Performance Marketing Analytics and Reporting Dashboards

Project Overview

In the competitive financial services sector, our client, a leading US financial institution, constantly strives for marketing excellence. A cornerstone of this pursuit has been achieving granular-level analytics reporting across all digital marketing efforts, combining data from various marketing platforms with CRM/1P lead data. The goal was clear: to leverage the most detailed reporting possible to inform strategic decisions, optimize marketing performance, and increase ROI.

Problem Statement

Our marketing and analytics team thrives on data. The true test came in harmonizing and analyzing vast data sets collected via partner API integrations from all managed marketing platforms and the lead information gathered into our CRM through form flows and tracking UTMs. The goal was to achieve the most detailed reporting possible, including campaign, ad group, ad, keyword, creative, copy, publisher performance, time of day, day of the week, and geographic locations. The challenge was in cleansing and matching these two data facets to unlock actionable insights for marketing optimization.

Strategy

Our strategy is centered on merging marketing cost data with lead origins to illuminate the marketing funnel from the first impression to lead conversion. This detailed process aimed to:

• Identify the most effective ads, keywords, copies, and visual variations.
• Optimize campaign timing and geographic targeting.
• Differentiate between high-performing publishers and underperforming ones.
• Inform strategic decision-making through precise analytical reports and visual dashboards.

Execution

Our comprehensive reporting creation process included:

• Data Collection: Pulling marketing platform cost data through API integrations. [link to Marketing API/cost tracking system case study]
• CRM/Database Exploration: Cleaning and preparing the lead data for analysis.
• Data Merging: Combining lead data with costs at the most granular level possible for each platform, identifying the exact elements (ad, keyword, visual, copy, publisher, etc.) associated with each lead.
• Unmatched Lead Matching: For leads not matched at the ad level, we matched them at the nearest possible granularity, ensuring comprehensive analysis.
• Impact Analysis: Conducting additional calculations to gauge effects on marketing margin ROI and other essential business metrics.
• Creating dashboards: To display and analyze the extensive data, we built custom pivot tables and dashboards for each channel, incorporating specific needs and KPIs important to the business and each channel manager.

We automated these reports in Google BigQuery, tracking metrics like CTR, CPM, CPC, CPL, CTL, MQL and SQL percentages, funnel dynamics, marketing margins, ROI, and more.

Results

This detailed approach to analytics reporting empowered us to:

• Make informed, strategic decisions through the lens of comprehensive data analysis.
• Sharpen our focus on the marketing campaign elements that demonstrated the highest effectiveness.
• Eliminate the least productive areas and campaigns across our marketing channels, streamlining our efforts for maximum impact.
• Enhance budget allocation efficiency by concentrating spending on channels and publishers that deliver results. Additionally, we optimized campaign scheduling, targeting only the most profitable days of the week and hours, a strategy that's adaptable across various marketing channels.
• Achieve significant improvements in critical metrics, including marketing margin and ROI, thanks to our commitment to data-driven optimization. Specifically, we observed an ROI increase ranging from 50% to 400%, depending on the channel.

Conclusion

Implementing detailed analytics reporting has markedly improved our client's marketing efficiency. This granular-level reporting is critical for any business aiming to refine its marketing efforts and enhance overall performance, offering a pathway to significant business growth through informed strategic adjustments.

Looking to Elevate Your Marketing with Advanced Analytics?

Aiming for a deeper comprehension of your marketing's impact and seeking strategic enhancements? Partnering with us offers a straightforward approach to turning your marketing data into practical insights, setting your business on a course for advancement.