Master The Inbox

Your Black Friday Success is in your data / Interview w data analyst Georgiana Costache

• Monica Badiu • Season 2 • Episode 2

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There’s one BIG reason some Black Friday campaigns do better than others. And it’s not how much you’re discounting your courses. In fact, success has everything to do with DATA. But not any kind of data. 

Which is why, in this episode of Master the Inbox, I’ve invited Georgiana Costache, data analyst, to give us a breakdown of finding the right insights in your data so your next Black Friday isn’t just successful, but data-driven.


Here’s a glimpse of what you can expect from this episode

In this episode of Master the Inbox, Monica Badiu invites data analyst Georgiana Costache to discuss the importance of data in creating successful Black Friday campaigns. They explore the different stages of customer engagement in e-commerce and the metrics to analyze in each stage. They also discuss the impact of logistics and operations on customer perception and trust. Georgiana provides insights on how course creators and consultants can leverage data to improve their Black Friday campaigns. They discuss the importance of setting marketing goals, tracking data from multiple sources, and analyzing past campaign data to inform future strategies.

 

Takeaways

  • Data is crucial for creating successful Black Friday campaigns.
  • Understanding customer engagement in different stages of the sales funnel is key.
  • Metrics to analyze include web analytics, user interactions, and RFM (recency, frequency, monetization).
  • Logistics and operations impact customer perception and trust.
  • Course creators and consultants can leverage data to improve their Black Friday campaigns.
  • Setting marketing goals, tracking data from multiple sources, and analyzing past campaign data are important steps in preparing for Black Friday.


Meet my guest, Georgiana Costache
Georgiana Costache is a seasoned marketing professional with over a decade of experience in SaaS, DaaS, and Retail/E-commerce sectors, where she specializes in leveraging data to translate business goals into actionable insights. With a strong analytical foundation, she excels in data analysis, cleaning, and visualization, utilizing tools such as Tableau, SQL, and Python to create impactful reports and dashboards. Her expertise extends to CRM analysis, KPI tracking, and customer journey optimization, coupled with a deep understanding of digital marketing strategies including content creation, SEO

Hi. And welcome.
My name is Monica Badiu. I am a marketing consultant turned conversion copywriter and copy coach. I help online course creators and info product businesses sell more through persuasive, non-spammy, no fluff copywriting.

I teach about copywriting, digital marketing, and conversion strategies tested in my businesses and with my clients.


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[00:00:00] There's one big reason some Black Friday campaigns do better than others. And it's not how much you're discounting your courses. In fact, success has everything to do with data. But not just any kind of data. Which is why, in this episode of Master the Inbox, I've invited Georgiana Costache, data analyst, to give us a breakdown of finding the right insights in your data.

[00:00:30] Hey, you're listening to Master the Inbox, the podcast where course creators, coaches, and consultants learn how to sell with email in a non spammy way. I'm your host, Monica Abadio, a customer centric copywriter, course creator, and entrepreneur. And today, along with my guests, we're going to tackle one of the most important elements of creating a successful Black Friday campaign.

[00:00:53] And that's data. Giordiana, welcome to the show. Before we jump right in, tell [00:01:00] us what do you do as a data analyst? Okay, so I need to specify that I mostly operate in marketing data and that is a niche in the data field. My operations rely from tracking in terms of like understanding the infrastructure that needs to be in place.

[00:01:18] place to monitor the growth metrics that a company sets for itself, from tracking to web analysis, to understanding the user interactions and how audiences engage with the content on the website. And even further from the website realm and the paid media realm towards, uh, methods of, uh, Of creating efficiencies in either the marketing process or in the business processes overall.

[00:01:44] So a day in my day, it's never boring. Uh, it's always something new to learn, a new technology, a new methodology, a new model, a new, uh, library for coding that Could help me create, uh, my desires inside in a more [00:02:00] and, uh, simple manner so that like, uh, I create efficiencies for myself while working. And also, uh, researching extensively on the latest developments and trends within the industry at large, not only in the marketing data, landscape, sorry.

