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CHRIS FRANKS | [email protected]
The Science of Growth Marketing
for Enterprises
How to translate data into effective customer acquisition systems
eBook ContentsWhat is Growth Marketing
Test Design
Tools for Testing - Ranked
Turn Data into Insights
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A Brief BackgroundHow Growth Marketing Uses Data to Help Drive Decisions
Growth uses a structured and data-centric approach to all phases of the customer acquisition,
customer retention, and referral process.
What is Growth Marketing
Growth Marketing was born from high growth
startups of the mid-2000s where
“Growth Hackers” were hired to engineer
virality into products. The job quickly evolved as
the hacks to generate viral growth became
harder to replicate and users became more
protective of their data.
In its place rose a group of data-driven and
testing obsessed marketing engineers who
were convinced that they had discovered a 100x
smarter way to approach customer acquisition.
Growth Marketing Uses a Scientific Approach to Answering Critical
Questions About Your Business
“Let’s throw some stuff against a wall
and see what sticks” is a profoundly stupid way to approach
customer acquisition.
Growth Marketers design tests and experiments
to answer hypothesis about your business.
Over time, these tests will inform a more
intelligent and efficient use of marketing and
sales resources.
Growth Marketing Uses a Scientific Approach to Answering Critical
Questions About Your Business
1 Ask questions to fill knowledge gaps and hypothesize
Growth Marketing Uses a Scientific Approach to Answering Critical
Questions About Your Business
2 Begin testing and data collecting process
Growth Marketing Uses a Scientific Approach to Answering Critical
Questions About Your Business
3 Analyze the data to inform a new strategy
Growth Marketing Uses a Scientific Approach to Answering Critical
Questions About Your Business
4 Design and implement data-informed tactics
The Decision PRINCIPLES
Full Funnel
to help guide you
1Unlike traditional marketing, Growth Marketers do not distinguish from the various parts of the revenue cycle.
The Decision PRINCIPLES
You’re Wrong
to help guide you
2Being described as data-driven is a bit of an understatement. The only thing that matters is what can be proven.
The Decision PRINCIPLES
TESTS
to help guide you
3Growth Marketers do not run campaigns rather they run a series of ongoing tests designed to provide the business insights to drive sales.
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TEST DESIGNThe Tools and Tactics Used to Generate Data
Modern Enterprise Marketers are Drowning in Data While Starving for Insights
Turning data into insights revolves around solving the common problem of passive data vs. test data. The majority of data utilized by marketers comes from sources like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, or Twitter Analytics.
While valuable, these data sources, by definition, are backward-looking. These numbers tell you what has happened.
Passive vs. Testing Data
This data comes from interactions off of previous
posts, clicks, or sight visits and is rarely definitive.
Even when trends do become clear it requires a
change in tactics with the hopes that the changes
will improve outcomes.
While passive data can tell you what is not
working, it rarely gives you a clear path forward.
The data generated by tests are designed to answer
specific questions. This offers a number of advantages.
You can control against extraneous variables and focus
on the data that provides answers and insights you’re
looking for. Thus, you can quickly test and iterate to
understand what’s working, what’s not working, and
what will work in the future.
Progressive and ongoing testing will
give you a clear direction.
Passive Data Testing Data
In the World of Digital Marketing, it’s incredibly easy to get bogged down in all the noise
of top tactics, tricks and fads for becoming the ultimate marketer. For a sound marketing
strategy that is not only profitable, but scalable and predictable, you need to test
strategies and implement them on the best platform for your audience.
The Tools for Testing
When evaluating the efficacy of testing platforms, it all comes down to the numbers.
We’ve tested, FAILED, tested again and succeeded on each of these platforms more times
than we can count.
The Tools for Testing
Facebook Our Top Testing Platform
Pros With over 1.5 billion users, the granular targeting makes it a wonderful place to get specific about testing personas for a fraction of the cost of CPC (cost per click) than other platforms.
ConsIt’s noisy. Everyone and their brother wants to advertise on Facebook…. And many of them are very very bad at it.
Common MisconceptionsFacebook does not work for B2B. This couldn’t be further from the truth! As we like to say, humans are on Facebook and humans work in businesses. Whether you’re selling a toothbrush to a child of a million dollar SaaS platform to a CTO, you’re still selling to a human.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pros One word; Intent. If it was two words, it’d be high-intent. Google is, at its core, is people actively searching for info, resources, and/or products.
ConsIt’s expensive. Given the competitive nature of this platform, if you don’t have a verified conversion pathway, you will be wasting a lot of money on clicks that won’t convert.
Common MisconceptionsTurn on Pay Per Click and you will be successful. While PPC is a very powerful conversion system it is not ideal for testing. Understanding your customers and what motivates them to engage with their brand is the key to helping your business grow and learning this on PPC can be challenging.
Pros It’s the go-to place platform for professionals on the Internet with active and engaged users.
ConsSpam spam and more spam. Since B2B marketers decided to jump on the LinkedIn bandwagon, everyone's inboxes have been abused to the point that it’s 99% trash.
Common MisconceptionsThis is the only B2B platform for advertising. Just because this platform is geared towards our more professional side, doesn’t mean it’s the only platform for B2B.
YouTube
Pros YouTube is a multimedia content dream. Audiences are captivated and stay for hours. And since it’s a Google property, the same great audience analytics and targeting features that exist for Google, transfer to YouTube as well.
ConsThere are significant barriers to entry. To get started you need a costly and well produced video and just like the rest of Google’s ad products, it’s expensive.
