Category: Strategy

SEO isn’t dead: How AI and SGE are shaping the future

Post author By Laura Isaacs
Post date October 9, 2023

The artificial intelligence revolution has rocked our world in a few short months. OpenAI launched ChatGPT. Bing released a chat feature. Google opened access to Bard and the experimental Search Generative Experience. As these new tools emerge, almost everything about how we seek, access, and interact with online information changes. And it begs the question…

Could all these AI-enabled changes mean SEO is dead? The answer is a hard no; it’s just different. The days of optimizing websites exclusively for crawlers and bots are far behind us. We, as SEOs and marketers, must embrace the shift toward optimizing websites, content, and online experiences for humans and their information needs. As such, search engine optimization is alive, and will become even more important in your web strategy as AI tools advance in this new era.

Living in the moment: Understanding SEO, AI, and SGE

SEO, AI, and SGE are three of the most important technologies today, and they’re all becoming inseparably linked. AI is already used in a number of ways to improve SEO, from generating high-quality content to identifying and targeting the right keywords.

As AI develops, it will likely play an even more significant role in SEO, helping businesses reach their target audiences more effectively. By staying ahead of the curve with these technologies and strategies, companies can position themselves for success in the future of search. Before we dive into the details of what comes next for SEO, let’s look at broader definitions and how these technologies and strategies impact each other today.

What is SEO?

SEO (search engine optimization) is nothing new. In fact, both the concept and the term have been part of the web-based world since 1997 — before Google existed. At this time, search engines functioned as directories or virtual yellow pages. And as more consumers adopted the Internet, more businesses became invested in making themselves visible on the Internet.

SEO is a complex and ever-changing field, but it is essential to any online marketing strategy. Your web presence depends on organic SEO. Traditionally, SEO depends on fundamental factors that increase website traffic and search engine placement, which include:

Creating relevant, keyword-optimized content.
Optimizing the website’s title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags.
Building backlinks from high-quality websites.
Ensuring that the website is mobile-friendly.
Improving the website’s loading speed.

What is AI?

AI, short for artificial intelligence, is a technology that mimics or simulates human intelligence. There are a variety of applications for AI, from self-driving cars to automated manufacturing processes. Machine learning, deep learning, and cognitive computing all influence how AI works.

Conversational and generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing are natural language processing tools and can communicate in a human-like way. They provide information quickly and can generate new text, code, images, and other kinds of creative content.

What is SGE?

SGE stands for Search Generative Experience. It is a new set of search and interface capabilities that integrates generative AI-powered results into Google search engine query responses.

SGE is still under development, but it’s designed to make searching for information online even more helpful, instructive, and insightful. By nature, SGE hinges on providing users with a more personalized and conversational experience. It is intended to do this by:

Generating concise and informative answers to complex questions.
Providing relevant visual content, such as images, charts, and graphs.
Suggesting follow-up questions to help users explore their topic of interest further.
Translating search results into different languages.

Here are some examples of how SGE can be used:

If you search “how to change a tire,” SGE might generate a step-by-step guide with images and videos.
If you search for “best restaurants in Phoenix,” SGE might generate a list of restaurants with user reviews and links to their menus.
If you search for “what does life even mean?” SGE might generate a summary of different philosophical perspectives on the topic.

SGE is revolutionizing the way we search for information. Using generative AI to produce more personalized and informative results, SGE can help searchers (consumers) find the information they need more quickly and easily.

The current state of SEO: ‘It depends’

We can’t ignore the fact that AI’s emergence and proliferation are rattling to SEO as we traditionally know it.

According to Search Engine Journal’s 2024 State of SEO report, today’s digital marketers and SEOs expect disruptions from three major trends:

Generative AI
Google’s E-E-A-T ranking criteria
Automation tools

For many SEO experts, these new and rapidly evolving advances challenge how we think about what it means to optimize for search.

These concerns check out, too. Google’s recent Helpful Content core algorithm update, which began rolling out in August and has extended into September 2023, is making one fact glaringly obvious: SEO no longer means optimizing content and website experiences for search engine crawlers and the only way to win top-ranking spots, boost CTR, gain qualified organic traffic (and lift conversions) is to optimize for the human experience.

While AI, generative tools, and even search algorithms gain a better understanding of what kind of content is helpful and informative to people, the notion of keyword-stuffed web copy created just for search engines is on its way out, and helpful content written by people, for people, has gained momentum as what it takes to win in the competitive SEO space.

Welcome to the future: Embracing content strategy with SEO, SGE, and AI in mind

As more web users turn to AI and SGE tools to do research and make informed decisions, it is increasingly important to be visible to searchers no matter the medium they’re using and aware of how your business is perceived by both artificial and human intelligence in this new virtual realm.

The only way to achieve this goal and prepare for future advancements is to embrace a website content strategy intricately interwoven with forward-focused SEO. This is evident with each Google core algorithm update as they increasingly move toward rewarding sites that relay information in an easy-to-understand, conversational, and unbiased tone.

Next steps for content strategy, SEO and SGE success

It might sound counter-intuitive, but embracing an organic content strategy with a human element is vital to success in today’s AI-driven landscape as SGE emerges. This especially rings true when your business and website tie into YMYL (your money or your life) topics like health, medicine, finance, and current events.

Google’s algorithms are designed to reward websites that provide high-quality content that is informative, comprehensive, and relevant to users. To appeal to Google’s E-E-A-T criteria, comply with Google’s Helpful Content updates, and succeed in SGE, businesses need to focus on creating content that is genuinely helpful to humans with UX and CX in mind. There are a few ways to accomplish this:

Understand your customers’ journey. Linguistic profiling and search journey analysis can help you define your target audience’s journey. Where are they in their conversion journey? Understanding their needs and offering solutions improves their experience on-site and with your brand.
Write for your target audience. Before you start writing, take some time to think about your target audience. What are their needs and interests? What kind of content would they find helpful? What are the values that drive their decision-making?
Do your research. Make sure that your content is accurate and up-to-date. Cite your sources and link to other relevant content.
Be clear and concise. Get to the point quickly and avoid using jargon.
Write in a conversational tone. Imagine that you’re talking to a friend or colleague.
Break up your text with images, videos, and headings. This will make your content easier to read and scan.

Does this sound familiar? We’ve touched on the factors you see above before and it’s helped drive success landing at “position zero” in the SERPs. Learn more about featured snippets in SEO strategy.

Take the next steps in SEO and SGE now

AI is poised to revolutionize SEO, empowering businesses to reach their target audiences with unprecedented precision. Businesses must ethically embrace AI and other innovative technologies and position themselves as leaders in this rapidly evolving field. This requires an online strategy inextricably linked to forward-thinking SEO created by humans for humans.

Offering SEO solutions and website and content strategy is just part of how Tallwave wants to drive your success. As a leader in providing integrated marketing solutions and more to both established and up-and-coming brands, Tallwave is ready to deploy our customer-centric and cohesive approach in a way that is unique to your vision and creates exceptional experiences for consumers of all kinds.

From conversion rate optimization to paid media services to product design and beyond, we’re ready to partner up and strategically future-proof your digital strategies.

Tags AI, brand strategy, business strategy, Data & Analytics, SEO, SEO Strategy, SGE

Reaching New Customers Strategy

Swift Moves: What marketers can learn from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

Post author By Jessica Pumo
Post date October 6, 2023

The suspected budding relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce has become a major media moment. Whether you’re team “ Tayvis” or “Swelce” (or you remain unaffiliated), it’s almost impossible to escape the very real effects this speculated pairing is having on pop culture, whether romance is real or not. But what does this celebrity romance have to do with marketing? Well, hang on to your Eras tour T-shirts, because there’s more to this story than meets the eye.

Let’s explore how the “shipping” of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce by both music and football fans alike has sparked newfound engagement within the NFL community and the lessons marketers and growth leaders can draw from this phenomenon. …Are you ready for it?

Electric Touch: The high-voltage power of unexpected partnerships

When marketing strategies get a little stale and your standard playbook starts gathering dust, a creative and unexpected partnership can be an effective way to shake it off. This is an approach Swift has deployed herself in collaborations with unlikely artists like Kendrick Lamar in “Bad Blood.” The media attention on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s apparent joining of forces is a great reminder that successful marketing often involves unexpected partnerships and the value of being open to collaboration opportunities outside of our comfort zones.

The media attention on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s apparent joining of forces is a great reminder that successful marketing often involves unexpected partnerships and the value of being open to collaboration opportunities outside of our comfort zones.

