Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game

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1 For: Marketing Leadership Professionals Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game by Nate Elliott, January 9, 2014 Updated: January 14, 2014 Key Takeaways Social Marketers Nearly Always Measure The Wrong Metrics Barely more than one-half of marketers who use most social tactics say they re confident they can measure the business value of those tactics. Why? They focus too much on engagement and not enough on business success -- and by cherry-picking only positive metrics, they fail to learn and improve. Measure Social Marketing s Value By Whether It Supports The Customer Life Cycle If each of your social programs is designed to serve customers at a specific stage of the life cycle, the success of each effort can be defined only by whether it guides customers to the next stage: from discovery to exploration, from exploration to purchase, and from post-purchase engagement back to discovery. Think Of Social Marketing As A Board Game Use site surveys and web analytics to measure whether social reach programs drive exploration. Use web analytics and ad tags to measure whether social depth programs drive sales. Use surveys to measure whether social relationship programs drive discovery. Finally, use attribution tools and marketing mix models to tell your CEO if you won the game. Forrester Research, Inc., 60 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, MA USA Tel: Fax:

2 January 9, 2014 Updated: January 14, 2014 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game Performance Management: The Social Marketing Playbook by Nate Elliott with Melissa Parrish, Christine Spivey Overby, Jennifer Wise, and Sarah Takvorian Why Read This Report Measuring social marketing is hard. But too often, the solutions that marketers use such as focusing only on engagement, cherry-picking only the best-looking numbers, or relying on vendors blended single metrics harm their understanding of performance rather than helping it. To measure the success of social marketing, you need to think of your customers journey as a board game like Monopoly. Then follow three simple steps: 1) Identify which stage of the customer life cycle your social marketing program is designed to serve; 2) measure whether your social marketing efforts have moved your customers to the next stage of the life cycle; and 3) count how many times your customers pass Go so your company can collect the proverbial $200. If you keep your customers moving around the board, eventually you ll win the game. (This report serves as an update to the report of the same title, originally issued to clients on November 21, 2012.) Table Of Contents 2 4 Social Marketing Measurement Is Often Harmful Rather Than Helpful The Solution: Think Of Social Marketing As A Board Game Use Site Surveys And Web Analytics To Measure Social Reach Marketing Use Web Analytics And Ad Tags To Measure Social Depth Marketing Use Surveys To Measure Social Relationship Marketing Notes & Resources Forrester interviewed ten vendor and user companies, including ComBlu, Gregory Pouy, icrossing, iperceptions, Synthesio, 360i, and We Are Social. Related Research Documents Integrate Social Into Your Marketing RaDaR August 7, 2013 Social Media Metrics That Matter June 26, recommendations Attribution And Media Mix Tools Tell Your CEO If You Won The Game 9 Supplemental Material 2014, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. To purchase reprints of this document, please clientsupport@forrester.com. For additional information, go to

3 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game 2 social marketing measurement is often harmful rather than helpful Since the dawn of social media, marketers have struggled to understand what value social programs create. When we ask social marketers about their challenges, measurement consistently appears near the top of the list. 1 And barely more than one-half of marketers who use most social tactics say they re confident they can measure the business value of those tactics (see Figure 1). In their struggle to find measurements that describe success, many social marketers inadvertently select metrics that increase their chances of failure: Marketers focus too much on engagement and not enough on business success. Engagement metrics like comments and retweets are, by far, marketers favorite way to measure social media not least because these numbers are front and center when marketers check their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts (see Figure 2). But engagement is a tactic, not a metric. If you re lucky, your customers will want to engage with your brand or company. But engagement is their goal, not yours. Your goal is to use that engagement to drive customers toward actions that create business value for your company. Marketers cherry-pick the positive metrics and therefore fail to learn and improve. When we studied the entries to our 2013 Forrester Groundswell Awards, we found that marketers used dozens of different metrics to describe the success of the 95 programs they submitted. In many cases, those metrics had little or nothing to do with the stated objectives of the social programs they accompanied. How is this possible? When marketers have so many numbers to choose from, they can ignore the ones that point to failure and present only measurements that make their programs look successful. This might please the CMO and satisfy their own egos, but this tunnel vision only reinforces a cycle of failure often preventing social marketers from learning from mistakes and improving future efforts. Vendors overly simplistic blended metrics obfuscate rather than illuminate. With so many metrics available, it s no surprise that some social vendors offer single metrics (often called engagement scores ) that blend a number of data points. But these models are excessively reductive. Not every social marketing program has the same goal, so no single score can measure every effort. Blended metrics are also fatally circular in nature. You already know that simply counting fans and followers is no way to measure the success of social marketing but you may not realize that most single engagement metrics rely heavily on such unsophisticated data points. The result is a group of tools fundamentally biased by their own inputs.

