Fixing the funnel

Last week I wrote about AI advertising, and in passing commented “if you aren’t implementing best practice in terms of targeting, creative, landing pages and follow up, you will always be fighting a losing battle”.

This week, as promised, I want to look at what that actually looks like. But before getting into the detail, let’s just remind ourselves of the logic at play, which in its simplest terms runs as follows:

1. When we advertise on LinkedIn or Google, we are bidding for attention in an auction

2. As in any auction, the price usually finds highest point at which ROI can be delivered

3. Meaning the company that ‘wins’ the auction is the one that can most effectively sell the most profitable deal to the person who clicks on the link

Or to make things really simple: unless you have optimised your funnel, it is very unlikely you will ever deliver real ROI on paid media campaigns.

But what does that actually mean? What follows is my four-point plan for an optimised funnel, (or at least the marketing side of that funnel) that gives you at least a fighting chance of competing and winning in the competitive world of online advertising.

1. Measure every step of the way

It sounds obvious but that doesn’t stop it being important. And nor does it mean it happens consistently. You must measure your funnel at every stage. Only when you can put numbers against each step of the flow do you know where you have a problem, and if things are getting better or worse. 

To start somewhere close to the top, there’s almost no more important number in a GTM engine than form completions as a percentage of landing page visits. These are the people you paid to get to this point. If they go no further you wasted your money, unless your retargeting strategy comes good somewhere down the line. 

And that metric is just one example: split your funnel into stages, and make sure you measure and optimise every one of them.

2. Maintain context 

Most digital campaigns are multi-faceted. Indeed today you might say that they are almost infinitely-faceted. It is no longer a matter of serving a small set of hard-coded ads leading to a single landing page, from which a standard email is delivered when the form is submitted. 

In this world, it is important to maintain context as much as possible. If you served a dynamic ad referring to ACME explosives specifically, the landing page should maintain that focus, as should the email and the personal follow up. Given the technology we have to hand today, anything else is going to look like you aren’t listening.

Just as importantly, platform algorithms penalise poor quality landing pages and disjointed user experiences, meaning that unless you get this right you’re going to end up paying more cents, for the same traffic. You can’t win an auction that way.

None of the above should come as news to anybody. It has been best practice for some time. But consider this: just today I requested a piece of content relating to AI from a company that shall remain anonymous*, but which would like to think they wrote the book on this stuff. The email I received talked about lead scoring. It assumed I was still working with a client from a couple of years ago. It got almost everything wrong. 

So until I see the real world reflecting the text book, it remains relevant advice: maintain context. My next tip will help you do that.

3. Have humans check and handle every lead, until that becomes impossible

Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the last few years you will be aware that machines are getting very clever. But I still wouldn’t trust them to handle inbound leads the same way I would a human. In fact my law is simple:

Get the smartest human you can afford to eyeball every single lead that comes into your business, and to follow up with them as soon as possible. Only stop doing this when it genuinely becomes impossible (which might be never).

If there’s one mistake I see happening time and time again it is companies building automated systems to score leads or to send ‘personalised’ responses to leads, and sitting back whilst those systems do an absolutely terrible job (see my experience above as an example). 

There are lots of reasons this happens. One is that we see big, successful companies doing this and think it makes sense for our smaller, growing business. It doesn’t! In most cases, they only automate because they have to. In others, they are drinking precisely the same Kool-Aid. 

I have written about this before but I make absolutely no apology for repeating it. Always start with what works for you, in the situation you are in. In almost all cases, unless you are very, very big, that means a human taking the lead on evaluating and contacting inbound leads.

I use “taking the lead” deliberately, as a final reminder that automated systems are not all bad. Lead scoring can help, of course. As can tools to simplify and speed up responses. But keep that human element.

4. Get your timing right

In almost all cases it pays to be fast out of the blocks. Set up your team and your processes so that you respond to inbound leads within a couple of hours at most. If you can’t, then it’s really simple: don’t waste money buying leads you aren’t able to give proper attention to.

At the same time, think carefully about intent before focusing entirely on speed. In simple terms:

• If someone is requesting a demo or straight-up asking for a sales person to call them, the faster you move the better. Even the couple of hours above is probably too slow. Within five minutes, on the other hand, communicates the fact that you are a competent and responsive organisation.

• If someone downloads a whitepaper or registers for a webinar, immediately calling them to schedule a discovery call is probably too pushy and smacks of desperation. 

Beyond initial interactions, fast responses, and approaches that get the prospect over the line quickly, tend to look good on month-end ROI reports. But they may not be maximising the value that your campaigns could deliver.

Handled in the wrong way, the ‘let’s get this done’ approach risks communicating all the wrong things about your company and your product. At the risk of straying into a commentary on enterprise sales (not the subject of this blog) I’ve seen it happen: enterprise software sold like it’s a used car we need to get off the lot before close of business. 

Act fast. Be as responsive as you can. But distinguish based on intent and be careful about precisely how urgency carries over into your sales process. Sometimes it works: often it doesn’t.

A final note

This piece only scratches the surface: every step of the funnel needs an almost infinite amount of attention. 

More to the point, unless your targeting and product-market fit are spot on, even the most optimised funnel in the world won’t help deliver ROI. And even then, sometimes paid media just doesn’t work. Don’t assume it has to. What optimising the funnel does mean is that you gave it every chance. 

*Anonymous, but Hubspot