While the generated media attention is great for driving cross-audience awareness for Swift’s and Kelce’s respective personal brands, is there a more substantial quantitative impact behind the hype? Absolutely. Consider this: the NFL, a sports giant with massive brand awareness and a highly engaged core audience, is experiencing increased engagement from Taylor Swift fans because of her connection to Travis Kelce. In fact, the Chiefs vs. Bears game where a cheering Swift first caught the attention of viewers and sportscasters was the most watched game of the week with nearly 25 million viewers, including a 63% increase in female viewers aged 18 to 49, according to Roku. This unexpected alliance demonstrates that sometimes, the most fruitful partnerships come when you’re willing to break the ice and think outside the box.

Emotional Connection: How soulful and authentic storytelling hits different

When it comes to authentic storytelling and connecting with people on an emotional level, Taylor Swift could teach a master class. She’s poured her heart and soul into her music, sharing her life’s ups and downs through songs like “Love Story” and “All Too Well.” Her lyrics and melodies tap into the human experience, making listeners feel like she’s singing about their lives and her uncanny ability to connect with her fans on an emotional level has turned them into a community of loyal followers.

In marketing, it’s crucial to tell your brand’s story authentically. Customers connect with brands that share their values and experiences. Marketers can create emotional connections with their audience through storytelling, relatable content, or simply empathizing with their customers’ needs. Finding that end game of emotional engagement can make all the difference, so don’t be afraid to share your journey and be as fearless as Taylor when it comes to opening up to your audience.

Staying Relevant: ‘Tis the damn season for a reinvention

In marketing, adaptability is key. Both Taylor Swift and the NFL have showcased remarkable adaptability in reaching and engaging their expanding fan bases in the face of an ever-evolving digital landscape. From her country beginnings in Tim McGraw to her pop reinvention in 1989 and her indie-folk venture in folklore, one thing Taylor Swift is known for is her ability to adapt and evolve with the times. She’s consistently changed her style, not just to stay relevant to an evolving audience base but to reflect the evolution of her own identity as an artist and brand. She seamlessly transitioned from country to pop, experimenting with indie-folk, and all the while, leveraging digital platforms to release surprise albums and engage directly with her fans on social media. The result has been a resounding and quantifiable success.

For its part, the NFL has recognized and responded to the shifting media consumption habits of younger generations and embraced digital platforms to livestream games, share highlight reels, and interact with fans in real-time on social media. Travis Kelce specifically has showcased a remarkable ability to engage effectively with a digital-native audience, elevating his status as both a sports personality and a brand. Kelce’s active presence on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok allows him to share behind-the-scenes glimpses of his life, showcase his unique personality, and connect with fans beyond the football field. And New Heights podcast with brother and Philadelphia Eagles center, Jason Kelce, has become a dynamic platform where the Kelce brothers engage with their fans on various topics, including sports, lifestyle, and personal experiences. By leveraging the podcasting medium, they’ve created a space for candid conversations, special guest appearances, and authentic storytelling, further solidifying their status as relatable sports figures in the eyes of their fans. The podcast serves as a prime example of how athletes can use modern digital channels to connect with their audience on a deeper level and bridged the gap between traditional sports and the digital age, appealing not only to sports enthusiasts but also to a younger, tech-savvy audience.

By adapting to the digital era and staying attuned to their fan bases’ preferences, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and the NFL as a whole have proven that flexibility, digital prowess, and a willingness to reinvent are essential for sustained success in an ever-evolving digital marketing and entertainment landscape. And you must be ready to pivot and reinvent your strategies to keep up and you can’t be afraid to begin again when necessary.

Crossing Boundaries: Challenging the borders of audience and pop culture

Travis Kelce’s fanbase in the NFL is predominantly sports-oriented. Taylor Swift’s is music-focused. It might be easy to assume that those audiences are mutually exclusive, but they’re not. In fact, Tallwave Product Manager, Anna McKee, sits squarely in both camps. “I’ve been a Chiefs fan my entire life, and I’ve been a Taylor Swift fan since her career first launched. I’ve seen 5 Taylor Swift concerts—two at Arrowhead—and have owned Chiefs season tickets for the last 5 years. I’m right at the center of the Taylor and Travis Venn diagram.” Anna was at the fabled Chiefs vs. Bears game and experienced the phenomenon of this pairing firsthand and then had the experience of watching it from afar catching the Chiefs vs. Jets game a week later. “It was wild how clear the effect was between the two games but in totally different ways. Without the benefit of a TV broadcast to provide a birds’ eye view while I was physically at the Chiefs/Bears game, the conversation was about Taylor the entire time. Whether it was a question out loud or a text or a tweet, everyone wanted to know why she was there, who she was with, and whether it was a PR stunt. Regardless of the speculation, the general consensus with the women I was with was that we didn’t care, we were just excited she was there! Watching the Chiefs/Jets game a week later on TV, the broadcast kept cutting to her, which made it even more real and, in some ways, more exciting.”

“I’ve been a Chiefs fan my entire life, and I’ve been a Taylor Swift fan since her career first launched. I’ve seen 5 Taylor Swift concerts—two at Arrowhead—and have owned Chiefs season tickets for the last 5 years. I’m right at the center of the Taylor and Travis Venn diagram.”
Anna McKee, Tallwave product manager

The steep spike in NFL engagement among women suggests that the apparent relationship has bridged these two seemingly disparate communities, creating a fusion of interests. And Anna’s experience and those like her who are long-time fans of both found another reason to engage more deeply. If there’s one lesson here for marketers, it’s the power of tapping into multiple affinities where possible.

Staying Social: Be a trendsetter, a star

The sudden surge of engagement within the NFL community due to Taylor Swift’s involvement demonstrates the importance of monitoring and staying on top of trends, particularly when it comes to social media. And on that front, Taylor Swift is a force of nature. For example, when it comes to social following on Instagram, Swift’s following outpaces the NFL’s by an order of magnitude. She’s got 273 million, over 9 times the NFL’s 28 million. And Swift’s social power is translating to real gains for both the NFL and Travis Kelce.

While the NFL is still trying to find its footing on how to maximize its return on the Swift halo effect (posting references to Swift’s presence at the game and then subsequently removing them after receiving some backlash), there’s no question they’ve benefitted. As just one example, with the boon of content focused on Swift and Kelce as a pair, the NFL has seen record views on TikTok content. That halo effect has extended to Travis Kelce, too, helping him pick up 380k new Instagram followers and boosting his podcast into the top spot on Apple’s charts.

The surface lesson for marketers here is straightforward: an active and engaging social media presence on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok can help you connect with your audience, share your story, and foster a sense of community. This is particularly beneficial for driving engagement with your audience outside of high-intent moments, which can add up to real value over time as it helps cement your brand in the minds of your audience. But there’s a deeper takeaway about the art of timing. As the saying goes, “timing is everything,” and the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce relationship proves this point. Their romance coincided with the NFL season and Swift’s record-breaking Eras tour, leading to a perfect storm of increased engagement. This isn’t the kind of thing that’s easy to anticipate, but marketers recognize the brand-building value of this kind of rare serendipitous moment. The NFL did, too. While every move they’ve made to capitalize on that moment hasn’t necessarily been pitch perfect, they didn’t let perfect execution be the enemy of perfect timing, which is a valuable lesson in itself.

End Game: Summing up

In the ever-evolving marketing world, we can learn valuable lessons from unexpected sources, just like the budding relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Embrace unexpected partnerships, tell your brand’s story authentically, and leverage emotional connections to engage your audience, including in more casual interactions with your brand. Adaptability, engaging diverse audiences, and capitalizing on pop culture can open new doors for growth. And to complete your mastermind marketing strategy, don’t forget the role of social media, monitoring trends, and be ready to seize those rare and powerful serendipitous moments to propel your marketing efforts forward.

Whether you’re ready to see sparks fly between Taylor and Travis or you’ve got bad blood with this attention-grabbing romance, there’s something to be learned from this pop culture phenomenon. Let’s take these lessons to heart, just as we would with our favorite Taylor Swift songs, and create marketing strategies that create a lasting love affair with our audience.

Are you ready for it? We are. Let’s talk.

Tags business strategy, customer experience, Data & Analytics, empathetic marketing, product design, product development

Strategy

Customer portals: Powerful platforms for CX success

Post author By Laura Isaacs
Post date June 27, 2023

It’s a fact: great customers have great expectations. Not only do your valuable customers expect an outstanding product or service, but they also demand an exceptional experience. And today, an excellent customer journey depends on meeting your customers where they are and accommodating ever-evolving demands.

One consistent trend is autonomy. Today’s customers want to help themselves — studies show that 70% of consumers want to resolve issues independently. Where do they go to find help? Online. Close to 65% of consumers always or almost always turn to a company’s online resources when they have a simple question or need a quick fix.

Customer portals: An inclusive CX solution

Combining today’s customers’ need for independence with other emerging CX demands like deeper personalization, more immersive experiences, and even conversation and connection seems like a heavy lift. But there is a solution that covers all of these needs: a thoughtful, well-designed customer portal.

