The Power of Data Visualization for Unlocking Upper-Funnel Marketing Insights

Guest post by Michael Skehill, Performance & Growth Marketer at Rockerbox partner Gradient Media Group

Data visualization is one of the most powerful tools for marketers, especially when it comes to understanding the relationship between different campaigns and the impact they have on each other. At Gradient Media Group, we lean on Rockerbox to act as the Swiss Army Knife for our everyday marketing efforts—to deliver the visualization our clients need to be able to understand cross-campaign and cross-channel impact. One of the most impactful ways we’re using Rockerbox right now is to highlight the value of our upper funnel investments on paid social and the halo effect it provides to other campaigns and channels, especially during a time where our ad dollars need to work hard for us and our clients.

When it comes to generating performance to meet our client’s goals, the value of successful mid- and lower-funnel campaigns is obvious and a lot easier to understand. The fact is that these campaign types are typically rooted in conversion objectives, optimizing towards a goal of signup, purchase, or lead. But in order to really maximize the scale and efficiency of our lower- and mid-funnel campaigns, traffic and reach objectives are two of the most vital pieces of the puzzle. However justifying this spend, especially in times where most advertisers are tightening their belts, can be challenging without the ability to show the impact upper-funnel campaigns are having on our mid- and lower-funnel audiences.

As we build out audiences across different stages of the funnel, it’s important to minimize overlap through use of exclusions to ensure each user is bucketed according to where they sit in the consideration cycle. Here’s a simple way we define each segment of the funnel for a consumer-acquisition focused brand:

• Upper-Funnel = Has not yet engaged with the brand in-feed, and is a net-new eyeball
• Mid-Funnel = Has engaged with the brand in-feed by watching content or visiting a FB Page/Handle, but has not visited the website.
• Lower-Funnel = Has visited the brand’s website, but has not completed the action we’re optimizing for (Purchase, Signup, Lead, etc.)

While we always recommend using a conversion objective to help drive qualified  net-new consumers to your brand, we also know that relying on these campaign types alone can drive inconsistent CPMs and CPCs, based on how relevant an advertiser is in the auction. To minimize account volatility with respect to CPMs and CPCs, traffic campaigns are great for driving consistent, low-cost site visitors, and can be especially effective at reducing costs in our lower-funnel site retargeting campaigns. In addition to traffic, reach campaigns are highly effective for building awareness as well as increasing the potential reach in our mid-funnel audiences that are built off video viewers and ad engagers. Using both campaign types in tandem with an evergreen conversion campaign structure has been found to drive substantial improvements in scale and gains in efficiency.

An example from an anonymous brand shows just how powerful and cost-effective supplementing your evergreen strategy with these campaigns can be. In January, the brand spent just 0.8% of their marketing budget on traffic objectives, yet they were responsible for driving nearly 6% of all new site visitors. What's more, the cost of these visitors was 85% cheaper than the average new visitor. Moreover, mid-funnel and retargeting campaigns saw CPMs drop by as much as 25% in the period immediately following a reach buy, leading to a drop in CPA of 32% compared to the prior period.

In order to be able to visualize these wins, we use Rockerbox and the suite of tools it has made available to us and our clients, to understand the relationship and impact our upper-funnel investments are having on our core strategy. This particular example highlights the importance of traffic and reach campaigns to fuel mid-funnel and lower-funnel acquisition efforts and in using Rockerbox, we can help our clients better understand the impact of these efforts. This particular brand was able to gain insights into how their upper-funnel campaigns were driving performance in other channels and across campaigns.

Rockerbox has become one of our most trusted and reliable partners in being able to maximize our client’s ad dollars and help them to understand the value of upper-funnel media buys, even when the impact isn’t as immediate as a standard conversion campaign. By leveraging the insights from Rockerbox, marketers can save time pulling together data and instead can spend more time optimizing and strategizing their campaigns for maximum efficiency and cost savings to drive real business growth.

Learn more about Rockerbox partner Gradient Media Group.