The ultimate goal for every digital marketer is “conversion” i.e. moving leads, prospects or potential customers down the marketing funnel, turning them into brand loyalists and advocates. Conversions happen when a site visitor or consumer carries out a desired “action”, as defined by the marketer or advertiser; In other words, simply getting someone to respond to a call-to-action. It differs from simple Brand awareness which is typically in the form of a simple digital advertising display i.e. “impressions”.

As much as Brands see benefits from awareness campaigns i.e. “impressions”, “conversions marketing” offers a lot more value than “awareness marketing”. It enables tracking, attribution and measurement which is a critical element of today’s digital marketing and advertising. Also referred to as “performance marketing”, “conversions marketing” is essentially the return on investment of a Brand’s ad spend. It offers marketers a number of benefits including measurement of actual campaign performance for necessary improvement, the viability of Ad spend for necessary optimisation, total conversion costs necessary for future planning, the most (and least) effective customer engagement channels, the relevance of ads and channels based on consumer interaction, etc.

Google Ads defines a conversion as, “An action that is counted when somebody interacts with an ad (e.g. when they click a text ad or view a video ad), and then they take an action you have defined as valuable to your business, such as making an online purchase or a phone call to your business from their mobile phone”

Conversions Marketing takes “awareness” a step further beyond “impressions” thereby allowing marketers to make the most out of their existing budget to engage consumers for lead generation, acquisition, retention or product cross selling and upselling.

According to a recent Gartner report, marketers are facing reduced budget allocation due to the Covid-19 disruption. With reduced marketing budgets, getting the most mileage out of every allocated dollar is key, therefore conversions marketing is even more important as it enables measurement for spend optimisation and higher returns.

This strategy could mean different “actions” depending on the advertiser’s verticals and aim of the campaign. For instance, an FMCG company may simply want to send visitors to a page to sign up for a product newsletter or watch a product awareness video; a Bank may require completion of an account opening form, an SMB may want conclusion of a transaction while an Agency may want to increase app download for their Client (Brand). All of these instances point to a consumer going a step further than a view or a click on an advert.

A typical marketing funnel shows the customer journey from Awareness (where a lead or prospect is made aware of a brand or product) to Advocacy (where the prospect has become a loyal customer and starts to advocate for the brand). Taking the prospect from awareness, to consideration, purchase and then advocacy is only possible through “conversions” and “intelligent reach” which is the use of data to prequalify and target potential customers.

At a recent roundtable session organised by Terragon, which was held in June 2021 on Data-Driven Marketing, a number of Industry practitioners gave their expert opinion on  “conversions marketing” and the importance of Data in executing a high performing marketing strategy.

According to Luisa Mazinter, MMA SA Chair Emeritus & Chief Marketing Officer at Cubesquare Advisory,

“Every marketer experiences a similar problem where you have to justify every single cent you spend, to the board or financial director or the CFO. Data is your friend and the more you gather, the more powerful you become and this can help justify your investment.”

Francis Obiajulu, the Digital and Data-Driven Marketing Manager at Nigeria Breweries (A Heineken Company) talked about the various important KPIs which must be factored in measuring campaign performance;

“In Marketing, we see more than just numbers. Talking about setting KPIs or benchmarks like brand health, top of mind awareness and other variables considered when referring to the outcome of our different strategies or campaigns. Ultimately, this has to lead to sales. With more data, you can detect how your “non-tangible” KPIs affect the tangible KPIs in terms of numbers.”

Emphasising on the need to leverage data in marketing strategies for either “conversion” or “awareness”, General Manager of Programmatic, Search and Social, OMG MENA, Roli Okoro added:

Roli Okoro noted: In this part of the world (MENA), we have gone beyond impressions and clicks…. It’s more down to know if my ad is viewable, did the user engage with that ad, how much time was spent on my site and a product detail page, partnerships they had with e-commerce companies, and so on.

On first party data being a critical element of an effective digital advertising strategy for high returns on investment, Ms. Okoro added:

“It’s important to ensure you are eliminating waste by delivering an ad with the right message to the right user, at the right time and on the right device. As a brand, if you want  to ensure that that media spend goes a long way or hits your KPIs, you need to look at the existing datasets you have, and how you are working with your First Party Data to  understand your offline and online audiences.”

Damilola Abodunrin, Business Director/Head, iProspect Nigeria, also added: Data is important but it’s important to know what data you are collecting because data by itself is pretty broad. Data is multifaceted and when you have a clear understanding of the kind of data you need your objectives are better streamlined and you can work towards the answer in more efficient terms. … If your product is not meeting the needs of people, your data will tell you right off the bat.

The Terragon Data-Driven Marketing roundtable series is held every other month and is focused on promoting and advocating for Brands and Agencies to leverage the power of Data and Insights for more effective digital marketing strategies and campaigns. The next session is scheduled for August 2021.

Terragon is Africa’s leading data aggregation, enrichment, consumer insights and activation platform, which helps Brands gain a deeper understanding of African consumers in order to create and deliver better experiences that drive meaningful relationships.

More information can be found on www.terragongroup.com.