[00:02:16] That's perfectly fine. We are marketers, but we are also human beings. And we've talked about data before, and I would love this interview to be hands on, and we can probably talk about data for hours and hours and hours, because data is how we can find really Successful insights, or insights that can help us test assumptions in a way that is effective and can lead us on the path to success.

[00:02:47] To the people who are listening to this episode, I know the majority of you, you're not marketers. However, you are successful. sitting on large amount of data. And if you [00:03:00] know how to work with that data, you can improve your results. Whether that's marketing in terms of, um, lead acquisition, or whether that's actual conversions in sales.

[00:03:14] There's a lot you can learn from this. And since this season is all about Black Friday. We need to talk about data. So Georgiana, what exactly is data in the land of like marketing and specific to what's happening in a sales funnel? All right. So the short, uh, Explanation of what data is, is not very short, because as you might know, data could be anything.

[00:03:45] And when I say anything, a picture is a data, a text is data, metrics that quantify various things is data. Data has multiple dimensions and could lead At like, when you're setting [00:04:00] up some, uh, tracking events, you can have parameters that could give you an extra dimension to the event that you're tracking.

[00:04:06] So data is a very, very large subject and is the prequisite for innovation because it gives you the stepping stone and cornerstone. That you need to uncover for creating efficiencies in your pursuit. But to resume the conversation on Black Friday and, uh, how to use data to, uh, improve your operations. I would, uh, invite you to think of, uh, how your customer engages with, uh, your e com or, uh, product or service.

[00:04:40] So as we know, if you're e commerce, you kind of have three stages. You have the pre engagement where nobody actually purchased anything from your website. So that's the pre engagement, the pre sales engagement. Then you have the engagement where like you have a part of that people that interacted with your website, [00:05:00] purchased a specific range of products, a specific offer, that Certain things that were appealing to them in that moment.

[00:05:07] And then you have the post, uh, engagement transaction, which has to do mostly with logistics, operations, uh, warehouse systems and delivery. So depending on, uh, what stage you're trying to analyze. Each stage will come with its own set of metrics. For example, the pre engagement stages, it pertains a lot to the web analytics domain.

[00:05:34] So web analytics actually analyzes the data and the user interactions with your website. And now, depending on the structure you have in place for such an analysis, you can delve into finding out how much time people have spent on your offer. Points of clicks, what messages made them interact with a specific offer?

[00:05:58] What, uh, [00:06:00] images within the product offer or a Black Friday offer have they looked at? Uh, you can, uh, understand, um, if you're doing A B test, if a particular pricing method is better than another particular price. Pricing method, you know, that, uh, in the marketing psychology, we're very familiar with, uh, 10.

[00:06:20] 99, which is actually more like 11, but sometimes that might work sometimes it might not depending really with who you're speaking with and what you're offering. You can even test that with solutions like visual website optimizer or like. other tools on the market that could help you understand what works best for your audience.

[00:06:41] So really in this stage, you need to understand the infrastructure you have in place. And in case you want to uncover new things to create a namesake infrastructure to aid your goals. So this is the pre engagement phase where you actually dwell in [00:07:00] metrics that are sometimes more generic, sometimes more specific, depending on what you're looking after.

[00:07:06] On the second stage, on the sales transactions, you already have a couple more extra level of details. Usually if you have an e commerce, uh, you. You obviously can, but it's a best practice to create an user account before placing your transaction, before like placing an order, you create a custom account in such a way that that account stores your information in terms of name, preference for delivery, uh, invoicing matters and so on and so forth.

[00:07:38] That account level, uh, setup could give you some generous insights if you're on the market on the data side that could leave you to understand how frequent users, uh, who have purchased from you have purchased from you, how, uh, big is their, uh, monetary spend with you. Is their monetary spend [00:08:00] constant? Do they return?