4 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game 3 Figure 1 Marketers Say It s Harder To Measure Social Than Other Digital Marketing Channels How confident are you that your company can measure the business value created by each of the following marketing channels and tactics? (4 or 5 on a scale of 1 [not at all confident] to 5 [very confident]) marketing 71% On-site ratings and reviews Search marketing Mobile marketing Branded community Online display advertising Marketing on LinkedIn Branded blog Marketing on Google Plus Word-of-mouth marketing Responding to customer questions and comments on Facebook Creating custom tabs and apps on Facebook Marketing on YouTube Marketing on Twitter Promoting our updates on Facebook Buying paid ads on Facebook Posting updates to our Facebook page 65% 65% 65% 64% 64% 61% 59% 58% 58% 57% 55% 54% 54% 53% 53% 48% Base: 395 marketers in US, UK, and Canada Source: Q North America And UK Digital Maturity Online Survey Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

5 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game 4 Figure 2 Measuring Dozens Of Different Metrics Is Harmful, Not Helpful Percentage of Forrester Groundswell Award entries that cited each metric Social posts and comments 43% Social fans and followers 27% Social reach Social shares Sales Sentiment Community members Site visits Customer service resolution 22% 20% 17% 17% 15% 14% 11% Click-through rate 9% Pages per site visit Time spent on site Awareness 5% 5% 9% In total, our 95 Forrester Groundswell Awards entries in 2013 cited 64 different metrics. Employee productivity 4% Net Promoter Score 3% Donations 1% Other 43% Base: 95 Forrester Groundswell Awards entries Source: Forrester Groundswell Awards 2013 entries Source: Forrester Research, Inc. the solution: think of social marketing as a board game Rather than tracking every social metric you can find or reducing all your social measurements into a single blended score, you need a measurement process that more precisely links social programs with marketing and business objectives. To achieve this, measure success based on where each social program fits into your customers journey. Different types of social marketing programs are best suited to serving different stages of the customer life cycle. 2 Successful social measurement therefore requires understanding which stage of the life cycle your program supports and then gauging whether that program guided customers to the next stage of the cycle (see Figure 3):

6 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game 5 Measure social reach programs based on their ability to drive exploration. You can t create discovery without reach and both word-of-mouth marketing and paid social advertising can put your message in front of new audiences. But measuring reach alone isn t enough; if the customer journey ends with discovery, your marketing has failed. To gauge whether social reach programs succeed, you must determine whether they drive customers to explore your offer in greater detail. Measure social depth programs based on their ability to generate sales. Branded social communities and detailed customer reviews can provide your prospects with the depth they re seeking when they explore your products. But again, simply supporting your audience s needs isn t enough; you must measure whether these social depth programs create sales. Measure social relationship programs based on their ability to create discovery. After customers buy, they may engage to learn more about using your products or to seek customer service. Your Facebook and Twitter accounts are natural magnets for such engagement. But customers engagement alone doesn t define your success. To measure the success of social relationship programs, track whether you drove new discovery either by helping your engaged customers to discover additional offerings or by using them to create discovery among their friends. In the end, you ll find that winning at social marketing is like winning at the board game Monopoly. If you move your customers from one square to the next, eventually they ll pass Go and you ll get to collect $200 (see Figure 4). Figure 3 Different Social Programs Influence Customers At Different Stages Of The Life Cycle Discover Explore Engage Buy Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

7 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game 6 Figure 4 Think Of Social Marketing Measurement As A Board Game Discover Explore? The social marketing measurement game? Engage? Buy Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

8 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game 7 Use Site Surveys And Web Analytics To Measure Social Reach Marketing Marketers often launch word-of-mouth programs to create discovery. But measuring the business value of such efforts isn t easy: While vendors like Adobe Analytics and Visible Measures can track the reach your viral campaigns create, few offer solutions for measuring whether those campaigns drove customers to explore your products further. Two strategies can bridge this gap: Surveys can record inspiration for site visits. The website surveys you might use to gauge users satisfaction can also capture people s inspiration for visiting. For instance, iperceptions clients often use surveys to ask users why they visited the site. An increase in users who say that their visits were influenced by family and friends or by social media sites shows that word-of-mouth programs are driving exploration. Referrer data can show an increase in searches as well as visits directly from social sites. Web analytics can tell you what pages your site visitors came from and even what keyword they searched if they came from Google. Kimberly-Clark was able to attribute 1.7 million site visits for its new Kotex brand to word of mouth on social sites with Twitter. 3 Likewise, if you use social reach marketing to help people discover a new product, an increase in Google searches for the new brand name could tell you that word of mouth is driving exploration. Use Web Analytics And Ad Tags To Measure Social Depth Marketing On-site social tools like branded communities, corporate blogs, and customer ratings and reviews can all offer your prospects the depth they need when they re exploring your products. To gauge the success of these programs, don t just study whether site visitors used that depth measure whether that depth drove increased sales: Chico s mapped engagement with user reviews to increases in sales. US fashion retailer Chico s worked with Bazaarvoice to implement social content such as ratings, reviews, and questions on its product pages. Rather than simply measuring customers use of these reviews, Chico s linked use to sales and found that for one of its brands, customers who explored this deep social content converted at a 200% higher rate than customers who didn t. 4 You can do this yourself using ad tags or analytics tools. Lion Brand Yarn measured whether its blog drove increased conversion rates. The online yarn seller s blog offers knitting patterns and tips designed to turn browsers into buyers. And it works: The company measured traffic from its blog to its commerce site and reported that users who visited the blog were 41% more likely to buy and that their order value was 39% higher than average. 5

