Sitecore®
Engagement Value
best practices
New to Sitecore’s Engagement
Value? Follow this five-step process
to develop your brand’s Engagement
Value Scale.
BY SITECORE BUSINESS OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES
White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Contents
Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 3
What is SBOS?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 3
Why you need to use Engagement Analytics�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 3
Understanding Engagement Values���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 4
What do Engagement Values look like?��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 5
How to create an Engagement Value Scale������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 7
Terminology guide���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 7
Creating your website’s Engagement Values�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8
Prerequisites��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8
Five steps to creating your Engagement Value Scale������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 8
1. Identifying strategic themes������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 8
2. Identifying strategic and marketing objectives�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 10
3. Understanding digital goals prior to building the Engagement Value Scale����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 11
4. Creating an Engagement Value Scale��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 13
5. Identifying key performance indicators����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 18
Appendix
Examples of common Engagement Value Scales and digital goals��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 23
B2B Engagement Value Scale and goals���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 24
Published 9/16. © 2001-2016 Sitecore Corporation A/S. All rights reserved. Sitecore® and Own the Experience® are registered trademarks of Sitecore Corporation A/S. All other brand and product names are
the property of their respective owners. This document may not, in whole or in part, be photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without prior
consent, in writing, from Sitecore. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Sitecore.
1
White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
E-commerce (B2C) Engagement Value Scale and goals��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 25
Non-profit Engagement Value Scale and goals������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 26
Information/media Engagement Value Scale and goals������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 27
Healthcare Engagement Value Scale and goals������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 28
Government Engagement Value Scale and goals���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 29
About Sitecore��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 30
Published 9/16. © 2001-2016 Sitecore Corporation A/S. All rights reserved. Sitecore® and Own the Experience® are registered trademarks of Sitecore Corporation A/S. All other brand and product names are
the property of their respective owners. This document may not, in whole or in part, be photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or machine readable form without prior
consent, in writing, from Sitecore. Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Sitecore.
2
White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Introduction
There isn’t a single organization that can afford to do
online marketing the way they did in the past. In this age of
customer experience, the customer expects marketers to stay
connected across multiple channels and to deliver a customer
experience that is relevant to their individual needs and
preferences. Marketers can only do that effectively if they use
what we at Sitecore call “Experience Analytics.”.
You see, traditional web analytics do not have a metric that
measures the quality of the visitor’s experience based on
the customer’s behavior. Web analysts have had to infer the
visitor’s experience from a collection of traditional metrics,
creating a lot of error and putting analytics in the hands of
analysts rather than in the hands of marketers.
Experience Analytics, core to the Sitecore® Experience
Platform™, unlike traditional web analytics, creates metrics
based on the customer’s behavior based on their interaction
with digital goals, such as registrations, survey completions,
or other marketing outcomes. Experience Analytics is a
measure of marketing’s relevance to the customer. It also
acts as a proxy for strategic objectives because it has a high
correlation between Engagement Value, a primary metric
used in Experience Analytics, and the achievement of the
primary objective. Experience Analytics serves marketing well
when it is used to improve the customer experience and a key
strategic objective.
In this guide, Sitecore Business Optimization Strategies
introduces its five-step process for developing your
Engagement Value Scale (EVS). The Engagement Value
Scale defines the Engagement Value metric—a key metric
in Experience Analytics. Engagement Value Scales can be
created for all types of businesses, from profit to non-profit,
B2B to B2C.
Refer to the Appendix at the end for Engagement Value
Scale examples across different business and organizational
models. You’ll also find answers to frequently asked questions
throughout such as how Experience Analytics compares to
Lead Scoring, how to use Experience Analytics with a loyalty
system, and more.
Why you need to use
Engagement Analytics
This guide is designed to help you reach the Holy Grail of
digital marketing, Experience Analytics. It doesn’t matter
whether your organization is B2B, B2C, informational, health,
or governmental. Every type of online marketing can use
Experience Analytics to improve their customer’s experience
and optimize their marketing.
With Experience Analytics you can track the same metrics
as traditional metrics, but with the powerful advantages of
knowing what your customers find relevant as well as the
marketing efficiency of each of your marketing efforts.
Use Experience Analytics with your marketing efforts to:
What is SBOS?
Rather than focusing on the technical aspects
of implementing and using the Sitecore®
Experience Platform™, the Sitecore Business
Optimization Strategies team (SBOS™) is a
best practices resource that helps establish
the digital maturity of your organization and
identify where you want to be—and then
provides practical plans for getting there.
Learn more about SBOS, and drill down into
the details of how the team helps customers
get results.
■■
Know which marketing efforts produce the greatest
impact on a key strategic objective
■■
Increase return on marketing Investment
■■
Optimize marketing relevance to the target audience
■■
Optimize omnichannel marketing
■■
■■
■■
Evaluate A/B, multivariate, and personalization testing
quickly and easily
Evaluate and compare online and offline
marketing efficiency
Compare the effectiveness of different
marketing efforts
Experience Analytics gives you an unfair advantage over
your competitors.
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Learn the foundations of Engagement
Analytics and definition of Engagement
Values by reading the whitepaper “From
Web Analytics to Engagement Analytics:
Quality over Quantity.” 1
Experience Analytics are based on an Engagement Value
Scale that measures the visitor’s level of engagement and
commitment. The best way to create an accurate scale of
Engagement Values is to follow the precise steps in this
Sitecore Business Optimization Strategies best practices
guide. The following steps and guidelines are essential for
creating and implementing an accurate Engagement
Value Scale.
Understanding Engagement Values
Engagement Values are a measure of visitor behavior.
Engagement Values are weighted based on their impact on a
strategic objective and on how engaged and committed the
visitor is in achieving that objective. This is different from
traditional web analytics, which are based on computer log
files and do not evaluate business objectives or a visitor’s
behavior.
The Experience Analytics based on Engagement Value enable
you to measure:
■■
Across and between channels and marketing efforts
■■
Relevance of marketing to the visitor’s needs
■■
Marketing impact on a chosen strategic objective
■■
Marketing efficiency of different marketing efforts
Engagement Values are a weighting assigned to different
digital goals. Digital goals are online interactions that
commonly involve some optional visitor interaction such
as registering, completing a survey, or requesting a call. The
weight assigned to a digital goal, its Engagement Value (EV),
depends upon the estimated impact that digital goal has on
marketing’s key objective. Because visitors have a choice of
1
interacting or ignoring a digital goal the Engagement Value
score also measures the relevance to a visitor’s interests and
needs. If the visitor ignores a non-relevant digital goal then
the visitor accumulates no value for that goal. Conversely,
visitors will accumulate a high value from digital goals that
are relevant.
As visitors complete (convert) digital goals that have EV
assigned, each visitor accumulates their own Engagement
Value score. With the use of Experience Analytics, and tools
such as the Path Analyzer, marketers can see the trail of
accumulated touchpoints left by visitors. Touchpoints that
attract high value visitors will accumulate a high value.
Touchpoints that aren’t relevant to visitors will accumulate
low or zero value points. This makes it easy for marketers
to see which channels, campaigns, pages, and assets are
most critical to success. Marketers only need to look for
touchpoints where high value has accumulated.
A great benefit, and a reason this is a core concept for
Sitecore, is that visitors with different personalization
profiles often accumulate values at different touchpoints and
marketing assets. By using, Experience Analytics marketers
can filter data to show only the values and visits for specific
personalization profiles. This enables marketers to quickly
identify the marketing touchpoints that are most relevant
each profile.