[00:08:01] Do they drop the transaction? So we have monetary frequency and recency. Like when was the last transaction when they purchased with you? And all this frame is a very well known methodology within the scope, which is called RFM, which stands for exactly what I've explained earlier, recency frequency monetization.

[00:08:22] The way you can employ this methodology is by, uh, giving, uh, various, uh, values to segments of customers. So let's say, I'm just going to give 2 broad ones and you can do anything in between. So, let's say that, uh, we have a table on 1 side, we have our, um, audience segments, and then on top, we have as columns, recency, frequency monetization.

[00:08:46] And we say that. For our top stellar loyal customers that are the most profitable customer for us. Um, they have a score of 5, 5, 5 on all the 3 columns of RFM and [00:09:00] then the lower segment, uh, they have 1, 1, 1. Then you go back to your database and you actually attribute based on analysis, uh, those values. And in turn, you get.

[00:09:12] And as such, you create clusters. After you've created those clusters, uh, you will undercover some, uh, ways those, uh, users have, uh, interacted with your offers. Once that you understand this, you can actually go further and target them in a better and more efficient way with materials that speak specifically to the needs or their interest.

[00:09:35] Because like, here, there's some other things you can do. need to look into, because for example, it also depends on the product that you're selling. Because sometimes if you buy a phone, the lifetime value of a phone, it's minimum one year or two years, depending on the type of user segment that you're targeting.

[00:09:53] So for example, if I bought a phone this year from you, it's a bit pointless that I invest in [00:10:00] marketing materials and marketing efforts. Towards targeting, uh, more phones towards you, I should actually use the information that I have from the transaction and the purchase you have made with me to upsell or cross sell with you.

[00:10:14] So really, really, you can be very creative with data, but you first need to understand the scope with which you are operating. So this is on the engagement side of sales and some of the metrics that you should look into, even though many more. Those are like kind of the basic. Another thing that is quite interesting and is gaining traction nowadays for people that have e commerce is it's the logistic operation side of things, because that also impacts the impression and the perception people would have towards your brand.

[00:10:47] Let's say, for example, I bought that phone from your website, but you never communicated with me that, uh, The deliver will be made in such amount of time. You would never told me who's going to [00:11:00] be the carrier that delivers to me. You never made me aware of when I should expect the phone. And as such, my trust towards your brand is being decreased.

[00:11:09] And I, I will suffer in the future, like me as a business. I will suffer in the future if I do not engage in that delivery. A part of the business with my clients, because it looks a bit dodgy and shady, really like you buy something and you're not informed about when you're getting it. It looks more like of a sham and we know how those things function.

[00:11:32] And usually it's not a great way of doing business. So yes, logistic side, it's a, it's a domain within itself. It has metrics that are very specific. It could help you understand the way your warehouse operations occur, like, bring forth insights that will like help you create stocks for your deposit. So you can prepare for the black Fridays in advance.

[00:11:58] You can, uh, [00:12:00] actually speed up and increase, uh, the personnel in the warehouse and delivery personnel in such a way that you Carter for trends and seasonality. So there is multiple methods that need attention in this realm also, but one of the most, and really the best one to, uh, start with is time to delivery.

[00:12:22] That is something that any of your customers will appreciate. The quicker I can get my product from your e com. The better served I am, and the more happy I will be. So, uh, in case you don't have such an extensive, uh, infrastructure to support all the metrics we've been discussing in the warehouse and operations try at most to discuss with the people that are carrying your warehouse and, uh, carrying services to provide some clarity on the delivery times.

[00:12:55] I love that you brought this up and there's a [00:13:00] really good reason why, um, I actually wanted you to be here and talk about data from the perspective of working with e comm. primarily. So when it comes to course creators and coaches and consultants it can be very hard to understand just how big of an impact your data has because most of them don't really work with physical products.

[00:13:24] There is a category that does physical products and I'll talk about that in just a moment. So because we don't have physical products primarily in Most brands don't really pay attention to this data. So, whether we're talking about pre engagement, engagement, and then the physical warehouse stuff. Most people focus on, sorry?