Common MisconceptionsIt’s out of reach for most businesses. Let’s stop putting YouTube on a pedestal. It is accessible for businesses as long as you’re clear on the right message BEFORE you invest thousands in video creation.
Programmatic
Pros With billions of page views across the internet, it offers extraordinary reach at a very low cost. With recent targeting enhancements, the options available for nuanced audience targeting is incredible.
ConsCTRs (Click Through Rates) will be drastically lower than other platforms, but, in the name of testing, the clicks are what matter so the clicks you get will be your highest indication of intent.
Common Misconceptions It’s a daunting, all consuming real-time beast of an auction bidding platform that’s impossible to win if you don’t have a designated team.
Pros It’s very straightforward and you can get excellent results with both testing and in response very quickly and for almost no money.
ConsYou have to have a list to be able to send mass emails. You can also jeopardize your domain authority and/or your brand reputation if you don’t follow the CanSpam laws.
Common MisconceptionsEmail is dead. From cultivation to direct outreach, email, when done properly, is a highly effective channel to reach prospective customers and current customers.
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TURN DATA INTO INSIGHTSBuilding Tests to Convert Data to Insights
BACKGROUNDA startup privacy booth (phone booth) company had invested significantly in bringing their solution to
market. While the industry was young, there was significant competition with one to two new
players entering the market every year.
Most of these competitors focused on the tech startup market, driving up competition and squeezing
down the product's margin.
In Search for a Blue OceanAre Your Current Customers The RIGHT Customers for You?
Could the company locate a new market for its privacy booth with less competition and higher margins?
Reporting Descriptive
Facebook | Despite the B2B nature of the sale, Facebook
offered the highest percentage of market / vertical
coverage.
HypothesisBy systematically testing potential
markets, the company could locate
a new market with less competition
and higher margins.
Platform
Design
Metrics
In Facebook, an audience for each industry vertical was built,
taking special care to keep overall audience size and
targeting methods similar. Each audience had an identical
budget and duration. An identical brand based ad with a
broad benefit statement was served to each audience.
Impressions | Each audience received a similar amount of
impressions. While not a determinant variable, an abnormal
distribution of ad impressions could have invalidated the test.
Raw Clicks | How many times did the ad for each vertical
get clicked.
Click-Through Rate (Impressions/Clicks) | This determinant
variable gives the best idea of which vertical expressed the
most interest in the idea of privacy booths.
Case Study Results
GOALIdentify potential market verticals
SOLUTIONCompany found new markets for their privacy booth solution.
BACKGROUNDA fast-growing and highly regarded education company provided agile training for a growing list of
domestic and international clients.
To grow further and faster; they needed to gain a deeper understanding about the people who were
championing their system within their existing and future customers.
I Need a HeroFinding What Motivates an Internal Evangelist
Could the company find out what was motivating their evangelists and turn that learning into more sales?
Reporting Descriptive
Facebook → Programmatic | For this test, Facebook was
utilized for the initial testing and was later re-tested and
confirmed on programmatic ads to ensure there was no
platform bias.
HypothesisBy testing, the company could
identify what motivated a key
proponent of their services.
Platform
Design
Metrics
For the audience, a series of ads were created using the
same ad image and headline. The single variable tested was
the ad copy. Over a series of tests, ad copy was created to
test the underlying motivators of this persona.
Impressions | Each ad set received a similar amount of
impressions. While not a determinant variable, an abnormal
distribution of ad impressions could have invalidate the test.
Raw Clicks | How many times did each ad theme ad get
clicked.
Click-Through Rate (Impressions/Clicks) | This determinant
variable gives the best idea of which driver mattered most for
this persona.
Case Study Results
GOALIdentify What Motivates the company’s evangelists.
SOLUTIONThrough testing the top themes of their evangelist became clear.
BACKGROUNDA fortune 500 beverage brand created an innovative new product designed to disrupt the tired
industry of draft beer. The question was, how would the public react? Would they be turned off
by the innovation? Should the new product be brought to the market or be shelved? More
importantly, how could they answer those questions without tipping off their competition and
their brand?
The Phantom BrandFor larger and fast-growing companies, testing new and innovative ideas
becomes difficult.
Could the company find out what the public thought about their new product idea without tarnishing their brand?
Reporting Descriptive
Multiple | For this test, an entirely new brand was created
from scratch, including social media pages, ad accounts,
and a company website.
HypothesisThrough testing, the company
could identify how consumers feel
about the product idea by
removing its association with the
legacy brand.
Platform
Design
Metrics
Audiences were built and tested in multiple ad platforms
and sent to the phantom brand’s website. Testing occurred
on all ads and how the traffic behaved once they arrived on
the site.
For this test, all metrics were tracked:
Impressions, Clicks, Click-Through Rate | All tracked,
measured, and stack ranked for each ad set.
Site Interaction | including time on site, bounce rate, and
page views, were measured for the level of interest.
Comparison | How the alt brand ads and website performed
vs. the legacy brand's site and ads were measured.
Case Study Results
GOALCreate and test a brand that doesn’t exist
SOLUTIONDetermined consumer sentiment without affecting the legacy brand
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CONCLUSION
We hope you have learned how approaching
your customer acquisition using a systematic
and data-driven framework can offer deep
insights into how your customers think and
behave.
We’d love to hear how you’re planning on
deploying a Growth Marketing mindset to your
company.
Let us know how we can support you on your
journey!
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The Science of Growth Marketing
for Enterprises
How to translate data into effective customer acquisition systems