It is critical that you identify the strategic objective your
Engagement Value Scale will drive. If you choose the wrong
strategic objective or you choose digital goals that don’t
drive your key strategic objective, then you will optimize
your marketing in the wrong direction and not achieve your
strategic objective.
“What you put Engagement Value on is what you optimize for.”
For example, if the marketing objective that supports your
strategic objective is to increase the number of Marketing
Qualified Leads (MQL), then a digital goal where a visitor
requests a demonstration would surely be high value and
might be assigned 100 points. All other digital goals that
support accomplishing that MQL should receive Engagement
Values proportional to that topmost value.
Placing an incorrect Engagement Value on the right digital
goal or putting an Engagement Value on the wrong digital
goal can optimize your marketing in the wrong direction. For
example, watching a video shows visitor engagement, but it
does not move visitors closer to the end goal of becoming
“From Web Analytics to Engagement Analytics: Quality over Quantity.”
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
an MQL. Placing a high value on watching a video would
optimize your website so more visitors watch the video, but
not necessarily qualify as MQLs. This might not optimize your
website for creating Marketing Qualified Leads, your website’s
highest purpose.
each level of the Engagement Value Scale should move a
visitor toward achieving the marketing objective of creating
an MQL. The value of each level should be proportional to
how much that level contributes to the visitor reaching the
marketing objective.
In most cases, Engagement Value is created at digital goals
where people have an interaction or transaction with a
marketing effort. The Engagement Value at these visitor
touchpoints is related to the level or depth of four levels of
growth in human relationships.
B2B Engagement Value Scale example
Those four levels from interested to highly engaged are:
1. Attraction
2. Two-way communication
3. Trust building
4. Commitment
Digital goals that involve only attraction, such as reading
a page or watching a short video, will usually have no
Engagement Value since there is little visitor involvement and
little impact on the strategic objective. However, as digital
goals move from levels 2 to 4 they will have higher levels of
Engagement Value. In some cases, a digital goal that shows
complete commitment is the actual strategic objective and
could be assigned 100 points.
Some websites have few transaction points. For example,
informational and non-profit websites primarily have one-way
communication, visitors prefer to remain anonymous and not
assume even a low-level of risk or commitment, and there are
few conversion points. On sites like these “Interaction Points”
involving one-way transfer of information and no shared risk
may have to be used.
In every case, goals that are assigned Engagement Values
must meet two requirements:
■■
■■
Each Engagement Value is relative to the visitor’s level
of communication, trust, and commitment.
All goals with Engagement Value Points must move
the visitor toward the strategic objectives.
What do Engagement Values look like?
The following example shows the Engagement Value Scale for
a B2B business that has a long sales cycle with the key
marketing objective of capturing MQLs. From bottom to top
Request demonstration
100
Request pricing
50
Instant sales chat
25
Sign up for webinar
10
Sign up for newsletter
5
Watch video
0
Note that each level of the Engagement Value Scale contains
either a digital goal or category of digital goal types with a
value. The value is a measure of the impact digital goals at
that level have on the key marketing objective. It is also a
measure of that digital goals relevance to visitors.
If you want to track visitor interaction with digital goals that
do not impact the key marketing objective you must assign to
these goals an Engagement Value of zero (0).
Different strategic objectives will determine different sets of
digital goals on your Engagement Value Scale. For example,
if you are an informational non-profit with activism as one
of your key objectives, then some of your top goals might be
volunteering and donations. If you are a government entity
your goals might include self-service for government services
and greater participation in the governing process.
What are the Experience Analytics Metrics?
Creating the Engagement Value Scale and then assigning
Engagement Values to important digital goals gives the
Sitecore® Experience Platform™ the ability to track and store
the value associated with each visitor’s interaction with
marketing efforts. For example, as each visitor interacts with
digital goals during each visit they accumulate for that visit
the Engagement Value associated with each digital goal they
have “touched.” By totaling the accumulated Engagement
Values associated with each visitor responding to a campaign
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
you can assess which campaigns create the greatest value
(or impact on your strategic objective). Comparing the
values accrued by different campaigns enables you to see
which campaigns have the greatest or least impact. Since the
Engagement Value is a metric that works across channels,
online and offline, it enables you to compare the effectiveness
and efficiency of all your marketing.
Creating and assigning Engagement Value produces two
new metrics that aren’t available in traditional web analytics.
These are Value and Value per Visit. With the addition of
the traditional Visits metric, you have the ability to measure
your marketing’s impact on strategic objectives as well as
marketing efficiency.
Value
Engagement Value is a proxy for achieving your marketing objectives. For example, the Value of a
marketing asset, such as a campaign, is the total Engagement Value accumulated by all the visitors
who pass through that campaign. Those visitors generated their Engagement Value by transacting
digital goals that were on the Engagement Value Scale. This makes comparing marketing efforts
easy—a white paper that has accumulated an Engagement Value of 7,500 points has a greater impact
on the strategic objective than a white paper with an Engagement Value of 6,000 points.
Visits
Visits is the total number of visits. This traditional web metric is used in conjunction with Value to
generate new metrics and analytics.
Value per
Visit
Value per Visit is a measure of marketing efficiency. You might compare it to miles per gallon as
a measure of a car’s efficiency. For example, a campaign with a VpV of 3.6 is twice as effective in
creating an impact for each visitor as a campaign with a VpV of 1.8. The VpV must be weighed against
the total Value and Visits of a marketing effort, i.e., a campaign with small number of visitors might be
highly efficient but may not have a huge impact due to the small number of visitors.
Experience
effect
In the Sitecore testing capability (for A/B, MV, and personalization testing), the system tracks the
Value per Visit for each test variant. Once a visitor is exposed to a test variant, the system will record
any Engagement Value the visitor may subsequently earn during the visit. This value is called “trailing
value.” Best experience effect is the rate of change between the highest tested trailing value per visit
and the original trailing value per visit in a given test.
How can you use Experience Analytics to optimize
your marketing?
The Sitecore Experience Platform comes with out-of-the-box
analytics applications to help you use Experience Analytics to
optimize your marketing. These analytics applications include
traditional web metrics such as visits, visitors, page views,
etc., but most important, they give you insights into which
marketing efforts are most relevant to your customers and
which have the greatest impact on your strategic objective.
Out-of-the-box Experience Analytics applications include:
■■
Experience Dashboard
The Experience Dashboard shows a near-real-time
executive-level view of Experience Analytics. It is easy
for executives to see which channels, campaigns,
profiles, and sites generate the greatest Value or
are most efficient. For in-depth analysis of pages
and campaigns you may need to develop additional
dashboards using third-party BI tools.
■■
Path Analyzer
The Path Analyzer is an amazing application that
shows you the paths visitors take through your site.
You can see the paths with the highest Engagement
Value, paths with the most visitors, paths with
the highest efficiency (VpV) and more. It is like a
marketing funnel on super-steroids. When combined
with third-party BI tools accessing Sitecore®
Experience Database™ (xDB) on-premise data, the
Path Analyzer is easily one of the most powerful web
optimization tools available.
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
You can use also use third-party business intelligence tools
to analyze your Sitecore xDB on-premise data. Because xDB
records almost every user transaction, you can use data
analytics tools such as Microsoft Excel with PowerPivot,
Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, and more to create extremely
powerful custom analytics solutions.
How to create an Engagement
Value Scale
Time and experience have proven that the following process is
the best for creating the Engagement Value Scale. This process:
Terminology guide
Digital goal: A customer touchpoint on the website
where conversion or completion occurs for a marketing
effort. The visitor must take an action to complete the
digital goal. This action reflects the customer’s behavior
at this touchpoint. An example would be completing a
registration form or requesting a phone call.
