are you using any marketing analytics to guide your marketing efforts? I’ve looked at enough campaigns and analytics accounts to confirm that the answer is usually NO. 📊
Careful business owners create business plans before starting a business. Tech companies, in particular, undergo a very rigorous process because they want to pitch to potential investors.
The business plan aims to analyze the market and competitors and justify starting the business.
When done correctly, the business plan will justify starting and confirm the need to enter a particular market or launch a specific product/service.
The odd part is that when a business is up and running, its business plan and any marketing data it collects are forgotten.
The Marketing Data Plaguing A Men's Lifestyle Brand
For example, I once worked with a men’s lifestyle brand that sold men’s apparel.
All the content they created, including their ads, was geared towards men.
Pretty straightforward, right? Build a men’s clothing brand, sell, and speak to men. Easy. Wrong!
Why am I bothering to tell this story? Because they were sitting on a huge opportunity that no one bothered to explore. Even their past agency had overlooked the data I am about to share.
For months, they neglected to look at their marketing analytic tools and marketing data to see which audiences interacted with their content and, most importantly, who was buying their products.
As a savvy marketer who prides himself on looking at data, what did I uncover before one of our meetings?
The fact that they were selling to the wrong audience.
In about 20 minutes, I uncovered that while the social media content they created was intended for men, women were their most engaged social audience.
Their audience was split closer to 60/40 (women/men). No one on their team was aware of this. 👀
Even crazier, women purchased more products in the last two quarters than men, and the average order value was also higher.
Imagine being a men’s lifestyle brand creating ads and content for men, only to discover that women are buying your products.
How was this possible? Some of the items they sold included comfortable clothes like hoodies and sweatpants.
They didn’t realize women like wearing comfortable clothes, too.
They also didn’t realize that men hate shopping for clothes, and often, the women in their lives shop on their behalf.
The ladies want their men to look good, and in many cases, they want to steal their partner’s clothes. 🤣
I can’t tell you how often I want to grab a light jacket or sweatshirt from my closet, only to find my wife already wearing it.
Testing My Hypothesis
So, what did we do with this data? I told them we had to test two hypotheses.
- Are women buying the clothes for themselves?
- Do they buy clothes for their husbands/boyfriends?
We then had to test our hypothesis by running two campaigns targeting women to get a clear understanding.
We took it further and created ad copy that resonated with women. Our golden moment was the usage of the simple phrase, “the boyfriend hoodie.” I can’t share the rest of the ad copy, but this simple phrase was solely responsible for one of the most viral campaigns I’ve built.
I know what you’re thinking: “I’ve seen that ad copy before.” Yes, this copy is not original, but it worked well back then. That ad copy has become so popular that if you search the phrase “the boyfriend hoodie,” many brands and content creators are discussing this topic even today.
Again, let me state that I am not responsible for developing the boyfriend hoodie idea. I am only responsible for taking the trending idea at the time and using it to build a viral campaign for my client, which I built using their unique customer data.
Also, the image below is not the exact version of the ad we ran. I created this image as an example of one of the images used to test this hypothesis.
Now, how did the business do, and which hypothesis was true?
Proving My Hypothesis
Drumroll, please… 🥁 the second hypothesis. The first hypothesis did lead to sales and confirmed some of our initial thoughts, but the second hypothesis won by a landslide. Without a doubt, we concluded that women were buying clothes on behalf of their boyfriends and husbands.
How were we so sure? I had the client create a short social quiz asking specific questions related to our hypothesis. If people completed the survey (let’s be honest, when women completed it), they were given a discount code for answering the short survey.
The social quiz proved beneficial, so I had them create an email campaign asking the same questions and offering a similar discount code.
These two additional steps made the data irrefutable. Even though their analytics and email data already confirmed women were engaging with the email and social campaigns, their answers confirmed any potential bias created by poor tracking or platform algorithms.
Analyzing Vital KPIs (ROI)
Unfortunately, for proprietary reasons, I don’t have screenshots of their analytics accounts and campaigns. Still, I can share some general statistics to illustrate the importance of paying close attention to your marketing analytics and analytics tools.
The most compelling data that proved my theory was correct was their sales. While I monitored vanity metrics for this experiment, the money generated by the experiment justified the need to constantly test new opportunities and, in their case, advertise more often to women.
They generated more sales in roughly 10 days than the prior month. You can argue all you want about the benefits of one KPI over another, but ultimately, it all comes down to how much money they made.
What about the vanity metrics like engagement, CPAs, etc.?
Both campaigns averaged 70%- 80% higher engagement rates than their other content and campaigns. The engagement data was not surprising because we knew women were more engaged on social media, and since we shifted our strategy to focus exclusively on them, engagement rates shot through the roof.
What about CPAs? Like their engagement rates, CPAs were nearly 60% lower than the other campaigns because the audience was very targeted and engaged.
The campaigns were also very successful because social media has a viral component that is not found in any other traffic source. After analyzing more granular data, we uncovered that women were sharing the ads with their friends, who would then share them with other friends.
The shareable nature allowed us to capitalize on free traffic, increased engagement rates, and social proof because women were leaving comments and sharing with other women, thus giving the brand more credibility.
What was their ROI for this campaign? The month before our experiment, ROI (not to be confused with ROAS) was around 300%. When we ran the experiment in month two, their ROI doubled, putting them at a little over 600%. The massive ROI was only from 10 days of advertising in month two.
We continued running the campaign throughout the rest of the month. After stabilizing, it concluded the month with an ROI of over 800%.
The client and I were ecstatic with these results, reaffirming the importance of closely monitoring your marketing analytics tools to gather customer information.
Understanding Potential What-Ifs
Keep in mind that this was a short-term strategy. We tested this strategy a few other times, and the campaigns did well, but they didn’t achieve the monumental success of the first experiment.
Why did that occur? It was likely because women had gotten accustomed to the offer, and more and more brands were trying to leverage “the boyfriend hoodie” approach, making this offer less original.
There was also a seasonal component to this campaign. These campaigns ran through early spring when it’s still chilly in many parts of the US, making hoodies and sweatpants more desirable.
While these sound like what-ifs, it’s essential to constantly identify new hypotheses to understand trends or seasonality shifts better.
The Moral Of The Story
Marketing analytics aren’t fun or sexy, but when executed intentionally, they can generate a ton of revenue with minimal effort.
The story’s moral is to review the data you’re collecting before launching new campaigns, testing new audiences, or marketing platforms.
The marketing data you’ve collected should help you make more informed decisions about your audience and whether or not you should explore advertising to different audiences.
Keep in mind that my intention was never to shift away from selling men’s apparel for this brand. They were a men’s lifestyle brand, after all.
Their largest audience and customer base were men, which wasn’t going to change, and I wasn’t suggesting they rebrand.
Their data, however, supported the idea that women were inclined to purchase their products, which presented a unique opportunity.
It’s important to monitor your marketing data carefully because people’s interests are constantly changing, which could allow you to take advantage of market changes.
Do you want to start utilizing marketing trends & data to leverage your business? You should work with an analytics agency like KnewChoice. We would be thrilled to discuss taking a data-driven approach to your online campaigns with you. Give us a call or fill out a form via our Contact Us page to get started.
Leave A Comment