It has been a long time since the last update. I know I should have kept updating this blog content, but I was really busy. I really apologized for not updating and publishing new content in this blog.
As 2019 started, I made a promise( it was part of my new year resolutions ) to dedicate more of my time to share the newest and the most interesting topic in digital marketing and business analytics.
Understanding consumer journey has been always a hard task to do for a digital marketer. This complexity is due to the improvement of information technologies. This improvement affects the consumer behavior when they are shopping online as they no longer rely on advertising messages when they are determining what to purchase. Instead, choosing to educate themselves by reading product reviews and recommendations leaving behind countless of data points every day. Well, it is true that information help to improve the shopping experience, yet it made a complicated task for a digital marketer to follow their consumer path. However, with implementing and using specific software, such as Google Analytics, to measure and analyze consumer journey makes following the journey a smoother task to absorb.
In this blog, I will provide an explanation about consumer purchase funnel, from where it starts and where and when it ends. But, before digging into more details, I encourage you to check this YouTube Video:
What is a Purchase Funnel?
"The purchase/purchasing funnel is a model which describes the theoretical customer journey from the moment of the first contact with your brand to the ultimate goal of a purchase. This model is important when marketing your business as it provides a method of understanding and tracking the behavior of an average customer throughout the sales process."(1)
I am sure that you have seen this chart many times in your life, and sometimes you feel confused because it seems complex to understand the process and steps involved. But, this Purchase Funnel process is summarized below:
Awareness: The customer is aware of the existence of a product or service. Awareness is based on a communications message, word of mouth or independent discovery. Thus, Companies must market themselves and create awareness before they can even hope for sales. There are many ways to increase a brand awareness; for example, writing blog posts about the products or services, posting a video or a picture, and email newsletters.
Consideration: the main goal is to increase customer acquisition. The consumer thinks about it and asks around, but a lot of it happens online. Once a customer is aware of your product, they will consider your offering.
Research: The customer Use mobile phones, tablets, laptops and desktops to find more information about specific product or service
Comparison: The customer Compares similar products, prices, demonstrations and testimonials in the search engine.
Action: The customer buys, joins, sign ups, etc.
Review: The customer goes online on social networks to review and share their experience.
Using Google Analytics to create a Funnel Visualization report:
Google Analytics offers Funnel Visualization reports which help you to understand your consumer behavior starting from placing an item in a shopping cart, entering payment information, reviewing the final order to clicking on the confirmation. The Funnel Visualization report helps to measure the KPIs and optimize the website pages to increase the conversion rates.
It is obvious that consumers start on one social media platform in the beginning of their purchase journey and then shift to another. As digital marketers, we are looking for the way to meet consumers on every touchpoint they are on to serve them the right information at the right time to guide them toward the final step in the purchase funnel. The modern customer journey begins with self-education about a product or service to discover what is the best features, compares the price and looks for the best offer before deciding on buying it. Customers research about the brand on social media, read product reviews and compared prices. Once buyers have narrowed down his/her choices to a specific brand, they will consider buying that products or service. Finally, after the purchase, a brand should carry on fostering the relationship between the brand and customers by preparing campaigns for upselling and cross-selling and boosting loyalty.
There is a big demand for people who are certified in Google Analytics because Google Analytics is a helpful tool that provides important reports to stakeholders such as web content administrator, chief marketing officer, and sales people. As a digital marketer, I think having Google Analytics certification will provide you will numerous benefits such as enhancing your data analytics and reasoning competency. Another reason is that having a Google Analytics certification makes you attractive to potential employers as they are recruiting those who are certified.
Currently, I am in the process of preparing to Google Analytics exam. Thus, in this blog, I will share with you how to prepare yourself before the exam date.
To register for Google Analytics exam, you have to have a Google partners account. Follow the video instruction to create one:
The GAIQ test is 90 minutes and 70 questions long, consisting of both multiple choice and True/False questions. You need to answer at least 56 questions correctly to pass (80% and above is passing). Thankfully, once you begin the test, you can pause it anytime and return to finish it within 48 hours of when you began.
Do you want to buy a TV or smartphone but you are thinking about the price? Are you not sure to buy it from a physical store or go find it online? Are you waiting for the Black Friday, Thanksgiving or Christmas to get the best offer? How about if I can tell you that you could save money by installing two price tracking tools which will help you to shop smartly. In this blog, I will share with you two important price tracking tools that benefit you while you are shopping online.
