Bounteous Uses Data to Help Clients Optimize Customer Journeys

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Formerly HS2 Solutions, Bounteous is a North America-based digital solutions provider that designs websites, builds apps, performs QA testing and offers marketing and analytics services. At Acquia Engage, Alex Moore, Bounteous’ VP of analytics and insights, and Jonathan Weber, director of data platforms, shared insights on how they help clients leverage data to execute deeper customer analysis.

Alex asserted that today’s marketers – regardless of industry – are facing similar situations when it comes to understanding customer journeys and making actionable decisions about personalization and other strategies using data. These are, “the problems that all of us are facing in this room,” he said, adding that his team turns to Google 360 and Acquia’s suite of tools to help clients better analyze, orchestrate optimize and measure the success of those customer journeys.

Aligning Touchpoints, Scaling and Creating Consistent, Cross-Channel Brand Engagement Challenges Marketers

The challenges facing businesses today, according to Alex, are threefold. First, how do you align your touchpoints with the actions that you want your customers to perform on your websites and real-world restrictions? Second, is the challenge of scale.

“I’m not just speaking about the size of our organizations, which are growing,” said Alex, ”but I’m also speaking about the maturity of (your) customers, which is increasing all the time as well, but even also the expectations in the marketplace. Frankly, because it’s the expectation that (your) websites are going be personalized, right? It’s the expectation that if (you) bought (your) phone and (you) have (your) computer, that that’s going to be an orchestrated experience across both of those devices.”

And the third challenge Alex presented is how to enable your audience to consistently, effectively engage with your brand across online and offline channels; you may do a great job of personalizing on the web but you must ensure that your advertising is personalized too  – consistency is paramount.

Find ‘Real’ Moments, Customize, Use Data to Inform to Overcome Challenges

The way to solve the challenges, said Alex, is to find the real moments that matter – remembering that not all moments are created equal. Additionally, you must coordinate messaging and interactions across channels, including ads, to create a strong and consistent brand promise. Next, you must remember that engaging with customers is not “one size fits all.” While you may be aware of this, Alex said it’s important to be reminded to use data to identify your personas, then personalize the journeys for those individuals using additional data to determine what criteria need to be measured.

57% Increase in Conversions, More Focused Marketing Efforts

In Jonathan’s experience, when you use data to inform your personas and design, identify the moments that matter and coordinate content that aligns with the customer journey, good things happen. Bounteous’ clients have achieved impressive outcomes since following the firm’s guidance on using data to optimize customer journeys. According to Alex, Teach for America has realized a 57 percent increase in conversions by taking advantage of Google Ads dimensions, using data to coordinate info across touchpoints to reach recent college grads with highly relevant messages.

And according to Jonathan, client Zipcar has been able to more clearly hone in on “the right set of interactions” and focus on their energy on developing marketing that targets personas who make it to “the right” part of the customer journey.

“For Zipcar, it was really important not just that you signed up to become a member, but that you drive a car, not just once, but twice,” he said. “Once you’ve driven a car twice, you’re really likely to continue as a customer.”

Jonathan explained that signing up on the website was just a small part of a longer, somewhat complicated process that includes a driver’s license validity check and physically mailing you a card that allows you access to the cars – you still have to activate it when it arrived.

“If we were just focusing on the website, that’s not really enough. What we’re interested in are who are the people who are likely to continue to be our customers in the future,” he said. “So there the outcome that we’re looking for is that they drive the car, and that they drive the car a couple of times. Once they’ve done that, then they’re likely to stick.”