Engagement Value: Assigned to a digital goal is an
integer numeric value that is proportional to its impact
on a strategic objective. The Engagement Value for a
digital goal is accrued by a visitor when they act on or
convert the digital goal.
Engagement Values: What visitors accrue as they pass
through the marketing effort. For example, a channel
that has accumulated a high Engagement Value from
valuable visitors can be assumed to have a high impact
on the strategic objective.
Strategic theme: The distinctive thrust or focus
that defines an organization’s strategy. Successful
companies have only two or three complementary
strategic themes.
Strategic objective: An overarching end result that
must be accomplished for an organization to be
successful at its strategic theme. The strategic objective
■■
■■
■■
Increases the eyes on the problem and insures key
objectives and digital goals are included.
Creates more realistic Engagement Value weights and
ratios due to the discussion and knowledge of the
cross-functional team.
Increases buy-in and understanding by including
diverse members of marketing and IT.
It is highly recommended you use this process or a similar
process that involves a cross-functional marketing, IT, and
Sitecore partner team. Incorrectly setting Engagement Values
or using the wrong digital goals will cause poor marketing
results.
is usually composed of multiple cross-functional
objectives such as financial, marketing, customer,
human resources, IT, etc.
Marketing objective: A strategic objective within the
domain of marketing. Accomplishing the marketing
objective will help the organization succeed at its
strategic objectives.
KPI: A Key Performance Indicator. An organization may
have hundreds of performance measures or indicators,
but the Key Performance Indicators are those critical
few performance indicators that are critical to success.
Outcome: The business significant result of a dialogue
between a contact and a brand. Through a contact’s
path to becoming a customer, you can track the events
they have triggered and the goals they have converted
on their journey. The collection of these events
provides you with an insight into how contacts interact
with your website, as well as the relative financial value
they have for your organization.
We recommend that you first define goals and an
Engagement Value Scale and subsequently define
Outcomes. For more information about Outcomes, see:
“From web analytics to Experience Analytics: Quality
over Quantity.”
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Creating your website’s
Engagement Values
Prerequisites
To use a slightly longer process that develops understanding,
and involves a diverse group of people to build better ideas
you can follow the five steps below to creating an
Engagement Value Scale.
Prerequisites for creating your Engagement Value Scale are:
■■
■■
Clear strategic objectives and marketing objectives for
your organization. Although clear definitions produce
better results, even if you do not have well-defined
organizational strategic and marketing objectives
this guide can help a team of experienced marketers
identify digital goals and develop an Engagement
Value Scale.
Use of the Sitecore Experience Platform.
The purpose of this guide is to walk you through the process
of creating an Engagement Value Scale, without focusing on
the specifics of how this is configured2 in Sitecore.
Five steps to creating your Engagement
Value Scale
The following five-step process can be highly efficient in
building buy-in and understanding and using the wisdom of
the group to build your Engagement Value Scale. This process
takes a few hours of pre-work and one day of team consensus
involving 8 to 12 experienced marketers and IT people.
If you feel you do not need to build buy-in and understanding
and want to speed the process, then one or two experienced
marketers can identify the single most important marketing
objective that digital marketing can drive. With that single
marketing objective, a small group of two or three highly
experienced marketers may be able to identify the digital
goals for the Engagement Value Scale and their weights. If
you take this approach it is critical that everyone involved
understand the fundamental principles of the Engagement
Value Scale and thoroughly know all the digital goals that
support your marketing.
If you feel that your group is aligned and that you do not need
to brainstorm new or additional digital goals, then you may
want to start this process at the end of “Step 3. Digital goals.”
At that point you will already have your digital goals and know
the marketing objective you want to achieve so all you need
to do are Steps 4 and 5.
1
Strategic themes
2
Strategic marketing
objectives
3
Digital goals
4
Engagement Value Scale
5
Key performance
indicators
Figure 1: Five steps to creating an Engagement Value Scale
1. Identifying strategic themes
In this first step you will identify the two or three strategic
themes that are core to your organization’s success. These
are almost always two or three themes by which your
organization is known to your target audience.
To begin you will build a causal map that shows how your
digital goals drive marketing objectives that in turn achieve
the strategic objectives that support your themes.
The starting point for this causal map is your organization’s
strategic themes. Once you identify your themes you can
identify the strategic and marketing objectives your company
needs to achieve its themes. Once you identify your primary
marketing objectives it should be straightforward to identify
the digital goals in your website, email, and social that you
use to achieve your marketing objective.
For more on configuration, please look for the latest documentation on the Sitecore document website, https://doc.sitecore.net/.
2
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Every marketer must understand their company’s marketing
objectives—how marketing contributes to the organization’s
strategic success. Doing this exercise with a cross-functional
team, and then posting the causal map in a common room or
hallway can lead to a major shift in marketing’s consciousness.
Strategic themes are broad statements of how the company
expects to succeed and how it wants to be perceived by
customers. Every successful company operates with one or
two strategic themes. Companies that have more than three
themes usually fail because they are not focused in their use
of resources or in the minds of their customers. When you
think of most successful companies you can usually identify a
one or two word “theme” the company represents.
There are a limited number of strategic themes used in
organizations no matter their business model or whether they
are profit or non-profit. The following table includes some of
the 15 strategic themes and companies that operate with them.
Well-known strategic themes
Theme
Company
Description
Highest quality
Lexus
Products or services are recognized as having the highest quality.
Highest performance
BMW
Products or services are recognized as having the highest performance
in their class.
Leading-edge products
Intel
Apple
Products are the most innovative and advanced in their industry or
segment.
Total solution
Sitecore
IBM
Provide everything needed by the customer. In the case of IBM this is
hardware, software, consulting, and support.
Operational excellence
Dell
General Electric
Manufacturing, operations, and distribution are vastly superior to
competitors.
Lowest cost
Wal-Mart
Dell
Initial cost of purchase is the lowest.
Build the franchise
McDonald’s
Starbucks
Increase the number of outlets to meet the customer at every possible
location.
Customer intimacy
Land’s End
Know the customer’s needs so well you can make recommendations to
them they will appreciate.
Customer value
Wal-Mart
The sum of total benefits for the customer beats all competitors.
System lock-in
Microsoft
Oracle
Once you start with this company’s products or services it is very
difficult to switch to a competitor.
Corporate citizenship
P&G
Vodafone
Whole Foods
Stand-out as the leader in corporate and social responsibility in legal,
ethical, environmental and community areas.
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2. Identifying strategic and marketing objectives
A key reason for doing the following exercise
with a cross-functional team process is that
after many years of consulting we’ve found
that most marketers cannot clearly state the
key objectives their marketing should drive.
For example, should marketing’s primary
objective be to drive visitors, drive sales
qualified leads, or drive increased breadth?
(These are just a few choices.)
For a fun brainstorm, serve lunch to a
large team of your marketers and ask the
open-ended question, “What is marketing’s
primary objective?”
You don’t have to be on the executive planning committee
to identify most organization’s strategic themes. Some midlevel managers have effectively identified their organization’s
strategic themes by interviewing key cross-functional vice
presidents. This interview process is also an excellent way
to increase communication and raise awareness between
marketing and other functions.
Homework for Step 1: Identify Strategic Themes
Write down the two or three strategic themes you feel your
organization wants to achieve. This is an excellent exercise to
conduct with a diverse group of experienced managers. You
should have no more than three themes. Themes can usually be
described in two or three words. Themes should not contradict
each other, for example, “Leading edge” and “Lowest cost” is a
pair of themes that would be difficult to execute together for
a startup.