[00:13:52] The post purchase operations for the So, most people are going to focus on the pre engagement data, [00:14:00] which is like website analysis. So, how many people are coming to my website, or how many people I have on social media. Maybe some of them are going to be tracking how many people are signing up on their email list.

[00:14:12] But they're kind of using separate data systems. So one of them is maybe the analytics dashboard on their WordPress or it's Teachable, Thinkifpik, Kajabi. There are different LMSs, uh, Learning M System. I don't, I don't remember what M stands for. But there are different platforms we use to host our courses and to sell them.

[00:14:36] And then we have that specific data set Then we have our email marketing platform data set. Maybe we have some Stripe data sets. So it's, it's a lot like it's overwhelming and it's hard to keep track of all of this. So that's why most people, people focus on like the front end stuff, right? What they can see.

[00:14:59] [00:15:00] And sometimes They can't correlate. This is what's happening on my website, but they can't really correlate with what's happening on the checkout. If the ratio between website visitor to, uh, you know, people visiting the thank you page after having bought something is very small, then they kind of look into it and they try to understand what has happened.

[00:15:25] And I love that you mentioned, uh, Post purchase stuff with the warehouse because a lot of people lots of creators in this area. They try to combine Black Friday digital deals with physical merch. So this is a major issue and It has happened for some of my clients, and it's kind of annoying because, you know, you're gonna sell a large volume of things, and then your book comes two months later, your merch doesn't come in time for Christmas, because, [00:16:00] right, it's just like the month before, usually you buy stuff on sale for Black Friday, and you can think about it, if it's not for you, it's for somebody else, and then it comes with a delay, You buy maybe a kit of stuff, and you don't take into account that your audience is international.

[00:16:18] And while in the U. S. it can reach your customer maybe within two weeks, but if your customer isn't in the U. S. and they're living in Europe or in Asia, how are you navigating that? How are you preparing your Black Friday campaign for those specific situations? And it can be very annoying. I purchased something, it should come to me from Canada.

[00:16:41] It's been two weeks. And the company hasn't really acknowledged that the delay time is that big, coming from Canada to Romania. It's already been two weeks. There was no notification of, like, postal announcements or any kind of way to track [00:17:00] my package, which is kind of annoying. I love that brand and I trust them, but at the same time that kind of damages the relationship I have with them, and I'm kind of amazed that they didn't take that into account.

[00:17:13] And this can happen because you're not properly tracking data or you don't know what to do with that amount of data. And just as Georgiana said, data is what happens on your website, but data is also who is your customer, where they live, um, how frequent they purchase, and I would like to talk about that next.

[00:17:38] Okay. Do you have anything to add? Now, in terms of like, maybe some methods that you, um, advise to your clients is to pay more attention to something that you've previously mentioned to them, is maybe ask them to look into, uh, dispatching models, because data in terms of [00:18:00] like, uh, Yeah, I get it's overwhelming.

[00:18:02] And especially the fact that data is siloed in the environment that you're with, that is the most, uh, troublesome problem because like having to open only 10 platforms at a time, that's mental. The fact that the platforms report different on metrics, that's even more Uh, strain on your cognition that in a normal functions in case they, uh, a way to equalize this data, a GTM usually kind of offer some sort of connectivity, but this mostly on the website part, but I would recommend using a data warehouse.

[00:18:37] My. Personal preference is, um, Google cloud, because it's very, uh, easily, um, uh, interior connected with various platforms. And, uh, you can find someone in the marketplace who has already, uh, made the connection for whatever, um, uh, service you're using as a 3rd party and you can connect it quickly, but other systems [00:19:00] are valuable.

[00:19:01] Amazon has Amazon web services, Microsoft, the Azure has. Also this in place, so any of those aspects could actually simplify the work that you're doing in this data silos environment. This is on the 1 side of unifying all the platforms into 1 in terms of answering your post purchase situation with, um, The delivery method, of course, that the physical products require a special type of organization that is different from the digital ones.