Online customer portals have emerged as a vital component of successful business-consumer relationships. These dedicated digital platforms provide customers with a personalized and streamlined experience, allowing them to access essential information, manage their accounts, build affinity, and engage with your brand more efficiently and effectively.

But it goes even further than that. A great customer portal doesn’t just meet consumer demand; it also helps meet your company’s needs. Customer portals free up company resources and human capital, optimize internal processes, and much more.

What is a customer portal?

A customer portal is a secure, web-based platform that serves as a centralized hub for customers to interact with a business. It offers a range of self-service functionalities, such as accessing account information, making transactions, progress tracking, tracking orders, submitting support tickets, engaging with support agents, and retrieving relevant resources. You can easily empower customers and foster stronger relationships by giving direct access to these features.

Customer portals are a gateway to the various products, services, and information brands and businesses offer. By bringing together crucial functions in one place, customer portals simplify the customer journey and create a cohesive and engaging experience.

How do customer portals benefit consumers?

Customer portals aren’t just important; they’re necessary. Numbers from Microsoft’s Global State of Customer Service report indicate that nine out of 10 U.S. consumers expect a brand or organization to have an online portal for self-service.

These numbers make sense, too. Millennials and Gen Z, both digital natives, comprise nearly half of the U.S. population and significantly shape consumer trends. As self-service becomes the norm and younger consumers drive digital demands, online customer portals become even more essential.

Why are customer experience portals important to consumers? Here are three benefits to consider:

Customer portals provide space for seamless communication

As users embrace ChatGPT, Bard and Gemini, and other natural language processing AI platforms, the demand for conversational customer service will likely increase. Interactions in a customer portal can be protected and stored so that historical context is quickly available when a human takes over. They can pick up the conversation without missing a beat and provide seamless communication.

Portals let your business meet digital demand in real time

A recent ZenDesk study found that 72% of customers want immediate services. Customers appreciate the ability to access their account details, view past transactions, track orders, and make changes to their profiles on their time without relying on customer support.

Self-service options foster trust

By providing a secure and personalized space for customers to engage with the brand, businesses can use online portals to foster a sense of exclusivity and strengthen their relationships. Customers feel valued and trusted when they can easily access relevant information and resources, and this positively influences their perceptions of the brand.

How do customer portals benefit businesses?

From a business perspective, customer portals contribute to operational efficiency. By enabling customers to perform self-service tasks on their own, internal stakeholders can streamline the support processes. You’ll also likely be able to put your money where it matters, as self-service in an online portal costs less than one-on-one back-and-forth with an agent.

You can also use information from your online portal to improve experiences and drive data-backed decisions. Incorporating analytics and reporting capabilities into your portal gives you rich insights into customer behavior, engagement levels, and portal performance. Learn more about leveraging data-driven insights to improve customer experiences.

Another important consideration is that effective customer portals can help craft an outstanding employee experience. When consumers are empowered to meet their needs, your agents feel less pressure. They aren’t dealing with monotonously repeated questions and are free to focus on more complex issues, which can undoubtedly be more engaging and fulfilling.

And perhaps most importantly, a successful customer portal can enable growth and prepare for a profitable future. Your customer portal has the potential to become the central hub of your customers’ experiences. These self-service functions will meet consumer demands, lessen agent burden, and let you scale offerings as your business grows.

Learn more about Tallwave’s Digital Experience Design Services.

What does it take to make a great customer experience portal?

With so many benefits and significant touch points, interactions with customer portals can be make-or-break moments in the CX journey. A great customer portal empowers your customer with a cohesive and engaging experience.

Eleven considerations for CX portal success

There’s a lot that goes into creating a great customer portal and best practices must be considered. Here are 11 essential features and factors that go into making a successful product:

User-friendly interface: A well-designed and intuitive interface ensures customers can easily navigate the portal, find the necessary information, and perform desired actions without confusion.
Secure authentication: Robust authentication mechanisms, such as two-factor authentication, help protect customer data and ensure only authorized individuals can access the portal.
Personalization: Customizable dashboards, personalized recommendations, notifications, account support features, and tailored content based on users’ preferences enhance the user experience and make the portal more engaging.
Self-service functionality: The ability for customers to independently perform tasks, such as updating information, accessing essential documents, managing subscriptions, and initiating support requests, reduces their reliance on customer support and improves efficiency.
Communication support channels: Integrating communication channels — including chatbots, live chat, support ticket systems, or community forums — allows customers to interact with support teams directly and receive timely assistance.
Mobile responsiveness: Nearly 80% of smartphone users have used their devices to make purchases, so ensuring your customer portal is mobile-responsive is crucial. It should adapt seamlessly to different screen sizes and provide an optimal experience across various devices.
Foster feedback: A great customer portal fosters a feedback loop that you can use to improve your audience focus. You can see what topics get the most engagement and track other metrics to leverage data for future improvements with built-in user feedback mechanisms.
Data enablement: The metrics you collect from customer portal interactions can help you retain customers, enhance customer experiences, and achieve sustainable growth even as the economy shifts. Additionally, reporting and data visualization within the portal make key information accessible to stakeholders.
Accessibility: Your customers are diverse, and your portal should be inclusive and accessible. This involves considering factors such as color contrast, text size, and compatibility with assistive technology.
Seamless integration: A successful customer portal should integrate smoothly with existing systems, like CRM platforms, e-commerce solutions, and support ticket systems to provide a seamless end-to-end experience for customers.
Continuous iteration: Product design and development teams should adopt an iterative approach, gathering user feedback and monitoring portal performance to identify areas for improvement and make ongoing refinements to enhance the user experience.

Empower customers and enable growth with Tallwave

Customer portals have revolutionized how businesses interact with their customers, offering a range of self-service capabilities and personalized experiences. By understanding the significance of customer portals and incorporating essential features and elements, you can leverage your portal to drive customer satisfaction, loyalty, and long-term success.

Tallwave has hands-on experience creating customer-centric online portals that empower and delight. We apply a heuristic methodology to evaluate how consumers interact with digital products, like online portals, and through our iterative design process, turn our findings into a successful product that exceeds the expectations of internal and external stakeholders.

Ready to learn more about Tallwave and how we can enable your business’s growth? Let’s explore the opportunities together.

Tags customer experience, customer experience design, customer portals, product design, product development

Strategy

From chaos to clarity: Data quality management for actionable insight

Post author By Laura Isaacs
Post date June 20, 2023

Data quality management empowers business success

Data quality plays a crucial role in the business landscape when it comes to informing strategy and enabling growth. As organizations strive to do more (or at least the same) with less, mastering data quality management is imperative. Collecting and analyzing the right data points can help you retain customers, enhance customer experiences, optimize campaigns, boost acquisition, and achieve sustainable growth even as the economy shifts.

But in today’s data-driven environment with evolving tracking technology, compliance demands, and AI disrupting the status quo, problems with data quality and quantity problems are amplified. And these issues come with a steep price: misinterpreted insights, wasted resources, and even concerns with ethics, transparency, and consumer privacy.

Effective data quality management is complex, but it doesn’t have to be. Understanding the causes and consequences of poor data quality, finding a source of truth, building a data-driven culture, and working with the right data enablement partner all come together to empower informed decisions that lead to outstanding experiences.

Missed opportunities: Causes and consequences of poor data quality

Once upon a time, CMOs and growth leaders spent their days thinking about brand strategy with creative license and assumed success came from stellar messaging. But today, these roles hinge on emerging technology, marketing agility, and driving ROI while expecting immediate results — all of which depend on quality data.

Statistics reported in the 2023 Braze Customer Engagement Review indicate that more than one-third of marketing leaders cite the collection, integration, management, and accessibility of data as their top challenges when it comes to customer engagement.

These data challenges come in many different forms. Here are a few common problems in marketing data quality management:

More data, more problems

Organizations often find themselves drowning in a sea of information in the era of big data. According to the Braze survey mentioned above, a staggering eight out of every ten leaders surveyed admitted to collecting more data than they can realistically use.

Data down the drain

With so much data at hand, so much goes to waste. Experian’s most recent data experience research report stated that an estimated 73% of all collected marketing data goes unused. Overcollected and underutilized data can come with high costs, ranging from consumer privacy risks to wasted resources.

Have you stored your historical data from Universal Analytics? The clock is ticking! Learn more about GA4 migration.

Standardization struggles

A lack of standardization and guidelines in your data strategy leads to all kinds of complications. Inconsistencies across systems and departments create confusion, and inaccurate data can mislead decision-making processes. Incomplete data leads to gaps in insights, while outdated data fails to reflect the current reality. This results in unreliable data and an inability to inform strategy.

Disparate times, disparate measures

Fragmented data is a major challenge for many (if not all) organizations. According to a study conducted by Wakefield Research, 441 of the 450 senior data leaders surveyed indicated that data silos exist within their organization. In addition, 311 of the same leaders report they have “trapped” data they cannot access. Rescuing trapped data can open opportunities for actionable insights.