In this second step you will dive into your organization’s
strategic themes and identify the strategic objectives and
marketing objectives needed to make that theme succeed.
Although there are a limited number of strategic themes,
there are thousands of ways of executing each strategy. To
have a strategic theme an organization must achieve specific
strategic objectives. It is the execution of these strategic
objectives that make a strategic theme successful. The
strategic objectives executed by marketing are known as
marketing objectives. (Importantly, history shows it is not the
best strategy that wins, but the one who executes the best.)
For example, one strategic theme is “Leading edge,” being a
company with products and services that is always a thought
leader and technology leader. In this case, marketing’s
objective would be to build demand for leading-edge
products, create discontent with old products, and build an
image of the “next new thing.” A marketing objective here
might be: Increase visitors with an “early adopter” persona by
25% in the next quarter.
Not all marketing objectives directly drive revenue or sales.
A marketing objective may reinforce a brand strategy in
the minds of the targeted audience or it might nurture an
audience for future growth. For example, if a strategic theme
is “Build the franchise” then the marketing objective might
be: Increase awareness of our products and services by 12% in
new geographic regions before we enter.
Other strategies might have different marketing objectives,
such as:
■■
■■
■■
Increase by 25% the rate of visitors in the X niche
profile over the next six months.
Identify the three top marketing messages for revenue
and focus those messages on existing customers.
Increase the cross-sell rate by 8% and the up-sale
rate by 10% for the X product line sold into the Y
audience segment.
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Homework for Step 2: Identify strategic and marketing objectives
In order to identify and understand your marketing objectives,
you may want to create a table where you can identify strategic
themes, their definition, strategic objectives that drive the
strategic objectives, and the associated marketing objectives.
Identify your top one to three marketing objectives for each of
your strategic themes. Make them specific and keep in mind that
these are objectives you want to drive with your cross-channel
online marketing.
The next part can be critical! From the multiple marketing
objectives you identify, select one key marketing objective
you will optimize your digital marketing for. This is the single
marketing objective your Engagement Value Scale will focus
on optimizing.
You must know which marketing objective you want to optimize.
That marketing objective is the purpose of your Engagement
Value Scale.
Your EVS will optimize your channels, campaigns, and marketing
assets to achieve this one marketing objective. As the previous
section stated, if other marketing objectives are aligned they
will also be improved as the key objective improves, but only
one objective can be optimized. If you have objectives that are
not aligned or that even compete against each other, then
optimizing your key objective may reduce the effectiveness of
these non-aligned objectives, e.g., the objectives to increase total
number of visitors and increase the highest quality of visitors will
probably compete. Digital goals that improve quality, such as a
detailed registration, can reduce the total number of visitors.
From your list of marketing objectives, select the one marketing
objective that is most important. This is the marketing objective
the Engagement Value Scale will optimize your marketing
to achieve.
Other marketing objectives may be improved as you optimize
the key marketing objective and its digital goals, but attempting
to optimize two objectives at the same time causes confounding
which muddies your marketing optimization so neither is
optimized. When you focus your optimization on one marketing
objective and the digital goals that drive it, other objectives may
also be improved, but they will rarely be optimized.
The following table shows one key marketing objective.
Strategic theme
Customer intimacy
Definition
Know customers’ needs.
Make excellent suggestions.
Strategic objective
Increase revenue from
loyal customers.
3. Understanding digital goals prior to building the
Engagement Value Scale
In this third step you will take time to understand the types of
digital goals used in an Engagement Value Scale.
This step is important! SBOS has learned that in too many
cases organizations have selected incorrect digital goals and
incorrectly weighted them in their Engagement Value Scales.
Marketing objective
Increase cross-sell and upsell to loyal
customers by 30%.
Capture quality profile information
on 75% of visitors by third visit.
Before you begin using either method in Step 4, be sure
you understand the types of digital goals that work best for
Engagement Value Scales.
If you are using the team brainstorming method it is critical
that all team members understand the types of digital goals
used in an EVS. If you are using the data-driven method then
members of your smaller team must understand.
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As you look at the marketing objectives you identified in the
previous section, you should be asking yourself what you
can do in your online marketing efforts and on your website
to make the key marketing objective succeed. Do you need
a detailed registration form? Can you engage visitors with a
calculator that would also capture profile information? What
online marketing effort or action will move visitors toward
your marketing objectives?
downloading a membership benefits form, using an
online calculator, or viewing a qualifying video. While
most interaction goals can be very “soft” in that they
involve little engagement or intimacy with the visitor
you can create stronger interaction goals by using
Outcomes in Sitecore 8 (and above) to evaluate when
a visitor completes multiple interaction goals that
show engagement, for example, first viewing product
pages, then checking a price page, then using a
configuration calculator. All of these combined could
show a strong engagement and intent worth a high
Engagement Value.
These website interactions with your visitors are usually
referred to as “digital goals” in websites. Goals could be a
registration, completing a survey, requesting a free offer,
chatting online, contributing to a forum, and so on.
■■
Not every digital goal, or visitor interaction, is important.
They do not all contribute the same toward achieving
your marketing objective. Some, such as registering for a
newsletter by submitting an email address, might have little
impact while others, such as requesting a call from a salesman
or submitting a donation, directly achieve your marketing
objective.
Conceptually there are three different types of digital goals;
transactional, interactional, and process. In reality you will
work with them the same, but for some types of business
models it is important to know the difference between types
of digital goals. While transactional goals confirm engagement
through the visitor’s behavior, the other two types of goals
can also be used if your website or business model doesn’t
have many transaction goals. These three types are:
■■
■■
Transaction goals—Transaction goals usually
involve two-way communication and an exchange of
information involving a degree of trust and risk on
both sides. For example, the visitor transacts with your
website either by supplying his/her contact details for
more information, purchasing a product, signing up
for site membership, or joining an email newsletter.
Informational goals—Informational goals are oneway transfers of information that involve little risk. In
interaction goals the visitor may remain anonymous.
For example, the visitor downloads an asset which
helps his/her decision making process, such as
Process goals—Process goals involve a sequence of
transactional or interactional goals over time that
show intent and movement through the marketing
funnel. For example, a visitor downloads five
whitepapers and watches three videos within one
week. Process goals often require the assistance of
a program developer to convert the actions in the
process into a digital goal with Engagement Value.
When you think of marketing objectives and digital goals
remember that they may change over time, so keep your
focus at the highest level. Start with high level marketing
objectives and identify the goals that either drive them or are
critically related.
Homework for Step 3:
To easily explain the different types of digital goals you will use
in your Engagement Value Scale you may want to create a table
with a few examples. Keep this table posted on the wall and refer
to it so that people can refresh their memory.
The following table shows some mock examples of digital goals
and references how and why they can or cannot be used in the
EVS.
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Digital goals and EVS worthiness
Digital goal
Type
Use in EVS
Register for newsletter with email
Transactional
Yes. Probably a lower value.
Use a calculator to estimate a quote
Transactional
Yes. The use of the calculator can be given an EVS
value. (Sitecore’s Federated Experience Manager can
be used to capture and store calculator data in the
user profile significantly increasing profile data.)
Request a quote or complete a
purchase
Transactional
Yes. These would probably be high EVS value as they
are closer to achieving a marketing objective.
View a page or video
Informational
No. If it is in a website with other Transactional types
of goals that show more visitor behavior and action.