[00:19:34] And at such, I would recommend for them to negotiate with their carriers, some dispatch models. There are like three that I'm know of. So it's dispatch, uh, by parcel model, which, uh, implies that, um, You dispatch on order based on an individual base, which, yeah, it could be a bit more time consuming when you think about it and it could [00:20:00] accrue a bit more costs.

[00:20:01] Then you have direct injection model, which is, um, shipping in bulk. But that means you have to have a bit of a seasonality prediction in order to negotiate your rates with your carrier. That would be like, on those days, I expect. Expect this amount of parcels because the carrier will penalize you in case you do not make the parcels on the proposed date, or you can have the location model, which is one of, uh, the best in a place.

[00:20:32] But unfortunately, it's 1 of the most expensive ones, because it requires, uh, your own, uh, warehouse plan. Premise and at this point, uh, maybe this is not the case for some of your clients, but it could be, uh, something, uh, to look into if their operations grow. But in terms of localization model, I know from my days, well, while working for a [00:21:00] logistics company.

[00:21:01] That you have the option, at least in Amsterdam to share, uh, warehouses with other companies and just have like a smaller slot. And why do I say Amsterdam? Because Amsterdam is kind of the delivery hub for Europe. So. Look and what's suitable for your business and see how you can actually navigate this challenge, because at the end of the day, if you're not servicing your clients rightfully, you will lose them and gaining their respect and trust back.

[00:21:33] It's going to cost you a lot more marketing effort and capital than it is required to service them properly. So, here you go, to those people who are always asking me how about a hybrid Black Friday offer where we do have digital products, but also we have all this beautiful merch laying around. Can we use that?

[00:21:56] You have to take these things into account. [00:22:00] Georgiana, I would like us to consider the following scenario. So let's say I have a course creator who had a Black Friday last year, and they want to analyze the results of that Black Friday campaign to see what can they do to improve this year. And I'm interested in, uh, learning what kind of data they should look at.

[00:22:26] how can they decide if that data is, I don't know, good enough or complete enough, and what are some potential experiments or assumptions they can make based on that specific data. Okay, so, um, I would actually start with understanding the traffic sources on which the black channel operated. For example, you know, as a marketeer that when you do an offer, you kind of tend to promote it either on the.

[00:22:59] Paid [00:23:00] search, paid social media, organic social media, email marketing, or any kind of marketing channel where your offer, uh, was proposed. The reason why I would start with the channels is because, uh, I assume that the marketing materials have been differentiated per channels. Scope and such will give you a bit of a different kind of interaction and a different sort of user base that comes from the marketing platform on which you have advertised towards your website.

[00:23:31] And in understanding this, you kind of have to look at. sessions, which actually gives you a global overview of how many pages have they interacted with, how much time they have spent with, were they new versus recurring users, uh, have they actually completed a transaction? And I hope when I say this, that your, uh, GTM actually accounts for the transactions that happen on your website and your entire funnel is being tracked through such [00:24:00] systems, because this will give you a kind of, uh, understanding How did your marketing effort, uh, work in practice on like, well, last year's Black Friday?

[00:24:11] Once you kind of understand what did you do in each platform and how each platform marketing material behaved towards the final end goal, which is at the end of the day, the purchase of your product and services, you can even go a bit further. Further and try to understand what were the products on offer?

[00:24:29] Uh, what was the discount that you offered from the RPR and their retail price? Because that's something that might have a very big impact in terms of a discount, uh, promotions. We know that like we, uh, work in a saturated market where like everything is one click of a distance and that such people will do look at price, uh, when purchasing nowadays.

[00:24:53] Quite a lot. So actually go the extra mile to try to understand what made those users [00:25:00] convert. So now this is obviously on the side of pre post engagement because it's a very subtle node in the pre engagement to the engagement, but then to go to the engagement per se, you can leverage, uh, the RFM methodology that I was explaining earlier about and couple it with.

