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In the past 5 months, we have recruited over 60 digital agencies to our Partner Program. Along the way, we have learned a lot about how agencies have transformed their processes using data. From agile marketing on the operational side to data-driven reporting on the account management side, data has infiltrated every process of the modern digital agency.
In recent years, as data from prospects has become more easily available, agencies have started using data as early as their first meeting, showcasing their data-driven strategies to potential clients right away. Previously, they might have begun a pitch with their full array of services, from web development to lead generation to ad design and placement. Then, they could launch into a few case studies on past client work. Using this approach, they couldn’t really tailor their pitch to the specific needs of each prospect, though, resulting in a bunch of wasted time for both when they failed to uncover the prospect’s priorities. For those agencies who are a bit more sales-savvy, they often started their first meetings by asking a bunch of questions and positioning their service based on the prospect’s answers. But, with agency after agency doing that, prospects have gotten tired of answering the same questions over and over again. As a result, even smaller clients are publishing RFQs or asking for prices right out of the gate.
Based on our survey, the new business process has changed over the last couple years as data has become more easily accessible and shareable. Out of 17 agencies that we surveyed, 100% said they used data during their sales process at least some of the time. And 30% of agencies said they always get access to client data during the sales process.
Data completely changes the way agencies pitch potential clients. Now, they can show up with specific recommendations based on the client’s situation. The pitch becomes client-centric rather than services-centric. Showcasing relevant client work and asking questions are still key. But, with access to client data accessed from their client tracking dashboard, agency new business professionals don’t walk into initial meetings blind or empty-handed.
Here are the specific strategies 17 agencies use to analyze client data during their sales pursuits.
Depending on the agency and the client’s needs, agencies use different data sources and look at different metrics to identify issues and opportunities.
To make it a bit simpler for you, I’ve divided up their data-deployment examples by “top of the funnel or traffic” focused services like search engine optimization (SEO) and website design and “full-funnel services” like marketing automation and sales enablement.
I’ve also broken them up by Strategies and Stories. You can read about the strategies they employ and then read stories of how they’ve deployed them successfully.
If you want to discover how visitors engage with your website, and which content drives the most engagement and conversions, there are several on-page events and metrics you can track from Google Analytics 4 that will get you started:
And more…
Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Analytics 4 experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template showing the most important KPIs for monitoring visitor engagement on your website. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, it’s free!
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Get the template
Step 2: Connect your Google Analytics account with Databox.
Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
Jeff Coon Partner, Stream Creative
Stream Creative first evaluates whether the site has a traffic or conversion problem. They focus their initial pitch around whichever seems to be a more pressing need (or both).
These insights help us have a more meaningful conversation with clients and prospects about ways we can help them achieve their growth goals.
KPIs: Keyword Ranking on Top Terms, Bounce Rate, Conversion RateRecommended Dashboard: SEMRush Keyword Mission Control
Mary PlandingPartner, OverGo Studio
OverGo Studio focuses on Google Analytics metrics.
Bounce rates, exit rates, device breakdown / visits / bounce/ exit / time on site via device – all of this helps us answer the following questions.
KPIs: Bounce Rate, Exit Rate, Visits, Time on Site by DeviceRecommended Dashboard: Google Analytics Mobile v. Desktop Traffic Quality
Susie Kelley Founder, Spot On Marketing
Spot On focuses on metrics that can be found in services like GA and SEMRush.
KPIs: Total Traffic, Bounce Rate, Session Duration, Keyword Research, PPC Ad ConversionRecommended Dashboard: Google Analytics (Website Traffic)
Jason DillerSVP, The DSM Group
The DSM Group does a big traffic audit to clean out any noise in the traffic data.
In Google Analytics, we look for how they have (or haven’t) set up views, goals, events, filters and segments. We ensure we’re always looking at data we’re confident in.
Most of the Google Analytics accounts I see don’t have clean data. For example, most accounts have about 25% of their traffic coming from Trump spam or Russia, or both 🙂
We’ve found that the principle of having clean data has 10x value vs. improving one metric. For example, the bounce rate on one of the prospects’ blog posts may be OK once we filter out spam, ghost traffic, referral spam and bots.
KPIs: % of Pageviews from Real Humans, Site Activity from that cohortRecommended Dashboard: Google Analytics (Website Traffic)
Ed HeilOwner, Storyteller Media
For Storyteller Media, it all starts with analyzing traffic.
Website traffic is a must. That will be an initial indicator of so many things beginning with an understanding as to whether people know they exist online. It also helps us determine how much organic content to try to develop to help them appear in search. We’re also looking for keyword opportunities to help direct our initial content strategy. If the prospect is using HubSpot, it’s an opportunity to learn everything about how the prospect is using, or not using, the software. So, the data is terrific, and it gives us a peek behind the curtain into their strategy.
KPIs: Sessions by Source, Total Sessions, Top KeywordsRecommended Dashboard: Keyword to Pageview Dashboard
Ryan MaloneCEO, SmartBug Media
SmartBug Media looks at visit to lead conversion rates of each page.
“We look for low-hanging fruit with pages that get a lot of traffic but don’t yield many results. Finding early wins generates significant trust with the client during the sales process and throughout the engagement.”
KPIs: Visitor-Lead Conversion Ratio by PageRecommended Dashboard: HubSpot (Leads by Source)
Kathleen BoothCEO, Quintain Marketing
Quintain Marketing uses the 80/20 rule to determine priorities for a site redesign.
“We always look at which pages on their site are generating the most traffic. We often find the 80/20 rule holds and 20% of the site pages generate 80% of the traffic. This often informs our recommendations about how to redesign their site (because we do a lot of Growth Driven Design (GDD), the launchpad can typically be much smaller than prospects think) as well as how to prioritize pages for conversion optimization.”
