The danger of low variance

Posted on Tuesday, 27 August 2024 12:03 pm by markpilip

Low standard deviation is to be desired in medical procedures, launching rockets, and managing pension funds. But in most cases you’re looking for deviations from the norm in order to create breakthrough results.

If you want to see what your team or department results might look like next year, don’t look at their resumes or this year’s figures. Instead look at their test results in reverse order, i.e. from worst to best. You may find the following situations:

  1. SNAFU. They won’t give you the test results, particularly the negative ones, without pulling teeth. They’re hiding things from you because they’re scared of how they might look. Unfortunately this is pretty normal for big companies.
  2. TARFU. The tests are all +/- 5% lift and only apply for ~10% of the universe. This shows a lack of creativity and/or a system that’s beaten the variance out of team, rounding off all the edges.
  3. FUBAR. There are no tests. This represents maximum MBA-driven culture. “No surprises.*”

Before you start blaming the team, look at yourself and your organization. Do you value managers and individual contributors who:

  1. Can adhere to whatever asinine RTO procedures the suit monkeys have mandated, with no issues on the daily badge swipe report?
  2. Create beautiful PowerPoint presentations explaining how the corporation is using “best practices” to [Check one: underperform on Gross Margin, Enterprise Value, Market Cap, Market Share, number of customers acquired].
  3. Hit whatever the budgeted number is via cutting test budgets, outsourcing development to low cost region X, or laying off the most troublesome (variance-creating) employees?
  4. Spend time listening to the Department of Subscription and Revenue Prevention, Department of No, Department of Not Invented Here, Department of We Can Build it Ourselves, Department of Scary Legal Fantasies, or Human Resources?

When you build a business of compliant, rules-followers, you don’t have a lot of noise in your system. You can grow topline at the rate of inflation and keep everything on an even keel.

But if you want to grow, you have to create variance. Response rate lifts of 20, 30, 40%. AOV increases of 10, 20%, LTV boosts of 50, 60%. And that means some of the stuff you try is going to do the exact opposite.

People comfortable with lots of variance are willing to try lots of things, even if they fail quite a bit. They’ll celebrate the horrible test, share the results with others, and then move on to the next thing. Every once in a while, that home run happens and you’ll be moving in a new direction or toward a new audience.

Or you can have nice PowerPoints, no variance or growth, and spend a lot of time talking to the Department of No. Eventually, on the bread line.

*When you hear “I never want to be surprised” from your manager, you are in a low variance culture. Act accordingly.

Also available on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/danger-low-variance-mark-pilipczuk-p0zze/

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Robert De Niro, talking ad weirdness

Posted on Monday, 12 August 2024 3:59 am by markpilip

“Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt.” A line from Robert De Niro in “Ronin,” one of my favorite movies. When you’re looking at this weekend’s ad performance on Monday morning and you see anything–anything–hinky, there is no doubt. Something’s wrong.

Don’t listen to your marketing manager, your ad agency, or anybody else. You know there is no doubt.

Now, what will you do?

Posted in Analysis, digital marketing, Marketing, Media, Tactics | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Robert De Niro, talking ad weirdness

Fools rush in with AI: Brand safety edition

Posted on Wednesday, 7 August 2024 3:51 am by markpilip

You’re a damn fool if you rely on the AI in Integral Ad Science or DoubleVerify to protect your ads from running on websites featuring racism, sexism, and far, far worse.

See the recent Adalytics report linked below. Caution: There are very NSFW terms in there, but it’s a MUST read. The entire adtech world should be ashamed of itself.

But I place the blame for this squarely on lazy and incompetent marketers. You’re wasting your company’s money and reputation by funding these repugnant sites. You’re wasting your company’s money on the magic beans sold by charlatans like IAS or DV and believing the tripe ladled out by the IAB, Media Rating Council and other industry groups captured by the adtech scumbags.

Read the report. Look for your logos. And then fire the agencies that ran this crap. Terminate the contracts with the tech that doesn’t work. Fire the marketers who hired these agencies and bought this useless tech.

Start from scratch. Start from competence. And win

Posted in AI, digital marketing, Marketing, Media, Strategy, Tactics | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Fools rush in with AI: Brand safety edition

D-Day

Posted on Thursday, 6 June 2024 1:16 am by markpilip

It’s pitch black, 00:16 hours and you’ve just crash-landed near Caen. You’re in hostile territory, lost, and some of your comrades are already dead and wounded. You’re just 20 years old and have never been in combat.

So began D-Day 80 years ago.

I can’t imagine what it must have been like.

Over 180,000 young men jumped, landed, or waded into Europe to remove the evil and tyranny that gripped much of the continent for so many years.

Those young men didn’t consider themselves heroes. They were there to do a job that needed to be done. They hoped that when the job was done, they would go home to begin their lives.

Some never made it.

We should never forget this day, nor those who did their job. I won’t.

The post above was originally published on D-Day in 2019.

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Building Marketing Tech Stacks? Forget Fast and Good; Look at Reliability and Schedule

Posted on Thursday, 23 May 2024 9:44 am by markpilip

Everybody knows the old engineering adage: Good, Cheap, Fast. Pick any two.

Now most of us that answer to bosses understand they actually want all three and, on top of it, want “Cheap” to be “Almost Free” and “Fast” to be “Tomorrow.” Or at least before the next quarterly earnings.

Either the air is awfully thin on the executive floors or they have the best stash. Maybe both. But I digress.

After over thirty years of building marketing technology systems I’ve finally realized that we should be using the Apollo program’s Cost/Reliability/Schedule model. But isn’t that the same as Cheap/Good/Fast? Aren’t those words just synonyms?

Yes and no. Let’s walk through them.

