Pod Insights MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth Optimizing Organic Marketing Channels About this episode Senior Director of Product Marketing at Branch, Christian Ashlock, shares his perspectives on optimizing organic marketing channels. In this episode, Christian delves into the challenges of measuring marketing strategies in organic channels and the need for a blend of short-term and long-term measurement, emphasizing the importance of optimizing these channels to create great experiences and measure their effectiveness, while balancing creative and technical aspects of marketing. Connect With: Christian Ashlock: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com.
0:25 Speaker 01 From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.
0:36 Speaker 02 Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.
0:42 Speaker 03 Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.
0:46 Speaker 01 If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.
0:53 Speaker 00 Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.
1:15 Speaker 04 Welcome to the Martech Podcast. I'm your host, Benjamin Shapiro, and today we're going to discuss measurements and optimizing your marketing strategies. Joining us is Christian Ashlock, who is the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Branch, which is a trusted linking and measurement partner for growth-focused teams. Branch maximizes the value of evolving digital strategies for world-class brands like Instacart, Western Union, NBC Universal, Zocdoc, and Sephora. Yesterday, Christian and I talked about moving beyond the old way of bean-counting measurement, and today we're going to discuss optimizing organic marketing channels. All right. Here's the second part of my conversation with Christian Ashlock, the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Branch. Christian, welcome back to the Martech Podcast.
2:00 Speaker 05 Great. Thank you. Glad to be back.
2:01 Speaker 04 Excited to have you back and continue our conversation yesterday where we were talking about the theoretical challenges of measuring marketing, where we've gone from the Mad Men era of awareness, marketing, and counting the bottom line over time to this very precise, real-time, conversion-style, digital marketing activity. And the reality is, you need a blend of both. You need to be able to look at the long view and understand what is right in front of you and take one step at a time. I want to get a little bit more practical and talk about some of the channels that are a little harder to measure. Branch being an expert at digital measurement and me being in organic content and podcasts, specifically
2:44 Speaker 04 something that's hard to track. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you can optimize organic marketing channels. Tell me your thoughts.
2:52 Speaker 05 I think what's great about organic marketing in general and is maybe kind of a benefit in this time period where some of the ads tech is getting more complicated or getting harder, is it is a time to spend some time nailing how you optimize these channels, how you create great experiences, and how you measure them. I had an old marketing leader I worked for that kind of called a lot of these like the brilliant basics, the simple things of how you make word of mouth easy, how you make sharing easy, how you use your websites and your stores and your assets the best. If they're not getting as much budget as ads, maybe it seems like simpler or forgotten sometimes. But I think it's a really important area. And I think that the three ways I would probably think about it are, are you making it easy for the user to take the action you want them to take or the action that they're trying to take, right? If they're trying to share your content,
3:36 Speaker 05 when they share it, do people have a great experience? If I'm scrolling TikTok or scrolling something and I see a great piece of content or an offer or something and I want to send it to my friends, when they click on it, like, do they go where they're trying to go? Does that work? So did you make the experience work? And then I think the second thing is, did you build measurement in to the start? Can you tell when people take those actions? Do you have links that report when a user's clicking on it or trying to do something that feeds back to you so you can get? Get some insights on like every time people saw this, did they do something? And then I think like, finally, are you able to pull all of that together to think about how to optimize all these organic channels? And think about them just like you think about any other marketing channel where you're doing investments, running tests, and always kind of improving the experience you're creating for users so you can drive more actions for your business.
4:22 Speaker 04 That's interesting. When you're talking about optimizing organic channels, your head goes to make it easy for people to share the content. I think of that as virality. And when I think of how I described growing a podcast, there's four different ways to grow a podcast. Organic, viral, paid, and partnerships. And you went to viral first, which to me is a fully credible way to drive and optimize organic growth. Take the friction out of having someone who consumes your content away to make it easier for them to become your advocate. Totally makes sense. When I think about optimizing organic channel first, coming from a content marketer background,
5:01 Speaker 04 I think of understanding the audience and making sure that the content you're producing that is supposed to drive organic consumption is what people actually want. Have you seen marketers or does Branch have any tools, thoughts, philosophies on how to understand what to create? Not necessarily how to syndicate it.