[00:25:21] Even extra level of details from your pre engagement peers and like, see, okay, do I know that the people that converted and they have a high monetary value? Have they spent more time on my website? Have they researched multiple products within the Black Friday offer that I had? Like, did they purchase more than one product?

[00:25:41] Did they purchase only one product? And ask yourself all those kind of detective questions that can help you understand. What made the offer, uh, contribute toward your transaction occurring. So I usually advise marketers don't start the [00:26:00] marketing campaign without a clear objective in your head, because once you have the objective, that's how you can go back and analyze if that objective has reached or not the goal you have set yourself to achieve.

[00:26:14] And, uh, this is best done at the beginning. Like I remember my days. doing Google ads, and I had a very, very particular, meticulous, and even sometimes time consuming method of establishing my KPIs and my targeting and everything. Because each platform gives you, okay, I'm going to, for this amount of keywords, I estimate this amount of impression, this amount of clicks.

[00:26:37] This will give you the conversion rate, uh, the CTR, because it's so important. Still a conversion rate, but it's more specific because it's called click through rate. So you have the click through rate. So now, you know that like, if you have a prediction that I have this amount of impressions, this amount of clicks and this expected CTR, when your campaign happens and your actual marketing material runs in, uh, the landscape of the [00:27:00] ad.

[00:27:00] You will have the actual impressions, the actual clicks and the actual CTR. And then you can go back to your prediction and see, okay, how far off was I? What can I do, uh, to work with this data? Because usually, um, it's a process. In marketing, everything is a process. One step leads to another and like the gap between those, uh, where the drop happens in between the steps, it could.

[00:27:24] actually reveal stuff about what worked or what didn't. For example, as I used the impressions clicks, uh, previously, when you have a high number of impressions and a little number of clicks, it could be pertaining to audience targeting. Maybe you have selected people that are not interested in your product offering.

[00:27:44] It could be related to copy materials, because like sometimes you just, Did not articulate, uh, the phrasing of your offer in such a way that speaks perfectly to the target audience that you're reaching. It could be to the fact that maybe, uh, [00:28:00] sometimes, uh, you do have a tracking problem. Like, for example, usually, because the click happens.

[00:28:06] On the advertising platform, that should not be a problem because they handled tracking and they report on it. But somehow, maybe you have a drop because you have a big amount of returning users, and those users have realized that upon one of the interactions with your ad, the website was down and they couldn't engage with it.

[00:28:27] And then the same thing. second time they just decided not to click on your ad anymore because they were experiencing some sort of faulty behavior. So that could be a part of the reason why your click rate is low. So always be curious, always think about where am I in analyzing my data and what can this do?

[00:28:46] step revealed to me and go back and kind of comply it and make a whole picture out of your entire marketing effort. And not only as I've said, operations and database are also important. [00:29:00] This sounds great. I know that for a lot of people, it's going to sound overwhelming. So at the minimum, make sure you do have the data coming in.

[00:29:12] And you mentioned. That we can kind of organize data from multiple sources. Can we do manual tracking? Well, yes, in some regards, there is, uh, methods, uh, to actually, well, I'm not very sure what you mean by manual tracking, but I will assume the manual tracking in this context is being referred to UTMs because we've been discussing our channels and then the most manual, uh, kind of, uh, process within the context of the conversation would be UTMs.

[00:29:50] Yes, those are great and are highly recommended for any marketing effort. Great. But when it comes to website engagement, I'm afraid you don't have much [00:30:00] room for manual tracking because, uh, as you know, Google analytics for, uh, has changed the methodology of, uh, understanding user interactions and now it operates on events.

[00:30:12] And you do have a set of predefined custom measurable enhanced events that the platform comes with. And of course you need to activate them, but that is a level one beginner side in analytics. But then if you really want to get into understanding your product, you're offering your colors of the product, the pricing and all those little particular things that give you the extra notch in how successful you are or not, and generate that much needed insight.