View 70% of a page or video
Informational
Yes. If it is in a website that is primarily one-way
distribution of information, such as an online
newspaper. A large percentage of viewing shows
engagement. Code can be written to measure the
percentage of page read or video viewed.
Download three whitepapers, watch
a video, then register for a webinar
Process
Completing all of these within two weeks could
complete a “process” that shows engagement.
4. Creating an Engagement Value Scale
There are two different methods of creating an Engagement
Value Scale for your organization. In either method it is
critical to get buy-in from key stakeholders. Innumerable
studies have shown that without buy-in from key stakeholders
performance improvement and culture change efforts usually
fail.
Two Ways: People and brainstorming, or people
and analysis
There are two primary methods of creating your Engagement
Value Scale. The first method uses structured facilitation
with a team of experienced marketers to guesstimate the
Engagement Value Scale. The second method works well if
you have a significant amount of data that you can use to
determine which goals have a high correlation with your
objectives.
Creating an Engagement Value Scale, like the one shown on
page 4, takes about half of a day of work for a cross-functional
team of experienced marketers. You should follow the initial
development of the scale with a time for reflection and
examination that may stretch over one or more weeks.
Building your team
Whichever method you use to develop the Engagement Value
Scale you should involve the most important stakeholders.
You need their buy-in, their communication to others,
and most importantly their cross-functional experience in
selecting and weighting the most important goals. The team
you bring together should have eight to ten people who
are highly experienced in marketing and digital marketing.
(The experience factor is there so they respond from the
pain and exultation they have felt, not just from anecdotes
they have read.) It should include people from all marketing
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functions, from the CMO to campaign managers and content
editors to marketing analysts. It can also be good to include
a representative from IT or your Sitecore partner to add
technical insights, especially when considering future digital
goals. Many studies have shown that cross-functional teams
develop more and better ideas than homogeneous groups.
Team members should be stakeholders. You need them to buy
in to Engagement Value metrics, understand how and why it
works, and act as evangelists for optimizing marketing. Some
examples of team members might be:
■■
CMO or CMO representative
■■
Customer experience leader
■■
Digital strategist
■■
Content marketer
■■
Marketing technologist
■■
UX designer
■■
Digital analyst
■■
Context marketing project manager
■■
Experience program manager
■■
Experience architect
■■
E-commerce and merchandising specialist
■■
Data analyst
■■
IT representative
■■
Sitecore partner representative
You can read a definition of these roles and learn more
about organizational roles in, “Context marketing: Getting
organized.”
Preparing for the meeting
1. Before the team meeting:
■■
Distribute the homework results from Steps 1-3.
This will give all team members the same concise
background. The following chart shows one example
strategic theme and its objectives.
A strategic theme and objectives example
Strategic
theme
Customer
intimacy
Strategic
objective
Increase revenue
from existing
customers
Marketing
objective
■■
Once you have completed your “homework” from previous
steps, then you need to gather a team and use the following
process. This is a divergent/convergent process that takes
approximately three hours. The divergent process at the
beginning generates as many ideas as possible for current and
future goals. The convergent process aggregates these ideas
and prioritizes the best. At the end you can rank ideas by what
can be done now, near term, and future.
Know individual
customer needs
Post a banner with the purpose of the next meeting,
e.g., “Identify digital goals that drive our key marketing
objective and weight them by impact.”
»»
»»
Method 1: Creating by team brainstorming and ranking
Increase upsells
and cross-sells
Post a banner with the single key marketing
objective you will optimize, e.g., “Increase
upsells and cross-sells.”
Explain how a system can only be optimized for
one objective, but when a system’s objectives
are aligned other objectives are also achieved.
In this example, “Know individual customer
needs” will also be optimized.
It is critical that all team members have
in front of them the statement of the one
marketing objective that will be optimized.
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■■
Buy large format Post-it© notes. These are 6” X 8” and
should have the adhesive along the top of the long
side so you can stick them in landscape orientation
on a wall or whiteboard. Make sure you have enough
dark-colored dry erase markers for all team members.
(Dry erase are safer if someone accidentally writes on
a table or wall.)
2. Schedule the meeting for three hours in a morning later in
the week. Mornings are best for innovative thinking. Later
in the week people usually have more free time. Do not
make the meeting on a Friday.
Brainstorming digital goals
1. Post the purpose of the meeting and the marketing
objective statement at the front of the room.
2. Describe the different types of digital goals. See
“Homework 3.” Do not use too many examples from your
website or you may bias team members.
3. Distribute a few of the large 6” X 8” Post-it notes to team
members. A rule of thumb for how many Post-its each
person gets is to divide 40 by the number of people on
the team.
4. Remind the group of the marketing objectives.
5. Post these rules on notes at the front of the wall to make
sure everyone writes their ideas on the Post-Its so they
are readable.
■■
Write the digital goal in 3 - 5 words.
■■
Use BLOCK letters.
■■
Write one idea per Post-it.
6. Give the group five to ten minutes to brainstorm current
and future goals that drive the marketing objectives.
Brainstorm INDIVIDUALLY!
■■
(Research consistently shows the best ideas come
from individual brainstorming that is then aggregated
and reviewed by the group. Do not allow discussion.
This is individual brainstorming.)
7. Ask everyone to break into teams of three or four and
identify the best 30% of their digital goals (Post-Its). Do
not tell them, but this is to encourage the groups to
discuss why the digital goals they have chosen drive
the objective.
8. Collect these 30% Post-its©.
Grouping goals
1. Arrange the first 30% of the Post-its across the bottom in a
“smile.” This will give you more room to rearrange notes in
the open space above.
2. As you post each note, read it off. If the idea is not clear,
ask for an explanation from the person who wrote it.
3. Ask the group to rearrange Post-its into pairs of similar
or identical engagement. KEEP THEM IN PAIRS. Do not
aggregate and throw away too early. Aggregating into
large groups too early reduces flexibility and stifles
diverse thinking.
4. Collect the rest of the Post-its and post them in a “smile”
across the bottom. Ask the group to help you add them to
existing pairs or create new groups as needed.
5. Continue grouping until you have homogeneous groups.
You may want to put symbols at the top of each group to
make it easier to talk about a group. Labeling or naming a
group too early can reduce new ideas.
6. Review notes to make sure that groups are small and
all contain a homogenous idea, such as variations on
“Detailed registration,” “Free trial download,” or
“Online chat.”
7. Identify each group by writing a label on a Post-it at the
top of the group, e.g.,
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■■
Detailed registration
■■
Order completion
■■
Free trial download
■■
View 70% of webinar
■■
Schedule appointment
8. Remove the Post-it notes from the group leaving only labels.
At this point you should have six to 12 Post-It notes that
describe digital goals, or categories of digital goals, that drive
your marketing objective. For example,
■■
A good method of scoring is to use 100 points for
the highest engagement value and a value of 10 for
the next to lowest. A value of 0 (zero) is used for
goals you want to track, but do not want to place an
Engagement Value on. (See the Considerations section
below for discussions where this is valuable.)
4. Review the relative value of points. A good way to
estimate value is to compare the relative ratios of different
transactions and interactions. For example, “Are ten
newsletter registrations at 10 points each the equivalent to
a 100-point donation?”
5. Examine some of the sample Engagement Value Scales at
the end of this document. How does yours compare? Let
your EVS “rest” for a few days and then review it with key
team members to see if it feels valid.
■■
Email registration for newsletter
■■
Detailed registration for webinar
■■
Request a quote
■■
Contribute to a forum
Method 2: Creating goals by data-driven hypothesis
■■
Make a purchase
You can create your Engagement Value Scale based on data
from conversions on the digital goals in the Engagement
Value Scale. If you are using an e-commerce system or a CRM
that records sales, then you can also base your Engagement
Value Scale on completed sales.