5:22 Speaker 05 Honestly, that's not the focus for Branch. There are a lot of great partners that do that. And I think that what Branch's really mission is, and I think was really helpful for folks, is that you can spend all this time understanding your audience, creating the right content, creating really interesting things, making sure the hamburger you're trying to get people to sell is as tasty as possible and a good value and things like that. But if you miss those brilliant basics, like those points of friction in the process, all that work you did to create the best thing falls off if people can't actually get it. Or if it's hard for people to promote it to people, or they saw your ad and they clicked on it and then that doesn't work. I think there's all these points of action where you're trying to either turn an existing customer into a bigger fan
6:04 Speaker 05 or try to get them to do more, or you're trying to take people you know about a little bit that you're trying to get to have a deeper experience. And if it's hard for them to do what they're supposed to do, I think you lose them. So I think Branch's value is more like you've got the goods and you want people to experience it. But if they can't, then that's a hole in your bucket that you need to be able to measure and understand, and then work with folks that can help you do that.
6:25 Speaker 04 So Christian, I want to move away from the theoretical of marketing measurement and talk about some more concrete examples of how brands are using organic marketing channels and optimizing them well. Give me an example of somebody who is taking this tactic of reducing the friction and driving great business results.
6:45 Speaker 05 Yeah, we have a pretty cool example from IMDb. I don't know if you're a fan.
6:49 Speaker 04 The International Movie Database. Sure.
6:51 Speaker 05 Yeah, I am constantly looking up who is in this episode of Shogun or things like that.
6:56 Speaker 04 I heard Shogun was really good. Is it worth it?
6:58 Speaker 05 Yeah, and I believe it just got renewed for two more seasons, so definitely worth a watch. So if I'm looking up, who is this actor in this scene? A lot of times you're gonna do that on search, you're gonna do that with your phone, you're gonna land on their mobile page, right? Identifying what this person is doing. Now, there's kind of like, I always think it's interesting when there's competing interest for marketer. You want to serve the person that information that did that search, right? So they got it and go, aha, this person was also in this other thing I saw. But you probably also have goals as a marketer, knowing that for IMDb, like most businesses, a mobile user is their most valuable user. I think from our research we've done, on average, mobile users are three times more valuable than just people who are visiting your mobile website. So you have choices, right? You could not show them who that actor is and put a roadblock in the way that says you have to sign up for the IMDb app before you
7:42 Speaker 05 can get this info you wanted.
7:44 Speaker 04 What a great experience.
7:45 Speaker 05 Yeah, not a great user experience. Maybe to measurement, maybe you get a short-term bump in signups, but as you're talking about like your brand and long-term measures, it's gonna hurt that. So being able to like experiment, measure those user interactions, like test different strategies of banners or messages or encouragements are gonna help you optimize that, yep, we're gonna try to get this business goal done. Maybe it's getting people to sign up for IMDb and become an app user and serve the user purpose of I've got the information I've wanted. So I think the value of measurement there is really into feeding, creating the best user experience, where you can make them happy by getting them to use your app and loving movie and TV trivia all the time, but also helping them with the thing they're trying to do in the second.
8:26 Speaker 04 So what was the user experience? IMDb, when you find that Scarlett Johansson was the voice of her and
8:34 Speaker 05 topical.
8:34 Speaker 04 There you go. OpenAI lawsuits and everything. We're on IMDb looking for an actor and actress and some bio information. And I'm, oh, I want to share this with my buddy Christian. Instead of getting a pop up, that's an interstitial that says, well, you have to download the app to see who the voice of her was. What did IMDb land on?
8:51 Speaker 05 So they showed folks the information and then they tested different little banners they could put at the bottom, that they could actually make relevant and customize per users. They'd have a little bit of a value add of explaining, we know why you could get the app, whether it's to make these kinds of searches easier, or like you mentioned, do sharing or things like that. So I think it's thinking about how to complement what the user's seeing on the screen, which the content team is driving with something that's some real estate. It's not interruptive, but that the marketing team can control and test and have these smart banners that can be targeted and customized. It can encourage the actions you're hoping to get them to take.
9:24 Speaker 04 Now, that seems like it's something that's in the middle of the product flow while somebody is experiencing the product. Talk to me about ways where companies are driving organic marketing channels and optimizing their marketing efforts, where it is not necessarily interruptive of their product flow.
9:42 Speaker 05 A great example is from Etsy. And you can imagine anybody that's a retailer, they're really feeling that tension, right? I'm searching for a product, you know, maybe I want a hand-built katana now that I'm such a Shogun fan. And I find one being made on Etsy. Their choice is, do I try to ask this user to do more and become a bigger fan of Etsy right away?