9 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game 8 Use Surveys To Measure Social Relationship Marketing If your social programs are targeted to users in the engage stage of the life cycle, your job is to make your existing customers feel more loyal and to help them discover all your company s products and services. The best way to check whether you ve driven such awareness and affinity? Brand surveys. 6 Ask Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter to run a survey for you. In the past 18 months, most large social networks have started offering free brand-impact studies to key advertisers. Facebook, with its partner Nielsen, has run hundreds such surveys on behalf of clients. Likewise, Twitter uses promoted tweets from account to recruit respondents. If you spend a significant amount of money on any of these social networks, ask your account manager to arrange a survey for your brand. Post a survey invitation in a wall post or a tweet. Unfortunately, this strategy is likely to yield a small and biased sample. After all, Facebook admits that the average brand post reaches only 16% of that brand s fans and the algorithm it uses to determine which people see brands posts means that your survey invitations would surely be biased toward your most loyal fans. 7 But if you spend too little with the social networks to receive a free survey, this remains the best way to get frequent data on how your social relationship efforts are driving discovery. Use broader brand-tracking surveys. Most large brands run annual or biannual brand studies and can use them to gauge whether social relationship tactics encourage discovery. For instance, the agency Marcus Thomas runs a Facebook program for a national packaged goods brand. In the marketer s next brand audit, the agency will study whether customers who are engaged with its branded Facebook page are more aware of all the brand s offerings. A positive correlation would offer directional evidence linking social engagement programs to discovery. Recommendations attribution and media mix tools tell your ceo if you won the game Measuring how well you move customers around your game board will help you make operational decisions and optimize social programs on the fly. But your CEO will still want to know how many times your customers passed Go. There are three ways to answer the question: Mix modeling is the best solution. If you want to show how a marketing investment affects sales, there s no better option than marketing mix modeling. The problem? Building a model can take months and cost millions and most modeling tools still aren t great at reporting on social media. But leading vendors like Analytic Partners and Nielsen are slowly getting better at modeling social. 8 Measuring social isn t enough to justify the expense of a mix model of its own, but if your company is already deploying a mix modeling solution, make sure it includes your social channels.

10 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game 9 Attribution tools and web analytics firms provide a cheaper but more limited option. If a marketing mix model is too rich, then attribution vendors like Visual IQ and web analytics tools like Adobe Analytics can also help you gauge whether social efforts contributed to sales. 9 Unfortunately, these vendors specialize mainly in transactions that happen online, making them better suited to technology and software marketers than to those selling packaged goods or big-ticket items. Coupons and unique identifiers are your last-ditch option. If you simply can t find the budget for a technology-based approach, offering coded coupons to your social fans can prove that they re buying. Remember, not every social tool is designed to directly drive sales and the discounts themselves will probably be as large a factor in redemption as the effectiveness of your social marketing strategies. But as always, some measurement is better than none. Supplemental MATERIAL Companies Interviewed For This Report 360i ComBlu Facebook Gregory Pouy icrossing iperceptions LinkedIn Synthesio Twitter We Are Social Endnotes 1 In one recent survey, social marketers say measurement was their second-biggest challenge, behind only generating ROI. See the October 31, 2013, Get Approval To Fund Your Social Marketing Initiative report. 2 Social reach tactics help people discover your brands, products, and promotions. Social depth tactics help prospects explore and buy your products. Social relationship tactics build stronger engagement with your best customers. See the August 7, 2013, Integrate Social Into Your Marketing RaDaR report. 3 Forrester Groundswell Awards ( 4 To see details of the case study that explores how Chico s partnered with Bazaarvoice to increase conversations and ultimately drive sales, read the related article. Source: Chico s achieves over 200% increase in conversion with Bazaarvoice Conversations, Bazaarvoice, January 31, 2012 ( bazaarvoice.com/resources/case-studies/chico-s-achieves-over-200-increase-conversion-bazaarvoiceconversations). 5 Forrester Groundswell Awards (

11 Win The Social Marketing Measurement Game 10 6 If you re not sure whether to use a test/control or a pre/post methodology, see the June 15, 2011, Use Surveys To Measure The Brand Impact Of Interactive Marketing Campaigns report. 7 One way around this limitation would be to pay Facebook to promote the post containing your survey invitation to a wider range of your fans. Facebook says that promoted posts can reach more than 90% of those who ve clicked the like button on your branded page. 8 For more information on marketing mix modeling tools, see the May 21, 2013, The Forrester Wave : Marketing Mix Modeling, Q report. 9 For more information on interactive attribution and the vendor landscape, see the April 30, 2012, The Forrester Wave : Interactive Attribution Vendors, Q report.

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