What happens when organizations unlock trapped data? You’ll find untapped insights into user interactions that allow you to create outstanding customer experiences. Learn more about Tallwave’s success with data unification and enablement strategy.

Left brain, right brain

What causes all the data debacles? It could be that marketing people and data people don’t always speak the same language. Braze found that 42% of respondents reported that their top data management challenge stems from working with internal data scientists and IT departments who don’t understand marketing priorities. The second biggest challenge is that marketing talent lacks data skills.

Data mismanagement comes with consequences that can be summarized in two words: missed opportunities. Without a data-driven strategy, you’ll likely end up with wasted resources and miss out on what matters: customer retention, acquisition, and growth.

Seizing opportunities: 4 considerations for collecting quality data

Access to high-quality data enables business leaders to better understand their customers: their needs, preferences, expectations, and buying habits. This understanding helps companies successfully satisfy and engage customers, increase brand awareness, and drive sales conversions.

While ongoing data quality management might feel like an uphill battle, there are a few best practices you can implement to harness the power of accessible analytics.

Here are four actionable steps to consider:

Align data collection with business goals: Start by aligning your data collection efforts with your organization’s goals and objectives. By focusing on the data that truly matters, you can avoid the trap of over-collection and instead gather the insights necessary to drive meaningful actions.
Standardize data across systems and departments: Establishing data standardization protocols is vital to ensure consistency and accuracy. Implementing standardized data models, formats, and definitions across systems and departments fosters a unified view of the data and enhances its reliability.
Implement data validation and verification processes: Introduce robust data validation and verification processes to maintain data integrity. These processes involve checking for completeness, identifying and resolving inconsistencies, and ensuring data accuracy through various validation techniques.
Invest in data cleansing, enrichment, and visualization tools: Leverage data cleansing and enrichment tools to improve the quality of your data. These tools can help identify and rectify errors, fill in missing information, and enhance the overall value of your data. Additionally, data visualization tools and dashboards give stakeholders the context they need to gain actionable insights from complex data sets.

Understanding and acting upon data compliance requirements are also significant considerations, especially in healthcare. Learn more about HIPAA-compliant web analytics.

Data-driven culture: Collaboration and metrics that matter

To truly master data quality management, organizations need to foster a data-driven culture. This kind of environment empowers leaders to put facts before instincts and take valuable action with each decision.

Unified team, unified data strategy

A data-driven culture is fueled by connection. The symbiotic relationship between data scientists and marketing specialists enables realizing your analytics tools’ full potential, allowing your organization to make data-driven decisions and achieve greater results. When marketing teams and data teams combine forces and truly understand each other, priorities are aligned.

Prioritizing data quality lets you unlock valuable insights, reach your target audience more effectively, and ultimately enhance customer experiences while maximizing the return on your marketing investment.

The first step in creating a culture defined by data is finding a data strategy and analytics partner who truly understands the metrics that matter. A true enablement partner, like Tallwave, can help you narrow down the most relevant data points to avoid overcollection and support unification. You’ll have access to meaningful insights that drive positive outcomes.

Ready to embrace data enablement? Let’s chat. We can work together to create a unified data strategy that gives you the information needed to implement outstanding experiences. Reach out to Tallwave now.

Tags Data & Analytics, data strategy

Strategy

Healthcare Web Analytics in 2023: Get Your Data In Order

Post author By Caroline Meehean
Post date March 21, 2023

On December 1, 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a bulletin stating that the use of third-party cookies, pixels, and other tracking technology by healthcare companies may be violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This is in the wake of a year of unprecedented data breaches involving business associates, or third-party vendors, throughout the healthcare industry.

Source: www.hipaajournal.com/healthcare-data-breach-statistics

2022 saw over 700 healthcare data breaches impacting more than 50 million individuals. And nearly a third of the ten most significant breaches were due to third-party tracking pixels from companies like Google and Meta (Facebook). While Google and Meta help companies understand their website and other owned properties’ usage, users of the platform have inadvertently also exposed data ranging from personally identifiable information such as Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and financial account information to medical record numbers, insurance account numbers, and more.

Source: www.hipaajournal.com/healthcare-data-breach-statistics

Such breaches come with hefty financial penalties, including fines, settlements, and other repercussions for the entities involved. But a more significant impact is felt by the consumer whose data has been compromised, as stolen personal information can result in identity theft. And recovery from identity theft is often a long and burdensome process.

Source: www.hipaajournal.com/healthcare-data-breach-statistics

Up until last December when HHS issued its bulletin, it had not provided formal guidelines regarding sensitive healthcare data and HIPAA relative to online tracking technologies. So what does this announcement mean and how can healthcare organizations stay HIPAA compliant?

What do the HHS changes mean for healthcare organizations?

A good starting point is an understanding of the technologies involved and the risks they pose. The HHS announcement specifically speaks to tracking technologies, often third-party, which are generally anonymized. Tracking cookies, specifically pixels, are tiny bits of embedded code used to track a site visitor’s online activity. The data collected from the pixels provides insights that allow the site owner to develop marketing strategies, such as on-site personalized experiences and off-site retargeting campaigns, specific to each site visitor’s behaviors and interactions.

The problem? Many healthcare organizations are using third-party pixels to gain a better understanding of how they can optimize the digital experiences within their public-facing websites and patient portals. And these pixels may be sharing protected health information (PHI) inadvertently with third parties. Most often, the concern lies with pixels on the patient portal, a secure website or application where patients can access and interact with their health data. But PHI can also be collected from the public website and mobile apps in the form of cookies, web beacons, fingerprinting scripts, and other scripts.

So what constitutes PHI?

Protected health information is any information related to an individual’s past, present, or future health, healthcare, or payment for healthcare. This includes, but is not limited to:

Medical records, be they physical, electronic, or spoken
Information pertaining to billing, insurance, or of any financial aspect of an individual’s health or healthcare
Demographic information
Mental health conditions
Tests and laboratory results
All information related to an individual’s diagnosis, treatment, or prognosis
Anonymous session user ID

As of December 1, 2022, anonymous session user ID is considered PHI.

Anonymous user identification allows the website to anonymously identify unique site visitors without the user having to log in or consent to a tracking cookie. Anonymous sessions are captured and aggregated and can include data such as (but not limited to) the user’s IP address, geographic location, language, device, and mobile carrier, but is generally, as the name suggests, anonymous. However, HHS has deemed that these data points connect the individual to the entity and therefore can be related to the individual’s past, present, or future health, healthcare, or payment for healthcare.

The addition of anonymous session user ID considered as PHI now adds additional complexity to an already confusing data security landscape. Furthermore, in order to protect themselves and their patients, the onus is on healthcare providers to ensure they and their partners are not improperly using tracking technology on the healthcare provider’s digital properties, mobile apps, etc.

How can healthcare organizations keep web analytics HIPAA compliant?

As there is no easy website or mobile app consent solution, it is best to develop a compliant strategy that will protect both the healthcare organization and its consumers. Developing a compliant strategy requires engaging all departments (marketing, marketing analytics, legal, IT, etc.) and ensuring organizational alignment around it. This starts with examining your current analytics tech stack to determine if it meets both the organization’s needs and HHS requirements.

Is Google Analytics HIPAA compliant?

Over 28 million websites worldwide currently use Google Analytics, over four million of which are in the United States. Of all U.S. industries that use Google Analytics, hospital and healthcare companies are the third most prevalent. Google Analytics isn’t the only option for tracking website data, but it has the largest market share, and for good reason. It is robust and intuitive. But Google Analytics has also faced challenges, having been banned in a few European countries due to General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) violations. Google did take steps toward addressing the European Union’s GDPR requirements with its recent release of GA4.

So, does Google Analytics meet the new requirements outlined in the HHS bulletin? The simple answer is no. In basic and 360 configurations, GA3 and GA4 no longer meet the HHS compliance requirements. This is primarily due to specific attributes of the data sets, specifically the session and user ID dimensions.

As a result, healthcare companies are expediting their searches for alternative platforms that will provide organizations with the information they need to measure their digital customer experiences and — more importantly — store that data securely.

After the Universal Analytics sunset on July 1, 2023, you will have a minimum of six months to access your previously processed data. Are you ready to transition to GA4?

What are the best next steps toward achieving compliance?

The first step is to identify and outline requirements for a cohesive transition to a new, compliant platform. The most important of these requirements is a HIPAA-compliant analytics platform provider, one that will be covered under a Business Associates Agreement (BAA). The good news is there are a handful of platforms available that fit this important need.

Additionally, all businesses are unique and have priorities that must be considered when planning a transition to a new analytics platform. Some examples of priorities might include ease of implementation, tag management capabilities, user limits, integrations with other Google products, and interface complexity, among other things.