KPIs: Total Sessions, Goal Conversions by PageRecommended Dashboard: Google Analytics (Website Traffic)
Brendon MacDonaldCEO, Yello Veedub
Yelloveedub takes a channel-by-channel approach.
We look at:
We use our metrics funnel to help illustrate the variables they can influence to improve the bottom line.
KPIs: Sessions by Channel, Quality by Channel, Landing Page Conversion RateRecommended Dashboard: HubSpot Leads by Source
“Prospects are always impressed when they see us present data from tools like Hotjar, HubSpot and Databox. They’re even more impressed when we show them how we can leverage the data and insights to focus on “continuous improvement” for their website and digital presence.
This article shows a practical example of finding some low hanging fruit to improve a website using Hotjar to drive more people to their blog, in this case. Having conversations with customers and prospects about their existing data often uncovers other business issues, such as them NOT having a good system or process for accountability. Some of our prospects aren’t even sure if or how their existing website is working for them.
By leveraging some of these aforementioned tools, we can help unpack some of their challenges and develop a plan to help them overcome those challenges. It reshapes the engagement to position us more as business consultants vs just marketers or designers.”
Jeff CoonPartner, Stream Creative
“We normally work from the bottom of the funnel up to find quality visitors in custom segments we’ve set up. We use either Google Analytics or HubSpot. We try to find commonalities within these visitors and their experience on the site, paying special attention to new users and their Source/Medium.
Let’s use an SEO opportunity as an example. We look for high-value opportunities (big reward, low effort) by crawling over thousands of keywords using MOZ, SEMRush and Ahrefs and organizing them into two categories: keywords where they rank #3 – #5 and keywords where they rank #11 – #20. We can normally find topics or keywords they could either rank #1 for or get onto the first page of google for with very low effort, which results in quick wins.
We normally ensure all of the data we’re looking at is visualized in charts that are easy to understand. We are big on data, but we hate looking at spreadsheets, especially from different data sources. We ask the prospect if they would like to see their data in their browser, on their mobile phones, or both. From there, we engineer charts using the following framework for analytics. We create 4 columns in Databox and create: See, Think, Do, Care columns for their marketing data. ”
“In working with a senior living company, we used analytics data to convince the client that their perceived need for a large website was unfounded. The data showed a significant number of underutilized pages did not contribute to lead flow. The result for the client was a lower-cost project and freed budget for proactive marketing activities.”
“We noticed that a potential client had an old blog article that was their 3rd most frequently visited page every month. So we added a CTA with an offer to a new service. Now this generates approximately £10k a month in revenue and counting from one page. They now have a specific service offering because of this insight on unmet customer demand.”
John McTigueCo-Founder Kuno Creative
Kuno Creative frames their offering around the Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline framework.
“We ask about their GPCT and look at the quantity of traffic and leads at the different lifecycle stages. We look at how we can improve both quality and quantity of inbound leads to achieve goals and timeline.”
KPIs: Total Traffic, Visit to Lead Ratio, Lead Quality based on SourceRecommended Dashboard: HubSpot Opportunities by Source
Perry NalevkaCEO, Penguin Strategies
Penguin Strategies looks at every step of the funnel to identify choke points.
“We look for ways to bring more quality traffic and improve conversion rates all the way through the funnel (i.e. Visits to leads, Leads to MQL and MQL to SQL)”
KPIs: Lead to Opportunity Ration, Visit to Lead Ratio, Lead Quality based on SourceRecommended Dashboard: HubSpot Marketing and Sales Overview
Mike LiebermanCEO, Square 2 Marketing
Mike from Square 2 Marketing also looks at the full funnel before making recommendations.
“We do full funnel analytics for every client as part of their engagement. This lets us know where in the funnel to focus first and it helps us show the clients the dramatic impact working on each conversion point can have on their ultimate goal of revenue acceleration.”
KPIs: Lead to Opportunity Ratio, Visit to Lead Ratio, Lead Quality based on SourceRecommended Dashboard: HubSpot Marketing and Sales Overview
“During an audit of OnPoint Consulting’s site, the Kuno team discovered some worrying trends.
Specifically, visitors were viewing fewer pages and spending less time on the site. Based on this data, we determined it was time for a website redesign to create an improved user experience. The Kuno team worked to update the website messaging to better reflect OnPoint’s value propositions, improve the site aesthetic and provide a clear path to the resources most relevant to each buyer persona.”
“Dialexa needed to better leverage existing content to get more engagement. In addition, they needed to measure what specific campaigns were actually driving results.
After setting up HubSpot Marketing, we specifically focused on getting more out of their existing content base. We repurposed older, high-converting content and put together new content based on the topics that leads seemed to enjoy. We ran a series of campaigns to get more results from the content they had already built.”
How to Efficiently Use Data in Your Sales Process
If you’re not using data in your sales process and you’re competing with any of these agencies, you’re probably going to lose.
But, with the specific strategies generously shared by the agencies above, you can focus on the most important metrics for the client starting on day one.
To get started, you can follow these three simple steps:
Using data early in the sales process allows your agency to identify opportunities right away. Instead of explaining what you’ve done for other clients, you can show them how and how much you can help them.
Further, by getting access to data right away, you can be more confident in your ability to deliver results. With access to data, you can determine whether their goals are realistic as well as the quickest path to achieving them.
Further, your prospect will feel like you understand them and their needs more quickly because you can make recommendations within the context of their situation.
Although important still, winning new business isn’t just about keeping up with the latest marketing tactics or technology or having the best creative. Today, using data to impress prospects is critical.
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Tamara is Content Editorial Manager at Databox. She is an SEO aficionado, a coffee addict, and a huge museum lover! When she's not working or writing, she enjoys visiting an art gallery, drinking her 5th coffee with her friends, or playing video games.
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