Measuring Channel Heavy-ups (Increased spend) & Resulting impact to CPA/ROAS (Diminishing returns)
Rockerbox can be leveraged during your sale periods and channel heavy-ups to understand how your marketing performance and user behavior varied during this time period.
Below we outline the following four analyses:
3. Impact to Top and Bottom funnel channels
4. Impact to Path to Conversion and Time to Convert
These analyses will be accomplished through a time frame comparison. For illustration purposes, we use an example from Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
Our example compares the three day BFCM time period (Fri-Mon) to the following:
- A control period of the same three days (Fri-Mon) averaged across multiple weeks
- A partial heavy-up period of the same three days (Fri-Mon) averaged across multiple weeks
Priority Questions to Answer
Marketing Performance
- Impact to CPA- how did CPA change due to heavy discounting coupled with increased spend (and mitigating against diminishing returns)
- Impact of discounting- if used different discounts across channels, did that change the improvement on CPA of each channel?
User Behavior
- Changes to path to conversion- were users taking more vs less time to convert and interacting with different marketing touchpoints?
- Impact to marketing mix- were users converting from different channels?
- Did branding heavy up result in users entering the funnel from different channels (first touch) vs converting from different channels (last touch)?
Choosing a control period
Before you begin any analysis you need to first choose your control period.
This is the time period you will compare performance during the sales/heavy-up period against.
When choosing your control period consider the following:
- Choosing a time period without any significant changes to your marketing mix ( heavy-ups, new channel launched)
- For sales with a longer ramp time (i.e. BFCM) - you may want to choose two control time periods (one pre-marketing heavy up and one during heavy up)
1. Impact to CPA/ROAS
Priority Questions to answer:
- Impact to CPA/ROAS- how did CPA/ROAS change due to heavy discounting coupled with increased spend (and mitigating against diminishing returns)
- Impact of discounting- if used different discounts across channels, did that change the improvement on CPA/ROAS of each channel?
Methodology:
- Use buckets breakdown report to calculate normalized CPA/ROAS by channel for both control time period and sale/heavy-up period. See Marketing Performance Report (Buckets Breakdown) for more details on this report type.
Resulting Metrics:
- % change in CPA/ROAS by channel
- % change in CPA/ROAS relative to % change in spend


Example analysis from BFCM
2. Impact to Channel Mix
Priority Questions to Answer
- What was the impact to your marketing mix- were users converting from different channels?
Methodology:
- Using buckets breakdown to look at % of overall normalized conversions
- Identify any changes at the channel level
See Marketing Performance Report (Buckets Breakdown) for more details on this report type.
Resulting Metrics:
- % of conversions by channel


Example of analysis from BFCM
3. Impact to Top and Bottom funnel channels
Priority Questions to Answer
- Did branding heavy up result in users entering the funnel from different channels (first touch) vs converting from different channels (last touch)?
Methodology:
- Using paths view in UI to see conversions by first vs last touchpoint
- Step-by-step guide at Path to Conversion to replicate analysis
Resulting Metrics:
- % of conversions by channel for last touch vs first touch
- % change in first-touch conversions relative to % change in spend


Example looking at change in first touch conversions from BFCM
4. Impact to Path to Conversion and Time to Convert
Priority Questions to Answer
- How did our users' path to conversion change- were users taking more vs less time to convert and interacting with different marketing touchpoints?
Methodology:
- Use paths view in UI to see average time to conversion and look at any changes
- Be sure to filter for new vs existing customers
Go to Path to Conversion (doc:paths) for more detail
Resulting Metrics:
- Avg # of days to convert
- Avg # of marketing touchpoints
- (Both overall and by channel position)


Example impact to time to convert for BFCM
Updated 7 months ago