Once requirements have been prioritized across internal teams, analytics owners will be able to guide a best-fit decision.

Whether your organization has been using Universal Analytics for years or you have recently migrated to GA4, Tallwave can help you organize around your requirements, gain internal alignment, and provide expertise on next best options all the way through the implementation and reporting transition. Reach out when you’re ready to learn more.

Tags business strategy, data, Data & Analytics, data strategy, healthcare, HIPAA

Customer Engagement Strategy

Better Together: A Paid Media and CRO Marketing Love Story

Post author By Stevie LoBosco
Post date February 14, 2023

No love story is complete without a montage!

Picture this, you’re executing a holistic paid media strategy, driving traffic to your website through a broad range of tactics like digital video, streaming audio, display, paid social, and paid search. Paid media is living the good life, racking up impressions, driving ad engagement, and generating some conversions along the way. But something is missing…

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) marketing, a strategic method of testing, iterating, and optimizing on-site functionality to improve the user experience and increase the rate of conversion (or high-value action), is sitting on the other side of town, pulling petals off a daisy, waiting to find a partner who can produce the quality traffic and insights it needs to really thrive. A partner to complete him…

Both paid media and CRO are integral parts of an efficient and effective marketing plan, but oftentimes are treated as independent tactics with little regard for one another. Much opportunity is missed by only running one of these programs or by running them in silos.

Integrate your paid media and CRO strategies and watch the sparks fly.

Two Lovable Leads: Paid Media & CRO

Our love story begins with two independent marketing tactics, paid media and CRO, living worlds apart (or perhaps just a siloed marketing team away), not realizing just how incomplete they are without one another. Existing as stand-alone tactics, paid media and CRO will generally (hopefully) produce positive results for their campaigns, but are limited in their respective abilities.

Most comprehensive marketing plans include paid media. It’s a great way to get in front of your target audience, build brand awareness, and drive traffic to your website. In fact, marketers typically spend up to 25% of their marketing budget on paid media.

That’s a huge investment!

But what happens when those prospective customers get to the website?

If they encounter a poor landing page experience, they may get lost trying to navigate through on-site information, they may abandon cart before finalizing a purchase, or — worse yet — they may just … bounce. A poor user experience on-site greatly reduces the chance for conversion, causing something of a leaky bucket situation, in which site visitors fall through before converting. And then all that time, money, and effort you spent trying to drive traffic to your site through paid media was… kind of a waste.

Since paid media success is often evaluated based on its ability to convert traffic, a poor landing page experience can be detrimental to a paid media campaign. To further amplify the pain felt here, paid media marketers often don’t have the ability to control the landing page experience, which can fuel frustration and drive misalignment between paid media tactics and performance. If only there were something that could help plug that leaky bucket….

Meanwhile, still hanging out on the other side of town, CRO is becoming a more popular tactic with marketers. More companies are investing in CRO strategy to identify and address weak areas on the website that may be impacting the user experience and actively working against the company’s goals. CRO allows marketers to systematically test various iterations of website functionality to determine which iterations are most impactful in weeding out points of friction and producing conversions (or any high-value action, like a lead form submission, an “add to cart,” a search query, etc.).

And CRO isn’t limited to just major points of conversion, like transactions and lead form submissions. It can also be applied to “micro-conversions,” or behaviors that sit just upstream of the point of conversion, such as product page views, in an effort to address the larger user journey.

But CRO only works if enough quality traffic is being driven to the website to run tests that yield statistically significant results.

The Meet Cute: Where Two Digital Marketing Strategies Come Together

So paid media and CRO might get along just fine on their own, but bring them together …

FIREWORKS!

By running these two tactics in tandem, always-on paid media ensures enough traffic is flowing to the website for the CRO team to run impactful and efficient tests. In addition to traffic volume, a strong paid media plan will also help ensure that quality traffic is being driven to the site, which is crucial for producing meaningful CRO test results. The more qualified traffic coming to site, the quicker CRO tests can produce data-driven insights, the quicker actions can be taken to make UX improvements on-site, and the quicker you’ll see a lift in conversions.

Likewise, an active CRO strategy helps ensure that users who come to the website through paid media efforts can seamlessly work their way through the conversion path. An investment in CRO helps protect your paid media investment by keeping visitors on-site and increasing their likelihood of converting, which in turn boosts important KPIs like conversion rate and return on ad spend.

Building Butterflies: 1 + 1 = 3

But here’s where the real magic happens.

By running these two tactics as part of one integrated strategy, you now have a constant flow of data between the two. And data, as we all know, is king. Paid media insights can help the CRO team better understand who the target audience is. Knowing who is engaging with ads can help establish tests for how best to connect to those audiences on site. Learnings from CRO tests may impact paid media channels, placements, targeting, and creative recommendations. The constant flow of learnings between teams will increase the ability for both teams to identify tests, optimize features, and effectively connect with the target audience. And, perhaps most importantly, when CRO and paid media come together, they create a more seamless brand experience that is felt by the user.

Through an effective paid media and CRO relationship, messaging, creative design, and paid media placement will feel cohesive when a prospective customer clicks through an ad to the website, rather than feeling like two separate experiences. Leveraging paid media and CRO together makes marketing plans more effective and marketing budgets more efficient.

No love story is complete without a montage!

The Lightbulb Moment: Recognizing the Need for a Paid Media & CRO Relationship

So how do you know when you might benefit from an integrated paid media and CRO strategy?

The following indicators suggest that your paid media traffic is being met with a poor user experience on-site and is in need of CRO:

Paid media traffic has a bounce rate over 80%
Paid media traffic is spending a lot of time on-site and/or visiting many pages on-site, but isn’t taking any high-value actions
Paid media users begin the conversion process (E.g., adding an item to cart), but ultimately do not convert (E.g., complete purchase)

The following indicators suggest that your CRO marketing program is in need of more qualified traffic via a new or improved paid media plan:

Not enough traffic to produce statistically significant test results in a reasonable amount of time
Poor quality of leads (suggesting that the wrong audience is engaging on-site)

Running paid media or CRO alone is beneficial for your marketing program. Running both paid media and CRO is even better. Running paid media and CRO as part of an integrated, seamless strategy with data as a driving force… that’s a love story for the ages.

You Complete Me

Tallwave is ready to play matchmaker when it comes to marrying paid media and CRO marketing. We’ve helped many clients find success.

Interested to know how Tallwave can help you implement an impactful paid media and CRO strategy? Let’s talk!

Tags brand strategy, conversion rate optimization, conversion strategy, CRO, customer experience, paid media

Strategy

Uncover the benefits of featured snippets in your SEO strategy

Post author By Laura Isaacs
Post date January 17, 2023
2 Comments on Uncover the benefits of featured snippets in your SEO strategy

Google’s organic search experience is designed to put users first. New search features and refined results connect users with what they need to make educated decisions about everything from what products to purchase to what site presents the most authoritative information needed to solve a problem. Google rolled out featured snippets to the search engine results pages (SERPs) in 2018 and has since transformed the way information is accessed and user questions are answered.

Even five years after launch, featured snippets and the strategy behind them come with many benefits. From increased click-through rates to enhanced user trust, winning a snippet puts you at a major advantage over competitors vying for the same keyword.

As of today, nearly 20% of all searches deliver results that include a featured snippet. This makes featured snippet strategy essential to organic search rankings, customer experience, and even conversion rates. Focusing on an organic web strategy and winning featured snippets is more important to SEO now than ever, as this can help combat the increasing costs and stagnating results many businesses are seeing with paid search placements.

What are featured snippets?

Featured snippets are extended blocks of information intended to give users a quick answer to their questions or search queries. Users might see a list, chart, or fact at the top of the page that provides instant access to the information they seek. Paragraph snippets are the most common type of featured snippet, accounting for 82% of all snippets and providing rich information to answer search queries.

You might consider featured snippet location on the SERP as “position 0,” the coveted spot between paid results and the rest of the organic results. This position is quite desirable—you can’t pay for this placement and landing here proves that Google has determined your content to be of exceptional value to the reader.

Featured snippets can mean different things to users and to content marketers.

To users, a featured snippet means their question is immediately answered and they can instantly access a web page with helpful content and authoritative information about their query.

To content marketers and SEO and UX/CX experts, featured snippets are SERP spotlights that give their quality content and web strategy an edge over the competition and should be an essential part of their digital marketing strategies.

Why are featured snippets important in SEO?

Featured snippets are more than just an important part of organic web strategy, they’re essential. There are at least four ways SEO and featured snippets can benefit your business:

Increase Web Traffic and Improve CTR: Our numbers show that owning a featured snippet can increase CTR by more than 850%, driving even more traffic to your website and consumers into your sales funnel.
Boost Brand Awareness: Landing at the top of the SERP with extra real estate increases visibility for your brand or business. It demands consumer attention.
Grow Website Authority: Featured snippets are a serious factor in building domain and page authority as they lead to better and more qualified traffic to your website.
Optimize Conversion Rates: Featured snippets can usher in users who are likely to become customers by answering their questions and providing need-to-know-now information.