[00:30:42] For, for laying the foundation for better performance in the future, you need setting up tags and custom events that will monitor all those specific interactions, because otherwise your platform will not report on them. And what's most important to note on this side is the [00:31:00] fact that. If you have not set up an event up to today, so like let's say today I set up an event, I cannot look at what happened on the event yesterday because the platform does not memorize user interactions and as such they cannot report retroactively on something that was not tracked before.

[00:31:19] Nice. This leads me to this question. So, If I don't have any data, historical data, or I have too little of it, but I'm getting ready for Black Friday and I'm putting money and effort and time into ads and social media and maybe some affiliate, I'm doing email marketing, I'm doing all the things, what do you recommend as a sort of like checklist to help me prepare for this?

[00:31:51] influx of data to make sure that the next time I'm running a Black Friday promotion, I have the right data [00:32:00] sets to help me kind of predict or inform specific assumptions to test in my next Black Friday promo. Absolutely. So to answer your question, that is, Brilliant that you've decided to take action in the marketing realm.

[00:32:17] But as I was explaining, uh, on my previous point, I would like any marketeer to start their marketing effort with a goal in mind. The reason being as explained previously is the fact that once you have a goal in mind that could convey how successful you can be on your current action. But in order to make sure you have the data, usually you will need to understand more levels of engagement.

[00:32:43] So for example, if you have your marketing platforms like Google ads, Facebook ads, uh, email marketing, all those platforms will give you insights upon user interaction with your marketing efforts, independent, uh, Of what you're tracking on your website, because [00:33:00] those platforms do the tracking on their side and just report back to you how your content or marketing materials have behaved in when exposed to the audiences that they've presented it to.

[00:33:11] So at such, you can have multi level analysis. First of all, you can look at your past activities because I'm pretty sure that, okay, you don't have data on your website this year, but you have data data from your previous Black Friday campaign in which you had Google ads, paid ads, Facebook ads, or whatever.

[00:33:30] If it's a learning e course could be even linked in because it's actually tailored for specific learning audiences. So look in those platforms and try to understand a bit the funnel and what. Worked and what did not work in your marketing materials last year. And also try to go beyond, because I know for a fact that Google ads offers you insight on, uh, audience bidding and audience auctions, [00:34:00] because basically, as you know, Google ads, it's more like a bidding system for placing your ad in the results.

[00:34:07] And it's such, it always kind of covers. Your share of the market that you've reached. And that could be very relevant for you when setting up your future marketing budget. So this is in case you have no tracking on your website and you do not know what's happening on your website. I'm yet to encounter a company that doesn't have any sort of analytics solutions on their website because most of them have Google Analytics.

[00:34:32] And as I've said, said, Google Analytics gives you like a basic suit of metrics that you can work with, and I'm pretty sure that you can have visits, first visit, new users, uh, existing users, active users, time spent on page, uh, if you have a more specific, uh, tracking, you can even have like the. Purchases integrated in your Google Analytics, and it could give you a bit of [00:35:00] the other side of the funnel.

[00:35:01] So you have the top of the funnel where you have the interaction with the ads. Then you have the second side of the funnel, which is the part where you look at the engagement with the website page, with the checkout, with the thank you page, if they managed to successfully purchase the product. And then you have the post purchase side where, uh, we're talking about.

[00:35:21] About upselling and cross selling things that you could do to actually help your audience. Because, for example, if I'm yet to think about the product that your clients are offering, we're talking about online courses. If me, for example, as a user have. Purchased last year, uh, data analytics, uh, course from one of your instructors.

[00:35:43] This year is, I will not purchase the same course because it makes no sense for me to learn something that I've already learned. So in such a way, I become a valuable customer for upselling and cross selling and this Black Friday, instead of you targeting me with the generic offer, you can use me in a [00:36:00] specific list and.

[00:36:01] Retarget me on either Facebook or Google or like even in an email marketing campaign and offer me maybe. Okay. Now you've learned the basic for data analysis. How about you go into the mathematics needed for extensive data modeling? So, then that might be interesting for me, because it's 1 level higher and it.