Sorting and weighting goals
1. Sort the Post-it notes so those with the highest impact on
achieving the marketing objective are at the top.
■■
■■
■■
Judge the level of engagement by the amount of twoway communication and risk involved. Remember the
levels of engagement:
»»
Attraction
»»
Two-way communication
»»
Building trust
»»
Commitment
Transactions that show solid commitment, such as
calling for an appointment, making a donation, or
talking to an expert should receive higher points.
Discuss the relative contribution and order until you
have consensus.
2. You should have four to six levels in your Engagement
Value Scale. Each level is a digital goal or category of
digital goals. (See the examples at the end of this paper.)
3. Work with the team to identify the Engagement Value, a
whole number, for each digital goal or category of digital
goals. Write the Engagement Value point on each note
in red.
Analyze digital goal, e-commerce, CRM, or sales data
1. Prior to the team workshop export marketing data that
includes the conversions of each digital goal that drives
the marketing objective. Include in the data a visitor
identifier so you can tie digital goal data to the purchase
or completion of the topmost goal. (For example, if you are
a non-profit and your topmost goal is gaining volunteers,
you will use this data to find the ratios of conversion for
digital goals on the Engagement Value Scale to conversion
of the top most digital goal. If you want your EVS to relate
to a completed sale, then you will need additional
sales data.)
2. If yours is a sales-related objective, then export from your
e-commerce, CRM, or accounting system data showing
successfully completed sales. Completed sales data must
contain a customer identifier so you can relate digital goals
on the EVS to completed sales.
3. Run a correlation analysis between the digital goals on
your EVS and either the topmost digital goal or completed
sales for each visitor.
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The correlation values will give you a relative estimate of
each goal’s contribution toward achieving the marketing
objective. If you assign 100 to the highest digital goal on the
EVS, then you can normalize the value of the other digital
goals appropriately.
Selecting valid digital goals and Engagement Values
One intuitive approach to whether you have set your
Engagement Values correctly is to look at the ratios between
Engagement Values under the same marketing objectives. For
example, if a simple registration is worth 10 points and a call
for a sales appointment is worth 100 points, does that mean
that for approximately every 10 registrations you will get one
sales appointment? Does that seem reasonable?
Remember that using Engagement Values optimizes your
marketing efforts using the digital goals in your Engagement
Value Scale. This means that if you place Engagement Value
on the wrong goals you will optimize your marketing to
improve those incorrect goals. This happens most frequently
when marketers set Engagement Value on page search, logins,
viewing a page, or watching a generic video.
Be sure to select the digital goal that represents the visitor
behavior you want. For example, imagine you want to test
visitors’ interest level by presenting them with an offer for
a “Free Sample;” however, after clicking the button visitors
learn they must pay $4.95 for shipping and handling. You use
this charge of $4.95 and their entry of a credit card number
as a test of their resolution and commitment. If you put
the Engagement Value points on clicking the “Free Sample”
button you will receive a lot of invalid data because you are
getting responses from visitors who thought they would get
something free. Instead, if you put the Engagement Value at
the completion of the credit card process you will get a valid
response showing the number of visitors who have resolution
and commitment to your product.
You will face this same issue of where to put the Engagement
Value points when you create a newsletter or whitepaper
registration form. If you put the Engagement Value points
on the sign-up page then visitors will earn value even if they
bail out before completing the sign-up page. Instead put the
Engagement Value points on the sign-up confirmation or
thank you page so you are sure the action you want has
been completed.
Implementing an Engagement Value Scale
Strategizing and planning are necessary, but without
execution they are worthless. You must know how to best
implement your plan on using Engagement Values. The best
practices you’ll read here are taken from real world experience
that produced pain, insight, and now foresight.
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Entering Engagement Values
After creating your Engagement Value Scale you can
enter Engagement Values for digital goals by selecting the
appropriate Engagement Value from the drop-down in the
Create a New Goal option in the XP Marketing Control Panel.
Prioritizing when you implement goals
After a great brainstorming session, it’s sometimes difficult to
know which ideas to implement. Normally you will already have
a number of current digital goals, but you will probably identify
new goals you want to add. The easiest way to decide is to
divide the goals you’ve identified into two or three groups.
The first group contains those goals you can implement
immediately and about which there are no doubts. The
second group contains goals that cannot be implemented
immediately either for tactical or technical reasons. And a
third group might be those goals that must be reserved for
the future.
You should have a KPI for the most important digital goals and
for each marketing objective. Remember, the word “key.” Not
every performance indicator is a “key performance indicator.”
KPIs you should monitor include:
■■
■■
■■
Value by channel, campaign, profile, and asset
New and returning Visits by channel, campaign,
and profile
Value per Visit by channel, campaign, and asset
Your Critical Few KPIs are what you want to constantly
monitor to ensure you are driving success. There are many
other performance indicators (metrics) that can be tracked in
Experience Analytics, but what is important are the Critical
Few KPIs you identify. The other metrics are useful for
diagnostics, troubleshooting, and maintenance.
Homework for Step 5:
5. Identifying key performance indicators
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Once you
enter Engagement Values for the digital goals on your EVS
your system will begin tracking Values, and your Analytics
Dashboard and Path Analyzer will begin displaying results.
The term used to describe the measurements that are “key”
to improving performance is key performance indicator (KPI).
To identify your key performance indicators, and your critical
few metrics, list your strategic and marketing objectives, goals,
and KPIs in the following table. Once you have them listed go
through and mark the KPIs that are your critical few. You should
have no more than five to seven metrics in your critical few list.
Limiting the “Critical new” to five to seven helps keep everyone
focused and avoids “paralysis by analysis.” (Remember the K in
KPI stands for “Key.”)
The following is an example showing one strategic objective, two of its marketing objectives, and their related KPIs.
Strategic theme framework
Strategic
theme
Strategic
objective
Marketing objective
Goals
Critical
few
Target
Customer
intimacy
Increase
revenue
Increase sales to existing
and loyal customers
Upsell conversion to
existing customer
X
10% monthly
increase
Visitors with prior
purchase
8% monthly
increase
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Considerations
Engagement Values can be misinterpreted. The following
considerations come from some of the most frequently
asked questions.
Old data or starting fresh?
Unless you are starting from scratch in digital marketing
you face a choice when you implement Engagement Values.
Do you convert all your old data and attempt to recalculate
past historical Engagement Vales or do you leave the old and
start anew?
Creating Engagement Values for previous digital goals is
not difficult; however, correctly assigning all the EV weights
to channels, campaigns, and assets as they were originally
used by visitors is virtually impossible. The best practice
recommendation is to not upgrade your old data to include
Engagement Values.
Updating an Existing Engagement Value System to New
Engagement Values
How often do you reevaluate your digital goals and
Engagement Values? And if they change, what do you do?
Best practices recommendation that you can change or
modify your Engagement Value Scale and enter new values
for digital goals. (Be sure to remove old values on previous
digital goals.) However, because the scale and values are
new you can no longer do a direct comparison of Value and
Value per Visit between old and new systems. You may be
able to compare trends and relative ratios between old and
new systems.
Validating the Engagement Value Scale
When you first create an Engagement Value Scale you are
using your best estimate or analysis as to the Engagement
Value numeric values. After you have used Engagement
Values for a few months you should validate your estimated
Engagement Value Scale. You may want to validate your initial
Engagement Value Scale when you have a statistically valid
sample of your traffic.