Another unique benefit of including featured snippets in your web strategy is related to the increasing prevalence of voice search. Voice assistants and tools like Amazon’s Echo, Apple’s Siri, and Google Home are increasingly common in many homes and vehicles. According to December 2022 reports from Statista, 35% of all households in the United States own smart speakers. Voice search queries are among the most common way users interact with these devices. And in many cases, voice search devices answer questions by citing a featured snippet.

There’s still much more to the snippet equation and Tallwave’s proprietary research proves it. Let’s look at some of Tallwave’s unique specifics and statistics about the benefits of featured snippets for your business and web strategy.

How Tallwave clients win with snippet strategy

In-depth analysis and data-fueled strategy are essential parts of Tallwave’s approach.

We put that approach to work within the organic search strategy for a large regional healthcare client to help them win featured snippets with SEO, gaining prime visibility ahead of other organic search results and enhancing the authority of their brand.

Here’s how we did it and what we learned along the way.

How can featured snippets drive growth?

Tallwave wanted to better understand what kind of content Google found “snippet-worthy” and how to apply these features to drive growth. To do this, we looked for trends and commonalities among snippet-winning content to determine what Google evaluates as high-value and the impact snippets have on website engagement.

As such, Tallwave analyzed more than 1,000 featured snippets owned by a client’s (a major healthcare provider) website in 2022. Of these 1,000 featured snippets, 98% belonged to approximately 50 posts on the website’s blog.

Tallwave started by comparing the click-through rate (CTR) for keywords that owned featured snippets to all other ranking keywords on the site. When it comes to organic searches, CTR refers to the number of impressions seen in the SERPs divided by the number of users who clicked through to the site.

For this client, the average click-through rate for a snippet-owning keyword in position one on the site was 25.9%. The average CTR across the entire website was 2.7%. Owning a featured snippet for a search term helped us boost the client’s site clicks by an impressive 859%.

Not only does a high CTR drive traffic to the site, but Google has consistently hinted its algorithm considers CTR as a ranking factor.

Snippets Have Serious Imapct on CTR

The kind of keyword that won a featured snippet was also an important consideration in Tallwave’s analysis. Out of the client’s 1,000 snippet-owning keywords, 91% represented searches with “informational” intent, implying the searcher was looking for information needed to solve a problem. Presenting the information the searcher needs when they need it establishes your business as an expert or solution, sending the searcher down the sales funnel toward converting.

While a featured snippet from Google for an informational term might not win an immediate conversion, it certainly adds to visibility and helps establish your website’s authority and business credibility. Data from HubSpot suggests it takes around eight touches to lead a customer toward conversion. A featured snippet with rich, relevant results that directly answer a consumer’s need is a high-value touchpoint and will likely help keep your brand top of mind when they are ready to take action.

What SEO factors help content win featured snippets?

In addition to analyzing the CTR and type of keywords winning snippets, Tallwave also examined factors that make a blog post or web page “snippet-worthy” in Google’s eyes. This gives us unique, specific, and proprietary information that can be applied across clients to help create content that drives awareness and promotes high-value engagement.

Here are some of the key factors we’ve uncovered in working with our clients that you should consider in your organic search strategy to help win featured snippets:

Make Keywords Clear: Many blog posts with featured snippets include a primary keyword in the form of a question in the headers and body copy.
Longtail Keywords Set Off Snippets: Longtail keywords are highly-specific search queries, often 3 to 5 words in length. These kinds of searches are more likely to trigger snippets for users seeking immediate answers.
Prudent Header Placement Wins: Strategically placing H2s and H3s within website content increases the likelihood of that page or post winning a snippet.
Outperform Competitors with Word Count: Blog posts and website pages with a competitive word count consistent with (or slightly higher than) the competition’s copy and with a specific number of words between headers (H2s, H3s) help content win snippets.
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Works: Latent semantic indexing occurs when SERP results are populated based on similar and conceptual keywords. For example, a blog post about anxiety might include supporting related terms like “depression,” “mental health,” “phobias,” or “panic.” The use of these related keywords might also increase the likelihood of content owning a featured snippet.

Reap the benefits of featured snippets in your SEO strategy

The benefits of featured snippets for SEO abound. Winning featured snippets and “position 0” SERP placement directly translates into contextualized search visibility for your brand or business, increased and better-qualified website traffic, proven website authority, and, ultimately, more customer conversions.

Providing SEO solutions and website and content strategy is just part of how Tallwave wants to drive your success. As a leader in providing integrated marketing solutions and more to both established and up-and-coming brands, Tallwave is ready to deploy our customer-centric and cohesive approach in a way that is unique to your vision and creates exceptional experiences for consumers of all kinds. From customer journey mapping to paid media services to product design and beyond, we’re ready to talk about how we can help your business win.

Tags Client Results, Featured Snippets, SEO, Web Strategy

Strategy

Prepare, Survive, Thrive: CX Strategies to Recession-Proof Your Business

Post author By Caroline Meehean
Post date November 18, 2022

But is This a True Recession?

That depends on your school of thought. Generally, a recession is a period of economic decline in which the gross domestic product (GDP) of a country falls for two consecutive quarters. However, there are many other factors to consider. Check out our white paper for more detailed information on recessions and recession-proofing strategies.

Though there is much academic debate around whether we’re technically in a recession or not, consumers are wary, and once again discretionary spending is trending down. As a general guideline, the National Bureau of Economic Research states that a recession lasts around 11 months on average, but the effects can be felt long after it has officially ended. So whether this economic downturn is a recession or a harbinger of one to come, savvy business leaders are positioning their companies to adapt so they can strategically navigate this challenging market.

Proven Recession Resilience Strategies

We’ve been here before. The recession brought on by the dot-com crash negatively affected a generation of investors, and though it was shorter-lived, it left a lasting impact. Most recently, the Great Recession of 2007-09. And though many businesses faced insurmountable challenges, others thrived. Here’s a look at some strategies leveraged by a few companies that came out stronger in the end.

Invest in Empathy

At the start of the Great Recession, Starbucks was struggling. The former king of coffee closed hundreds of stores, laid off thousands of employees, and was saddled with a pretentious image that alienated it in a time of financial insecurity. In 2008, under new (returning) CEO leadership, Starbucks immediately shifted focus to reignite the emotional attachment with its customers.

Starbucks developed a social program where customers could share ideas with each other and the company, giving input on products, services, in-store music and layout, and even corporate social responsibility. And Starbucks leadership listened—they implemented over 100 of their customer’s ideas! One of the first corporations to invest in a mobile app, Starbucks met its customers where they were, reigniting the brand by reestablishing trust, building a vibrant online community, and developing a devoted following.

Double Down on Brand

On the brink of disaster in 2008, Citigroup did an about-face, pivoting from a product-centered strategy to a client-first focus. Citigroup’s vision, mission, and strategic objectives became its driving force. It invested in understanding its individual customers, focusing on segments within each generation and catering to their diverse needs. Citigroup developed technology to measure customer feedback, allowing the bank to react and improve trust. It launched and maintained a social network presence that directly enhanced its brand image. The banking giant invested in its people, training and promoting top talent. Additionally, Citigroup segmented its products and services and operationalized a similar strategy for corporate, government, and business customers.

Since its near destruction in the Great Recession, Citigroup has focused on rebuilding its reputation and its been successful. The company continues to rank very highly in customer satisfaction, according to J.D. Power, American Customer Satisfaction Index, and their steadily improving Net Promoter Score.

Market Smarter

Facing many challenges leading up to the Great Recession, Netflix invested in research and development and strategic marketing to not only survive the recession but thrive in it. Netflix was going up against Blockbuster and Redbox in the physical DVD rental space and struggling to win market share. But when consumer spending sharply dropped, Netflix not only doubled down on its convenient mail-order model of movie rental but, having taken note of the role played by video game consoles and the all-new Smart TV, it pioneered an alternative method of media consumption: online streaming offered at a price lower than that of cable and satellite providers. Through strategic partnerships, Netflix targeted consumers with gaming platforms, streaming devices, and Smart TVs to promote a low-cost, no-late-fee, convenient, in-home entertainment option. Exactly what the budget-conscious consumer wanted.

Netflix has continued to be a leader in data- and customer-driven integrated marketing, creating a seamless, personalized experience for its users across all demographic groups. It continually optimizes the user experience based on user preferences to actively engage customers, not only enhancing their experience, but informing Netflix’s user data so it can continue to effectively personalize its customers’ experiences.