Honey is a Chrome extension that helps consumers to search for discounts code at the exact time when they are about the checking out process in an e-commerce website. Honey is a useful tool focused on saving consumer’s money and providing a discount code and track the price changes in Amazon. Honey has a partnership with over 8,000 stores.
How does Honey work?
First, you have to install the browser extension and sign up to get access to all best coupon code at checkout. For example, if you go to Target and searched for specific product, the Honey browser extension will notify you by lighting up the Honey logo at the top of your browser.
Target Home Page
Once you have selected your item and add it to the shopping cart and reached to the payment page, a friendly pop-up appears and asks if you’d like to ‘Apply Coupons’ or ‘Save Money. Personally speaking, this is the most features that I like because Instead of googling coupon codes and finding an expired code, the extension will hunt and apply the coupon for you with a single click.
Another free Amazon price tracker which checks millions of products and alerts you when prices drop. This is a google chrome extenuation that you have to install in your browser.
How does Camelcamelcamel work?
Camelcamelcamel offers two important services: first, Amazon Price Drop Alerts which help you to get an alert via email whenever the price of the wanted product decreases. Secondly, Amazon Price History Charts that View the price history of Amazon products over the time.
For example, when I was looking for Clarisonic Mia 2, the current price is $169.00. I set up an alert to notify me when there is a drop in the product price to $150.00 to buy it.
I would recommend you try these two chrome extenuations when you are going to buy something online, and notice the price differences.
Early this year, Youtube has released a new monetization policy. The question is that how this new monetization policy will affect the YouTubers? Many of YouTube Video creators depend on YouTube as a source of their income as they spend their time and effort to produce appealing contents for their audiences. The story started when Several big-name advertisers suspended ads on YouTube because their ads were served on some of the YouTube content that contains hate speech or supports terrorism. On the past Five years ago, YouTube was flexible with YouTubers to create video contents online and earn money based on the number of subscribers, shares, comments and likes. This model helped YouTube grow into the web’s biggest video platform, and known brand started to create 30 commercial ads to show it on YouTube.
Does YouTube demonetization affect advertising?
Yes, YouTube could lose $750 million in revenue this year over advertisers halting business, according to analyst firm Nomura Instinet.
More than 250 brands, such as PepsiCo, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, and McDonald’s, are boycotting YouTube and have pulled their advertising from YouTube. The advertisers in those brands declared that their ads were running on content that their organization does not stand for or support. This conventional story sparked in Britain when some advertisers have noticed and investigated that their ads served on YouTube videos which include hate of speech, terrorism, and other offensive content. For more Information about the changes in YouTube’s new monetization policy please check out: Video monetization criteria
On one hand, As a digital marketer, I believe that organization has the right to know where their ads are being served and on which contents because each company stands for its own value, mission, and reputation.On the other hand, as a youtube content consumer, I believe The Youtuber communities have to ensure the contents they produce to the world is free from hate speech, terrorism, and other offensive content. Also, Google plays an important role in monitoring and controlling the unwanted contents to satisfy both Youtubers and Advertisers
In my Marketing Analytics class, my Professor mentioned something related to beacon technology. First, I did not understand what does it stand for and how does this technology works? However, after he gave a brief explanation, I have become a little familiar with this concept. I thought it will be a great idea to write a blog about beacon technology in more details and its applications in the retail sector.
So, what is Beacon Technology?
According to iBeacon Insider, the definition of Beacon is:
Beacon is the name for Apple’s technology standard, which allows Mobile Apps (running on both iOS and Android devices) to listen for signals from beacons in the physical world and react accordingly. In essence, iBeacon technology allows Mobile Apps to understand their position on a micro-local scale, and deliver hyper-contextual content to users based on location. The underlying communication technology is Bluetooth Low Energy.
Beacon Technology and the Retail Industries:
Beacon technology is connecting the actual stores and digital technologies by using device geo-location information to enhance the in-store shopping experience. For example, Beacons can send text messages via Bluetooth to a customer's smartphone to notify them about special offers or discount in any store they are nearby.