[00:36:22] enriches my understanding on a subject that I'm already passionate about. So always keep this kind of diverse mindset of how I can reach the same person with new and interesting and valuable information for him. I love that. And we can, that's how you can actually learn. Which of your channels are actually delivering leads that convert?

[00:36:48] So if you're wondering, is it any worth to do more stuff on Instagram around Black Friday this year, if you have GTM, or if you're using, you know, the plain Google [00:37:00] Analytics, which isn't plain anymore. You should see some kind of attribution that this source is coming from social and then, um, a layer deeper.

[00:37:10] It should show you it's coming from Instagram. If you're using Google UTM, Tracking, then you are going to see that in your dashboard, and that's going to help you figure out should I spend more time on Instagram or should I spend more time on YouTube or Facebook, and there's also another question out of these three channels, which Uh, traffic is converting at the higher value, higher or average order value, right?

[00:37:40] Because you could have Instagram, who's buying or purchasing something that is less of a monetary value than someone that comes with an intent, with a direct intent from Google. And then they were, uh, yeah, it's, it's amazing that you've mentioned that is really, really great point. Yes, because when we're [00:38:00] promoting Black Friday, that's something we need to take into account.

[00:38:03] And many course creators have the social media following, but they don't know how to use it in a way that makes sense to whatever is happening right now. So correlate the channel with their business and marketing objective, because a lot of the people who are listening right now, they're either solopreneurs or they have a very strong And whenever I talk to them and they come to me and they ask, so what would be like an ideal black Friday strategy?

[00:38:32] And if I don't take that into account and I start listing, you know, all the things the marketer would do full time, they kind of feel like, Oh my God, this is too much overwhelming indeed. And at the end of the day, it matters. You strike a balance between marketing effort and the maximum. maximum gain, because that's what you're trying to achieve.

[00:38:53] And yes, it makes a lot of sense of having the tracking through a unified platform. And that's why I suggested [00:39:00] GTM really, because like, as you might know, GTM, it's no code kind of platform. It's easily accessible and leaves little room for error. There is extensive online materials that can help you set it up.

[00:39:13] And what's more, if you have your Facebook pixel integrated and yeah, pretty much your Facebook pixel, cause then nowadays you do Instagram ads from the business manager, you can actually have the relevant data and the attribution to the channel, either Facebook or Instagram. Even without the UTMs, but yes, it's amazing to understand the impact of each channel it has on your overall business strategy, because that's the foundation really that propels you further and give you the drive and initiative to gain even more in the future.

[00:39:52] That's awesome. Georgiana, thank you for sharing these insights with us. I hope it served as [00:40:00] an interesting and appealing introduction into the world of data. Georgiana is also hosting some of the training in my Black Friday Bootcamp, so you'll be seeing more of her in there. But if someone who's listening wants to work with you or has some questions about working with their data, where can they find you?

[00:40:22] Well, on LinkedIn, because, uh, I saw the value of a website, but then did not see the value of a website that word of mouth recommendation took a bit too much of my time that I didn't have the time to launch my website. But yeah, LinkedIn is very, uh, I'm very responsible LinkedIn. I'm sure that if you write to me on there, I'll reply within one working business day.

[00:40:46] So. So for the moment, LinkedIn would be it. And I do like customizing my platform. So it's such, you just write LinkedIn forward slash, uh, I N forward slash Georgiana [00:41:00] hyphen Kostaki. I call it hyphen or minus. It could be minus hyphen. It could be both of them. Yeah, minus hyphen, uh, which one you prefer, Kostakie, which is my name, and, uh, there you go.

[00:41:14] You'll find me. Cool. We'll include that link in the show notes. Georgiana, thank you so much. I thank you, and it was lovely speaking with you, as ever. You've listened to Master the Inbox. In this season of the podcast, we're focusing on strategies to help course creators, coaches, and consultants run successful Black Friday campaigns.

[00:41:35] If you found this episode useful, then please help me spread the word. Like, share, and subscribe wherever you're listening.