Increase Operational Efficiency

When economic crises hit, simply lowering headcount and reducing costs across your budget can help in the short term. But the most resilient and top-performing companies to emerge from the Great Recession focused their energies on improving operational efficiency. This strategy not only helped businesses survive the recession but succeed beyond the economic downturn by maintaining their momentum. After the dot-com bubble burst, devastating the tech sector, Target took a daring but well-calculated approach. During the recession, Target drastically improved productivity and supply chain operations through strategic partnerships. Additionally, it increased its marketing and sales spend, ramped up investment in credit card programs, opened more stores, and grew its internet business. And these measures paid off handsomely. Over the course of the recession, Target saw increased sales and profits that lasted well after the economy righted itself.

Target continues to invest in operational efficiency. In 2020, coming out of a record-breaking year, Target invested heavily in fulfillment services and supply chain to reduce friction points and scale capabilities. Additionally, and equally important, Target continues to invest in technology to provide customers with a more personalized and streamlined experience, increasing loyalty and driving growth.

Recession-Proofing Recommendations and Approaches

While many businesses failed in past recessions and economic downturns, the businesses featured above show that investment in resilience strategies can help companies both navigate challenging markets and carry the benefits of those investments into the future. Understanding and optimizing your customers’ experiences, strategically marketing your products and services, defining and refining your brand, and increasing operational efficiencies are solid strategies to drive customer acquisition and loyalty, increase market share, and drive growth.

Economists have predicted a 40-70% probability of a global recession in the next 18 months. While there is uncertainty regarding when, to what degree, or even if we will enter a true recession, looming economic uncertainty poses many of the same challenges.

What Other Business Leaders Are Doing to Prepare

We spoke with partners and business leaders across multiple industries to find out how they’re preparing for a potential recession—what they’re doing to protect their businesses and, where possible, gain an advantage over their competitors. Read our in-depth report Recession Proof Your Business: CX Strategies for Recession Resilience for valuable insights, expert opinions, and strategic approaches on how to prepare your business to not only survive but thrive in a challenging economic environment.

Ready to Increase Your Business’s Recession Resilience?

There are a lot of questions surrounding the current economic environment, and whether or not we are technically in a recession or one is on the horizon, investment in a strong CX strategy will help position your business to withstand challenging economic conditions. Ready to learn more? Let’s chat!

Strategy

What’s the Big Deal with Consumer Data Privacy?

Post author By Tallwave Team
Post date August 2, 2022

Data has become the fuel that fires successful business strategy. From achieving a 360-degree view of your customer to drive a stronger customer experience to moving beyond measuring marketing program performance to predicting consumer behavior in response to marketing stimuli, a strong data strategy makes it possible. As powerful as the relationship between organizations and their data can be, this has become secondary to the relationship between consumers and their personal data.

In the last few years, concerns about consumer data privacy have dominated conversations about how data is collected and used by businesses. With Europe leading the United States in terms of the stringency of consumer data privacy legislation around the collection and use of consumer data, US-based companies, marketers, advertising partners, and data brokers have been watching from a relative distance as those serving global audiences have grappled with the impact of European data privacy laws and, in some cases, suffered from fines and even bans for missing the mark.

For those serving the US market, Google’s 2020 announcement that they would phase out support for third party cookies signaled that broad reaching changes to consumer data privacy were coming stateside. Two years later, marketers and publishers have found ways to navigate a world where consumers have significantly more control over their data. With Google announcing that they will no longer collect data in Universal Analytics properties starting July 1, 2023—a move that will provide a more holistic view of the consumer journey while also adapting to new consumer data privacy legislation—many companies are scrambling to plan for that change to avoid potential data loss. With Google Analytics serving as the primary web analytics platform for an estimated 86% of websites, the impact is far-reaching.

So what should companies be doing, both in the near term and the long term, to set themselves up for success in an increasingly data privacy-focused world? We’ve got recommendations to help you make the right moves now to protect data integrity and continuity in the face of forced migration away from Universal Analytics and to evolve your data privacy strategy for the long run. But long-term success requires a big picture view of where the world is headed when it comes to consumer data privacy. That begins with understanding how we got here in the first place.

The Evolution of Consumer Data Privacy Legislation

In 1950, the European Convention on Human Rights put a legislative stake in the ground on privacy, stating that “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” With the invention of the Internet and the proliferation of global technologies that completely changed what “correspondence” could look like, the European Union had to adapt and they implemented the European Data Protection Directive in 1995, which set minimum standards for consumer data privacy and security.

In 2012, the European Commission introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with the primary aim of giving individuals control over their personal data and to simplify regulations within the EU. The GDPR became enforceable in 2018 and established a model for many national data privacy laws in countries such as Chile, Japan, Brazil, South Korea, Argentina, and Kenya. As of today, the United States government has no single consumer data privacy law similar to the GDPR. Instead, the U.S. takes a ‘sectoral’ approach, which relies on a combination of legislation, regulation, and self-regulation rather than government regulation alone.

While the GDPR was taking shape in Europe, the state of California introduced the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). This state statute enhances consumer data privacy rights and consumer protection for California residents. When the CCPA passed in 2018, many companies and industry groups came out in favor of passing a federal consumer data privacy law. Now, California has gone a step further, introducing the California Privacy Right Act (AKA CA Prop 24). The CPRA imposes new requirements for businesses to protect personal information, including minimizing data collection, limiting data retention and protecting data security.

Why is Data Privacy and Security Strategy Important to Google?

As companies serving European audiences have begun adapting to more stringent consumer data privacy regulations, the degree to which US-based data platforms comply with those regulations hasn’t been cut and dry, with contradictions in policy complicating the issue. For example, a 2020 judgment from the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield, a legal framework designed to allow enterprises in both the US and the EU to exchange personal data for commercial use. Because the US surveillance laws like the CLOUD Act require data disclosure from US-based companies when requested by the government, the EU-US Privacy Shield was ruled to provide inadequate protection to comply with GDPR requirements. This left a lot of companies and data platforms, Google being the largest, scrambling to address compliance gaps. That’s where GA4 comes in.

For the majority of US-based companies, migration to GA4, the fourth iteration of Google Analytics released by the company in 2020, is a likely part of the near-term strategy for complying with consumer data privacy legislation. Google released additional privacy controls in April of 2022 to further shore up the platform’s compliance with GDPR. Then they upped the ante for all companies using Google Analytics, whether they serve international audiences or not, by announcing that data collection via Universal Analytics, the predecessor to GA4, would stop July 1, 2023. While migration to GA4 or some other data platform is a pressing concern for most digital marketers and technology teams (and if you’re in that boat, we can help you with your GA4 migration), this is also an opportunity for both to come together to craft long-term, big-picture strategies focused on the very human emotion behind these technical shifts in data handling: the desire for trust.

What Does Consumer Data Privacy Mean for Your Data Strategy?

Experience defines how people feel about your brand and your business. Trust is built when brands and businesses consistently create experiences that deliver value to the people who interact with them while making them feel safe. Rather than focusing on the short-term proposition of choosing a new data platform, companies will be better served by focusing on long-term strategies for capturing, storing, and utilizing first-party data. Not only will this better equip marketers to navigate consumer data privacy regulations restricting third-party tracking capabilities, but it will create more valuable experiences for consumers, earning their trust and increasing the likelihood that they’ll willingly share their data based on the expectation of receiving value from that exchange. Here are some big-picture considerations for your long-term strategy for data privacy:

Prioritizing Data Ownership

Companies whose data privacy strategies prioritize data ownership will be better positioned to succeed as access to second- and third-party data becomes more limited. Customer databases and CRMs can be treasure troves of first-party data companies already have access to and can begin leveraging. Creating and gating high-value content or using other incentive-based strategies can be an effective way to convert zero-party data while offering consumers something of value. Investment in your data insights infrastructures is also critical for enabling a strategy for data privacy that also makes the most effective use of owned data to inform marketing strategy and drive performance..

Investing in Deep Knowledge of the Customer

Intimate knowledge of the customer has always been a foundational part of an effective marketing strategy. As shifts in the consumer data privacy landscape are leading the targeting capabilities available on third-party marketing platforms to become less precise, depth of knowledge of the customer will increasingly become a competitive advantage. The companies that know their customers best, from knowing and documenting their demographic and socioemotional characteristics in persona profiles to understanding how they verbalize their needs and pain points through search, to mapping their thoughts and behaviors throughout the customer journey, will be able to mitigate the impact that ongoing changes in the consumer data privacy landscape might have on their business.

Resisting Overreliance on Low-funnel Tactics

When it comes to marketing strategy in general and paid media strategy in particular, many companies are over-indexed in low-funnel investment. Given their proximity to the point of conversion, it’s easier for companies to draw a direct line from investment in these tactics to tangible returns. The truth is, that’s always been short lived in its effectiveness. Without investing in activity that feeds the funnel by introducing unaware audiences to your brand, the volume of those who make it to the bottom will dwindle over time. As new consumer data privacy regulations change the way success is defined and performance is measured, building the kinds of consumer relationships that drive long-term growth will take on renewed importance. Implementing full-funnel marketing strategies with content that attracts and engages customers throughout the customer journey rather than an overreliance on low-funnel paid media tactics will help companies maximize audience reach and create momentum throughout the funnel.