To validate your estimated Engagement Value Scale you
will need to do a correlation between the Engagement
Values accumulated by visitors and the achievement of
your marketing objectives. For many organizations these
accomplishments will be stored in an ERP system or CRM as
closed sales, donations, or memberships.
For example, if you relate the number of conversions per
digital goal to the revenue for the accounts, you could have a
table like the following:
Example of an EVS validation
Goal
Initial engagement
Values
Conversions
Attribution to
revenue
Scheduled demonstration
100
5,402
10,656,854
Request pricing
50
2,673
8,563,465
Instant sales chat
25
1,354
2,326,564
Sign up for webinar
10
8,960
6,565,432
Sign up for newsletter
5
7,895
324,652
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
We can calculate “Revenue per conversion,” by dividing
“Attribution to revenue by conversions,” to get the
results below:
Goal
Revenue per
conversion
Scheduled demo request
1,973
Request pricing
3,204
Instant sales chat
1,718
Sign up for webinar
733
Sign up for newsletter
41
We can normalize this so that the highest goal, “scheduled
demo request,” is 100. To do that calculate the normalization
factor for scheduled demo request as 100/1,973 (Revenue per
Conversion) = 0.051.
Multiplying the normalization factor, 0.051, times the “Revenue
per conversion” will adjust all the goal values relative to 100 for
the largest. This will give us new Engagement Values based on
actual results as shown in the table below.
Goal
Scheduled demo
request
Revenue
per
conversion
1,973
New
Engagement
Values
100
Request pricing
3,204
162
Instant sales chat
1,718
87
Sign up for
webinar
733
37
Sign up for
newsletter
41
Remember, it is critical that the digital goals you chose meet
your hypothesis that they drive your marketing objective. If
you chose goals unrelated to the key marketing objective you
can drive visitors to those digital goals, but it will not improve
your marketing objective.
Engagement Value is not lead scoring
At first glance it might appear that Engagement Value
could be used for lead scoring, the ability to identify which
prospects are most likely to purchase, however, Engagement
Value and lead score are different. Engagement Value is used
to optimize your digital marketing. Lead scoring is used to
qualify readiness to buy.
Engagement Value is used to optimize for digital marketing
objectives as a whole. Engagement Value is scored initially
and does not aggregate over time. It does not decay with time
for a visitor as a lead score should. The Engagement Value
should only be used to evaluate the effectiveness of your
marketing in achieving your key marketing objective.
Lead scoring is used to evaluate an individual prospect’s
readiness and capability to buy. Although Lead Scoring might
include Engagement Value, it also involves many different
factors to considere including:
■■
Ability to buy
■■
Authority to buy
■■
Need to buy
■■
Stage in the buying cycle
■■
Recency of contacts
■■
Frequency of contacts
■■
Monetary or Average Order Value (AOV)
■■
Previous commitments or purchases
An accurate assessment of lead scoring requires more than
just Engagement Value. In most cases since the Sitecore®
Experience Database™ (xDB) stores the Engagement Value,
the xDB will send Engagement Values to a CRM or other
offline data source that contains these additional Lead
Scoring factors. The CRM or offline data source can then
calculate the Lead Score.
Engagement Value is not brand equity
2
Brand equity or brand value can also be confused with
Engagement Value. Just as with lead score, Engagement
Value may contribute to measuring brand equity, but it is
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
not a direct measure of brand equity. Engagement Value can
show how engaged those people who come to your website
are, but Engagement Value can’t show you what portion of
market share you own, what the trends are in social media,
or many other external factors. There are many components
involved in measuring brand equity such as marketing
awareness, market share, social media volume and trends, and
so on. Measuring brand equity is a difficult, long, and often
expensive process.
How to handle negative engagement or disengagement
If you use negative values for churn events, like
unsubscribing from a newsletter, just make sure the negative
value is opposite of the positive value, e.g., if the sign up for
Newsletter is 5, then the unsubscribe would be -5.
Assigning Engagement Values for completing a process
Another behavior you may want to assign an Engagement
Value to is when a visitor completes a process or sequence
of actions. For example, a visitor may view an overview video,
download two case studies, and calculate a price all within
a one-week time frame. Assigning an Engagement Value
to a completed process or sequence of events requires the
assistance of a developer.
Monitoring loyalty
For some business models, loyalty, and visitor retention is
very critical. In this case it is important to remember that
Engagement Value is a measure of marketing effectiveness is
achieving an objective and should not be used as a measure
of loyalty or activity over time. If you want to measure activity
over time—a proxy for loyalty—create a profile that increases
with each specific action you want to measure. Evaluating
the size of the profile value will give you an indication of the
amount of activity. You may also want to use an Outcome to
evaluate loyalty based on recency, frequency, and activity.
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Appendix
White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Examples of common Engagement
Value Scales
This section describes frequently seen Engagement Value
Scales for different types of organizations. Every organization,
their objectives, and the digital goals they use are different so
your Engagement Value Scale will differ from these.
Common engagement points are always transactional.
Engagement points that are transactional are the most valid
indicators of Engagement Value. The following transaction
points do not require high levels of risk or require a great deal
of information exchange so their Engagement Value will be
lower. The actual value you assign is up to your team.
Some examples of digital goals common found in all types of
organizations are:
Common digital goals
■■
Registration, partial information
■■
Registration, detailed information
■■
Forum, join
■■
Forum, participate
■■
Blog, contribution
■■
Social, like
■■
Social sharing, send to friend
■■
Rating, content/product/service
■■
Request for detailed information
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
B2B Engagement Value Scale
B2B businesses are businesses that engage with or sell to
other businesses. A frequent model is that the vendor’s
website needs to connect with multiple people from the
same purchasing organization. Before a purchase occurs there
usually needs to be a lot of bi-directional communication and
a high level of trust built up over months. Actual conversion
takes place offline, but the precursor is often an online
request for quote or request for sales appointment.
As you start looking for engagement points, look through
the common engagement list first. Second, look through the
following of B2B engagements. You might also look at some
of the creative ways that other business models are engaging
their visitors.
Strategic objectives
B2B digital goals
■■
Request for sales call
■■
Upgrade request for existing product/service
■■
Request for quote
■■
Extend warranty
■■
Online payment
■■
Online chat
■■
Registration for training
■■
Registration for corporate conferences
■■
Registration for giveaways, SPIFFs
■■
Registration for free trial
■■
Calculator for quotes and estimates (incremental
registration)
■■
Partner lookups
Increase revenue
■■
Location finders
Increase retention
■■
Marketing objectives
■■
Download partner/affiliate application
■■
Register, product, or service brochures
■■
■■
■■
■■
Increase conversions
Activity level (marketing automation used to add
points)
Increase awareness of products/services (organic
brand search)
■■
Identify buyer persona and behavior
■■
Increase loyalty/retention
B2B Engagement Value Scale example
Request demonstration
100
Request pricing
50
Instant sales chat
25
Sign up for webinar
10
Sign up for newsletter
5
Watch video
0
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
E-commerce (B2C) Engagement
Value Scale
Don’t put an Engagement Value on “Adding
to basket” or “Adding to wish list” since
this would optimize your marketing so that
visitors put items in basket or wish list, but
did not necessarily buy items.
B2C businesses engage with individual consumers. Often the
B2C’s reputation already exists and risk has been reduced
with the presence of a brick and mortar store or through
personal referrals. Sales often happen with one visit and one
unique visitor may make multiple smaller purchases rather
than one large purchase.