10:01 Speaker 04 Let me interrupt you. The one that drives me nuts is you get to a website, you're just about to start your searching and browsing experience. You're like, oh, I think I found the perfect katana. I really want to get into this website and read the product details. And what happens? Bam, interstitial. Do you want 10% off your purchase for us being able to collect your email? No, I haven't figured out if I even like your brand, your products or services yet. That one drives me nuts. I know it's a best practice. It's a bad user experience. How do we get away from that?
10:29 Speaker 05 Exactly. And it's going to tie back to measurement. Are you measuring just the interaction with that one thing? Are you measuring the overall? Lifetime value of your customers and all the interactions you're having with them. So what was great that Etsy implemented was that after you made that purchase and you're on your checkout page, they said, hey, I know you're excited to get the stuff you just bought. Do you want to track your shipment? Then you can serve a banner or something that comes up at the bottom of the screen that says, hey, get the Etsy app. So you can find out when your cool sword is showing up, but you didn't have to go to the mall to buy it like the nineties. So I think that's another thing where it's a win win, right? You are creating a great experience for the user. There's something they really wanted, like knowing status updates on their package. And you accomplish your business objective of you know, people that have the Etsy app. You can communicate with them better.
11:14 Speaker 05 You can send them alerts and updates and they're going to buy more, which is what all the research shows that your biggest fans are going to have your app. And you're just going to have a lot more surface area to work with them.
11:22 Speaker 04 I'll bring it back to what our conversation was yesterday, which is there's times when you need the short view and times when you need the long view. Right? You can look at every interstitial banner pop up that you're putting in front of your user and say, well, this one seemed to work. It had a higher click through rate than yada, da, yada, da. But it doesn't mean it's necessarily driving the best user experience, right? Part of getting people to know, like, and trust you is by understanding what they're trying to accomplish and creating and adding more value to them as opposed to just harvesting them for clicks. Christian, when you're thinking about some of these marketing optimizations, what's your advice for just generally balancing the long and short term view?
12:03 Speaker 05 I think this is a good, there's, you know, a hot topic is around first party data. You have to have some customers that can serve as a base of these are subscribers. These are people that are logged in. These are people that are big fans of your brand that are willing to share some information with you in exchange for whether it's discounts, offers, anything like that. So that you have a cohort of folks that you can really understand what their experience is. And that when you're testing things like doing offers or creating new user experiences, can you see how this is affecting the value of those users over time? Right? Do you understand their lifetime value? Do you see their purchase history, their interactions? So that every person that shows up to your site or app isn't an anonymous person that all you can see is did they click on this banner one second this one time?
12:45 Speaker 05 Or not. So having that like long-term view from a very like tactical measurement, why is this something you can do if you have signed in users? And that's why you see a lot of companies that don't necessarily think about having that first-party data like Pepsi or things like that, building loyalty and rewards programs so they can measure it. And then back to earlier part about the point of marketing, then sometimes it's just talking to users, which is not something any tool can solve for you, but just doing focus groups, talking to folks, seeing how they're using your app and how they're interacting on top of it.
13:11 Speaker 04 You know, yesterday I said that marketing was a balance of art and science, and I think that's one of the two axes. You have to understand the creative and the technical piece to be able to master marketing. You also have to understand the duration that you're focusing on. You have to be able to balance the long-term and the short-term impacts of all of your marketing efforts. We've all seen those brands that are just out there doing every little marketing trick and tactic that probably drives conversions, but also is annoying as all could be. And it doesn't mean that you want to build a relationship. So when you're thinking about what type of products and services and what the relationship you want with a customer, think about the experience and think about some of your optimization techniques
13:54 Speaker 04 and just generally what it means to the customers as they're going through your purchase funnel. And that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Christian Ashlock, the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Branch. If you'd like to hear more from Christian, you could find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes, or you can visit his company's website, which is branch.io. Just one more link in our show notes I'd like to tell you about. If you didn't have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast, head over to martechpod.com where we have summaries of all of our episodes and contact information for our guests. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, or you can even apply to be the next guest speaker on the Martech Podcast. Of course, you can always reach out on social media. Our handle is @martechpod,
14:38 Speaker 04 on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, or you can contact me directly on LinkedIn. My handle is @benjschap, B-E-N-J-S-H-A-P. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, we're going to publish an episode every day this year. So hit the subscribe button in your podcast app. And we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.
15:29 Speaker 00 Thanks for listening to the MarTech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit iHearEverything.com.
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