Moving Beyond a One-size-fits-all Customer Experience

According to a BCG and Google joint survey on consumer privacy and preferences, consumers are interested in the benefits that come from marketers’ ability to deliver a data-informed experience, like personalized content and increased content relevance. But consumer willingness to provide the data needed to create those benefits vary greatly by segment based on the kind of data being sought and consumers’ perceptions about how it will be used. Rewards programs, loyalty points, discounts, VIP programs, and content gating can help companies create the kind of value that consumers want to see in exchange for their data. But the research indicates that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t be effective. Companies that invest in understanding their audiences, segmenting them effectively, and creating segment-specific experiences will be better equipped to create value and inspire trust among their customers.

What Is Your Strategy for Data Privacy, Now and in the Future?

The kinds of monumental shifts we’re seeing driven by an evolving consumer data privacy regulation landscape present an opportunity for forward-thinking brands to advance businesses. While ensuring you have an effective, compliant data platform implemented in time to avoid data loss as Google sunsets Universal Analytics is a critical immediate move, this is a great time to explore your overall strategy for data privacy and measurement along the journey of your customers or users. And if you aren’t clear on the current or ideal journey to drive acquisition, engagement, and loyalty, now is the time to prioritize that discovery work. All to say, this is an opportunity not just to migrate today, but to position your company to advance and transform for tomorrow. If you’re looking for immediate GA4 migration support or you’re interested in transforming your CX to be more consumer-centric and first-party data-driven, contact us today.

Strategy

GA4 Implementation Strategies and Solutions: 5 Key Questions to Prepare You for Migration

Post author By Tallwave Team
Post date August 2, 2022

Many companies rely on Google Analytics to support their data strategies. In fact, with an estimated 86% of websites using Google Analytics as their primary web analytics platform, Google is squarely the market leader in the web analytics space. The current version of Google Analytics (GA), officially called Universal Analytics (UA), was launched in 2012. Since then it has seen many updates and evolutions, but Google is officially deprecating the tool for some users in 2023 and others in 2024, and GA4 will be the only analytics platform available from Google. This is not just Google officially ending support for UA, but disabling data collection through the platform altogether, leaving any organization using UA without an active analytics platform. While Google Analytics is just one component of the data strategy framework (this article lays out broader data privacy considerations and insights relevant to data strategy), it’s a critical one. The deprecation of Universal Analytics will have tactical and strategic impacts for companies that rely on the platform and now is the time to ensure you have the support you need for a successful GA4 implementation.

Universal Analytics Will Stop Collecting Data on July 1, 2023

The standard implementations of Universal Analytics will stop receiving new data on July 1, 2023 and the premium Google Analytics 360 implementations of UA will stop receiving new data on July 1, 2024. The first announcement from Google regarding UA indicated all accounts would stop receiving data on July 1, 2023. This has since been updated for GA360 users and Google has extended the deadline to 2024. This may seem far in the future, but avoiding data gaps through this transition requires parallel implementation of GA4 alongside UA before data collection through the latter stops. Companies using Universal Analytics that delay their GA4 implementation could experience significant negative impact to their data strategy, such as the loss of YOY reporting during the time between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023 in which data was not being collected in GA4.

It’s Time to Transition to GA4

Beyond the need to ensure data continuity, migrating to GA4 can unlock some new features and capabilities not previously available in Universal Analytics. But because there are quite a few differences between the new and legacy platforms, the sooner brands familiarize themselves with GA4, the more prepared they’ll be to make the most of what it can do. If you’re preparing to make the move to GA4, here are answers to 5 big questions that will help you make a smooth transition and set your data strategy up for success.

1. GA4 vs. Universal Analytics: What’s the Difference?

GA4 is designed to reflect the changes in consumer behavior that have happened over the past decade. Consumers are using multiple devices constantly, and data collection methodologies need to allow for collection of data from multiple devices. Additionally, with ongoing changes to data privacy regulations, new approaches will be needed to define and measure success. Here are some of the advantages that GA4 offers when it comes to data collection and analysis:

New Features in GA4

Improved cross-device tracking

Universal Analytics was mostly constrained to using device ID to identify users, with user ID functionality limited to only a few reports. GA4 uses a combination of device ID, user ID, and Google signals to identify users across devices, allowing for more accurate digital analytics and customer journey analysis during an ever changing cross-device, cookie-less landscape.

Enhanced machine learning and automation

In response to the growing concerns around data privacy, GA4 will utilize enhanced machine learning and automation to help compensate for the absence of signals advertisers have historically relied on. Additionally, these enhancements will help advertisers predict future behavior of their consumers so that advertisers can better forecast metrics like purchase probability and predicted revenue.

Advanced exploration reports

Another big difference between Universal Analytics and GA4 is how reporting is done. UA has many standard reports, but lacks flexibility when it comes to customized reporting. GA4 has fewer standard reports, but the reporting suite has enabled much greater ability to build custom reports. For example, the current UA reports are limited to two dimensions (e.g. Page and Channel), but GA4 reporting allows for as many dimensions as needed. With the greater ability to add segments, dimensions, and metrics, users can perform deeper analysis, such as looking at conversion funnels or cohort analysis. These custom reports will also minimize the need for GA data export and the use of external data processing programs to run pivots or perform other analysis.

BigQuery export

Previously only available for 360 customers, BigQuery export functionality is available to all GA4 properties. This allows you to download and store raw GA4 data so you can join and enrich your GA data with other marketing/CRM/business data, report in your visualization tool of choice, and take advantage of many other advanced analysis opportunities.

2. What happens to the data I have collected through Universal Analytics

Once the deprecation happens on July 1, 2023, the data in Universal Analytics will become read only for at least six months. Google has not officially published an exact end date for data access at the time of this article’s writing. However, the data will be available to export into a database tool such as BigQuery. Creating a data backup is a recommended step as it will enable data harmonization with new data collected through GA4 as well as other data sources.

3. When is the Best Time for GA4 Migration?

The time to plan your GA4 implementation is now. GA4 is currently available and while more features are planned for the future, many are already available for use. Additionally, there are aspects to all GA4 implementations that were previously only available to users of Universal Analytics 360, Google’s premium analytics platform. Getting experience with these new features will help current users of the free UA platform explore the full range of possibilities of GA4. That said, setting up GA4 is not as simple as flipping a switch. There is a learning curve to the implementation that will require an appropriate investment of time. Once the initial implementation is complete, QA will be required to see how data aligns with what is currently being gathered. The sooner your GA4 implementation is completed, the more time you’ll have for that QA. Once that QA is complete, any commonly used reports or data visualizations will need to be updated. For a more granular view of the steps you need to take to successfully migrate, check out our GA4 Implementation Checklist below.

4. How Do I Prepare for GA4 Implementation?

From a broader perspective, this is an opportunity to evaluate what conversions are being tracked and whether they align with the current state of your business. A thorough audit of your current Google Analytics implementation, discussions with key stakeholders, and review of existing reports will enable a clean implementation of GA4 that will provide the exact data and insights needed. All of this work will take time, and the sooner implementation occurs, the longer the period of adjustment and refinement will be. Whether you’re tackling GA4 implementation on your own or request support from Tallwave, there are a few key steps that will help you prepare for and execute a smooth transition to GA4:

Audit Your Current Google Analytics Implementation: Conducting a thorough assessment of your existing Google Analytics implementation and Google Tag Manager configurations will help you prepare a mapping strategy to transition your existing UA tags to an improved GA4 setup.
Build Your Tracking Implementation: Creating a comprehensive implementation guide that documents in detail the UA-to-GA4 mapping strategy and key configurations for GA4 will help ensure that your new GA4 property is configured properly, including setting up key property settings (Google Ads linking, Google Signals enablement, attribution settings, etc), Google Tag Manager configuration, and event and conversion tracking.
Conduct a Thorough QA: Carefully validating your new GA4 implementation against your existing UA implementation will allow you to quickly identify and resolve any major discrepancies and uncover any unanticipated differences based on GA4’s revised event-based data model.

Need GA4 Solutions? Tallwave Has Answers

While change is never easy, it is in this case necessary. The good news is that there’s still time to take the necessary steps to make this a smooth transition. Use this time to reflect on what data you need to make the best decisions for the success of your digital marketing. GA4 has many features ready and in the pipeline that will provide much deeper insights and understanding of what is driving success. With proper planning (and the right partner) this can be a net positive change. If you need support for your GA4 implementation, contact us today. Want the GA4 Implementation Checklist? Download our full insights.