Also, connecting Beacon to a smartphone to provide consumers with useful information about the clothes, the available size, and the price will enhance the shopping experience as it makes it quicker and easier for customers to access the information about the products they are looking for, and deliver to them special offers or discounts.
For the retailers, Beacon technology provides them with vast of data about their customers’ shopping habits and send customized and timely offers and coupons. With this huge amount of collected data, retailers can create marketing strategies to engage with their customers, to create personalized shopping experiences and to give loyal shoppers a reason to keep coming back.
In the previous blog, I talked about the importance of Data Visualization , and how organizations are seeking for those who are skilled in Data analytics and data visualization. There are many benefits to be certified in this area. Check out this article. ( 5 Reasons to Learn Tableau – A Deep Dive into Tableau Career Opportunities!). So, Are you in the process of preparing for tableau certification? Well, this is an excellent decision that you have made in your career life because is the simplest application that helps to see and understand the data, and you don’t need to do any coding. Here are more benefits to check out:
In this blog, I will share with you some of the useful resources that I think it helps you to understand the main concepts to pass the exam. But first, let me provide you with basic information about exam structures
Tableau Desktop 9 Qualified Associate
Time Limit: 2 hours (Please plan for extra time for online exam setup)
Passing Score: 75%
Content Version: 10.0
Number of Questions: 36 Scoring: 100 points total; point value varies per question type with hands-on worth more
Question Format: Multiple choices, multiple responses, true/false, hands-on (Tableau Desktop 10.0 will be provided)
you can use the videos and material provided by Tableau on their website as it is really good and you need to register with them to be able to use it. Practicing the tool while going thru the videos is really helpful in building hands on knowledge.
I think we all have heard about the recent Uber news that the US criminal investigation is investigating over Uber use of 'Greyball' software. But what is a Grayball software, and how does Uber use it. In this blog, I will cover the recent Uber issue that is related to Grayball.
First, let me provide you with the definition of Grayball
Greyball is a software tool used by the ride-hailing service Uber to identify and deny service to certain riders, including riders who Uber suspects of violating its terms of service.(1)
The Beginning of the problem:
The story began when a reporter from the New York Times did some an investigation about how Uber is using a software to manipulate authorities and law enforcements in places where Uber services are not allowed to operate. The software shows a fake version of its app to government officials suspected of conducting raids operations on drivers. This program used geolocation data, credit card information, social media accounts, and other data to profile app users as if they are normal riders or government officials. The software was used in locations that Uber was banned from operating its services, such as Boston, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Portland, and Oregon, as well as France, Australia, China, South Korea and Italy.
Uber claims that using this software was part of a Violation of Terms of Service in which Grayball is being used to analyze credit card, device identification, location data and other factors to predict whether a request for a ride was legitimate or not. However, the company is misusing it to evade local transportation officials and government officials to operate in locations where should not be supposed to work there. Uber prohibited the use of Greyball for this purpose shortly after the New York Times revealed its existence in March 2017, claiming the program was created to check ride requests to prevent fraud and safeguard drivers.
Greyball used several methods to identify and deny service to government officials who were investigating Uber for violations of local laws. Those methods included:
Geofencing- the use of GPS or RFID technology to create a virtual geographic boundary, enabling software to trigger a response when a mobile device enters or leaves an area - Uber would create a digital map that identified the locations of city government offices. If a potential rider attempted to hail a ride from the area around a government building, Greyball would flag the individual as a possible law enforcement agent.
If Uber identified a credit card as being associated with a government agency or police union, it would flag that individual in Greyball.
Uber employees searched social media profiles to identify possible law enforcement agents. Uber then flagged those individuals in Greyball.
As an Uber user, I have some concerns that are related to the collected data by Greyball software. So far, there is no clue about how Uber is going to use these data in future. It could be used not only against government officials, but it also might be used to discriminate their services against a group of customers who might be less profitable or belong to a specific race. Another concern is that in the US, different states have different law and regulations, and the current laws need to be updated. Due to the advancement in information technology, it has become for regulators and law enforcement to create a new law and maintain it with rapidly shifting of the Uber business models and algorithms. Currently, the investigation of Greyball is in its early stages, and we are waiting to see the result whether Uber will be sued and go out of business or nothing will be done regards Uber's unethical practice of misusing technology and data.