Strategic objectives
■■
Increase revenue
■■
Decrease loss
B2C digital goals
Marketing objectives
■■
Increase conversions
■■
Optimize for higher share of SEO, PPC
■■
Decrease leakage in funnel
E-commerce Engagement Value Scale example
Order completed, registered visitor
■■
Purchases
■■
Upsell during purchase
■■
Upgrade existing product
■■
Extend warranty
■■
Online payment
■■
Activity Level (use marketing automation to add
Engagement Value Points)
100
■■
Fill Wish List > # Items
Order completed, unregistered visitor
50
■■
Join membership club
■■
Instant sales chat
25
Rating products or services
■■
Register, coupons, or promotions
Product and price alerts
10
■■
Online chat
Registration, newsletter
5
■■
Registration for giveaways, SPIFFs
■■
Registration for free trial
Add to basket
0
■■
■■
■■
■■
Calculator for quotes and estimates (incremental
registration)
Location finders
Activity level (use marketing automation sequence to
add points)
Register product, or service information
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Non-profit Engagement Value Scale
A non-profit’s primary mission is not revenue, but achieving
its mission. Frequently this means that there is not as
much two-way action with visitors as there is in business
websites. Non-profit websites tend more toward one-way
communication. But there are ways you can turn that into
engagement. Anyone who is in non-profit should also check
the interesting methods of engagement in the following
sections on healthcare, infomedia, and government.
Most non-profits have a great deal of information they want
to share. They do not want that information sharing to be
hindered by requiring visitors to register or engage deeply.
Interaction points a non-profit might use could be viewing
videos, downloading free assets, and time on site.
Non-profit goals
■■
Donation
■■
Donation, elite/sponsor Level
■■
Register, special events
■■
Download donation form
■■
Purchase through online store
■■
Send advocacy emails
■■
Join elite membership
■■
Register, membership
■■
Polls
■■
Also check the Infomedia, Healthcare, and Government
examples of Engagement Value points for alternative ideas.
■■
Strategic Objectives
■■
■■
Brand recognition
■■
Increase donation
■■
View videos, 70% completion (use marketing
automation to add Engagement Value Points)
Download free assets
Time on site (use marketing automation to add
Engagement Value Points)
Request local information
Marketing Objectives
■■
Increase online participation
■■
Increase loyalty and viewership
■■
Increase participation in events
Non-Profit Engagement Value Scale example
Donation
100
Join elite membership
50
Volunteer work sign up
25
Send advocacy emails
10
Newsletter subscription
5
View pages or emails
0
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Information/media Engagement
Value Scale
The purpose of most infomedia or infotainment businesses is
to capture as many eyes as possible. Creating an Engagement
Value Scale for infomedia or infotainment websites is not
as straightforward as it is for B2B, B2C, or even government
websites. Most info websites have a limited number of
opportunities for two-way communication or trust building.
And most are built on a passive model hoping to attract and
retain visitors.
In examples taken from multiple info sites, interactions
with visitors range from passively viewing content to full
engagement involving volunteerism, event scheduling, alert
notifications, and uploading content. The fact that it’s an
info website means there are even more reasons to engage a
passionate audience.
In addition to the list of common transaction/interaction
points for all websites, the goals list contains points that are
more specific to info websites.
Strategic objectives
■■
■■
Infomedia goals
■■
Alerts, notification of content change
■■
Alerts, % open
■■
Registration, outreach programs
■■
Registration, discounts and offers, for friends of …
■■
Registration, events & notification of real world events
■■
Volunteer, view opportunities
■■
Volunteer, contact me…
■■
Donation, monetary
■■
Upload content (Scribd.com)
■■
Join elite membership
■■
Join regular membership
■■
Locate local groups
■■
Download information
■■
■■
Recency (use marketing automation to add
Engagement Value Points)
Activity level (use marketing automation to add
Engagement Value Points)
■■
Videos, 70% complete
Increase market share
■■
Views extended, > x minutes viewing
Increase revenue from affiliate advertising
■■
Marketing objectives
■■
■■
Increase viewership
■■
Increase revenue per banner
■■
Increase affiliate and repurposing
■■
Increase loyalty and sharing
■■
Views, active view (Media Rating Council) (use
marketing automation to add Engagement Value
Points)
Views, active GRP (Media Rating Council) (use
marketing automation to Add Engagement Value
Points)
Process engagement sequence (use marketing
automation to add Engagement Value Points)
(example, If number views > X minutes in month)
Information/Media Engagement Value Scale example
Time on site > 2 minutes
100
More than 5 pages viewed
50
Banner click
25
Alert signups
Share likes
10
Newsletter subscription
5
Views
0
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Healthcare Engagement Value Scale
Healthcare fits somewhere at the intersections of B2C,
infomedia, and non-profit. Usually, healthcare’s mission is to
improve the health of a community. These organizations must
be concerned with financial stewardship yet they can’t appear
to be profit driven. Another special consideration is that many
visitors to healthcare websites are anonymous and may want
to remain so. Healthcare websites have to be ingenious in
learning the profiles and personalities of website visitors.
Healthcare goals
■■
Select your doctor
■■
Completed online personal health history
■■
Completed interactive health questionnaire
■■
Online calculators (BMI, diabetes)
■■
Register, webinar
■■
Register, information assets
■■
Strategic objectives
■■
Reduce costs and increase loyalty and retention
Marketing objective
■■
Increase self-service to reduce support costs
■■
Increase awareness of hospital benefits
■■
Increase personalization for focused needs satisfaction
Time on site (use marketing automation to add
Engagement Value Points)
■■
Register, assets
■■
View, 70% of video tours
■■
View, patient/doctor/nurse interviews
■■
Read, medical information
■■
Read, hospital quality comparisons
Healthcare Engagement Value Scale example
Select personal doctor
100
Complete medical history
50
Schedule apps and chat
25
Complete interactive
health questionnaire
10
Registration, detailed
5
Browse pages
0
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
Government Engagement
Value Scale
Governments have the unusual online status of needing all
the best from B2B, B2C, infomedia, and non-profit. They are
involved with businesses in development and taxes. They
are engaged with a large number of citizens, disseminating
information like an infomedia site and transacting with
individuals like a B2C site. Government websites can be the
most engaging of websites or they can be the most boring.
Strategic objective
■■
Reduce cost
■■
Increase usage
Government goals
■■
Pay bills online
■■
Pay taxes online
■■
Register for emergency alerts
■■
Register for citizen participation
■■
Register for online video of meetings
■■
Register for newsletters
■■
Request schedules of meetings
■■
Renew business licenses
■■
Notification of maintenance needs
■■
View videos of council meetings
■■
Read schedules of events
■■
Marketing objective
■■
Increase self-service
■■
Increase information consumption
■■
Increased governance by citizens
Time on site (use marketing automation to add
Engagement Value Points)
Government Engagement Value Scale example
Self service completed
100
Register and attend board
and council meetings
50
View > 70% of council video
25
Task completion
(view series of content)
10
Download PDF from
council meetings
5
View pages
0
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White paper // Sitecore® Engagement Value best practices
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About Sitecore
Sitecore is the global leader in experience management
software that enables context marketing. The Sitecore®
Experience Platform™ manages content, supplies contextual
intelligence, and automates communications, at scale. It
empowers marketers to deliver content in context of how
customers have engaged with their brand, across every
channel, in real time. More than 4,600 customers—including
American Express, Carnival Cruise Lines, easyJet, and
L’Oréal—trust Sitecore for context marketing to deliver the
personalized interactions that delight audiences, build loyalty,
and drive revenue. For more information, follow us at
@sitecore or visit: sitecore.net.
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