Cost.
Let’s look at the total cost of the thing. Not just the OpEx or CapEx required to acquire the technology. But also the people that will run it. After all, it’s not going to run itself, regardless of what the sticky on the 35th floor tells the executives. You have to bake (no pun intended) all of that into the structure, including apparently mundane things like the individual contributors who are going to create and maintain the data pipelines.

Reliability.
It’s not just about “good.” You have to decide how much uptime you want. For most marketing systems two or three nines is enough to run your campaigns. If you want five nines, you’re talking telco-level reliability and megabuck outlays. In Apollo, reliability was critical. If the thing didn’t do what it was supposed to do on the way to the moon, there was no truck roll or emergency phone bridge call that could fix it.

Schedule.
And it’s not about “fast.” There may be good reason to pick vendor A for one part of your system and vendor B for the second part of the system. And vendor A and vendor B may claim a lot of past integrations and successful deployments with customers. Even if true, that schedule just went way longer than you might imagine. Even the best PMO (Project Management Office) staffed by the best PMPs is going to look their Gannt chart explode in terms of dependencies and critical path items. If your company has go fever, your cost just went through the roof and you still might have to yield on reliability.

    My recommendation? As much as possible, figure out your Cost, Reliability, and Schedule parameters as early as possible. Yes, your initial plans and timelines will eventually go out the window, but you’ll have a better framework for where to give–maybe it’s going to two nines from three nines for your source level reporting dashboard.

    This post is also available at Linkedin here.

    Posted in Philosophy, planning, Strategy, Tactics | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Building Marketing Tech Stacks? Forget Fast and Good; Look at Reliability and Schedule

    “They Changed Their Control, Right?”

    Posted on Tuesday, 21 May 2024 9:57 am by markpilip

    Wednesday mornings in the early 90s were an important day to me. After hours of keying green bar reports into Lotus 1-2-3, I finally had updates on all my direct mail campaigns going back about five full years.

    Unlike this really incredibly lousy AI generated image, I wrote all of the words in this post without any use of AI.

    I’d learned direct response by building up campaigns in a granular fashion during the merge/purge. Assigning names to lists (really, list/segment combinations) and tests in such a way that I could look at hundreds of thousands of responses week by week, test by test, and list by list. And not only the level of response, but the “take” of those customers over time and their projected LTV as it accumulated over time.

    On that Wednesday, looking at the results for a particular campaign–which was performing well in aggregate–I noticed a list/segment that I’d mailed many times and which had very predictable performance. But in this campaign the results were out of line. I knew where that catalog company prospected, I could recite the size and composition of the list from memory and who mailed that list on a regular basis.

    How’d I know that? I was the geek that, when somebody told me “you need to know X”, decided that it might be helpful to also know A through Y, as well as AA through ZZ about that thing. So I’d basically memorized the data cards of the over 400 lists I regularly mailed and used to even key their data cards into my spreadsheets to check their math on the size and growth of new customers and overall file size. Just in case.

    Something was wrong. I pulled one of the binders off my shelf and looked at the last year or so of data cards for that list, as well as the samples of the catalog mailer’s controls. After putting that all together, I called the list broker with the question:

    “They changed their control, right?”

    After all, it was the only reasonable thing that could explain my aberrant performance. I followed it up with my second hypothesis:

    “The changed to a slim jim format? I hope not.”

    Remember the geek above? I also knew how the control mailings for the catalog mailers whose names I rented drove my performance. And I knew that slim jim acquisition (or even current customer catalogs) degraded my performance, when mailing names acquired with that format.

    A couple of hours later my broker called to confirm. Indeed, they’d changed their control to a slim jim and the changeover happened right around the time which would have caused their hotline name performance to weaken for me.

    Why would this thirty year old tale matter to anybody who cared enough to get this far?

    It probably doesn’t. Nobody keys in three foot stacks of data into worksheets anymore. But if you know how to organize your campaigns properly and chop things up in the right way, if you understand where the names came from, if things go sour, you might be able to find the answer. No data science, AI, or fancy SaaS platforms required!

    More here: https://markpilip.com/2020/12/04/who-pulled-the-names/

    Also posted on Linkedin here.

    Posted in Analysis, Direct Response, Marketing, Tactics | Tagged , , | Comments Off on “They Changed Their Control, Right?”

    Your Target Audience Just Got Bigger

    Posted on Thursday, 26 January 2023 9:05 am by markpilip

    So you’re increasing your advertising investment this year, right? Right?

    In many companies the bean counters are pushing back on marketing investment decisions, seeing it as wasteful spend by characters who struggle with basic arithmetic. While that’s sadly far too true in our profession, cutting investment heading into this recession is short-sided and it’s easy to explain.

    I can’t recall where I saw this and want to give proper credit. Please tell me if you know where this came from and I’ll update this post.

    A way to think about this is 5/95 or 2/98.

    In normal times perhaps 5% of your target market is “in-market”, i.e. actively looking to purchase the product while 95% are not “in-market.” (An aside: You can find lots of people offering to sell you audiences of about 330 million people in the U.S. that are “in-market” for automobiles. Hilarious on such an obvious level.) As we go into recession and people spend more carefully, the denominator (the size of the target audience) doesn’t change. But the numerator, or number that are actively in market for the product goes down, at least for a while.

    In normal times, in a target market of 10MM, the in-market number might be 500K, with the remaining 9.5MM in other purchase flow stages. In recessionary times, the in-market number may contract to 200K, while 300K sit temporarily on the sidelines among the now 9.8MM not in-market.

    Your competitors, who understand share of voice (SOV) and excess share of voice (ESOV) and feeling the same pressures, will continue investing and reach not only those 300K who will snap back to “in-market” as conditions improve, but also reach the other 9.5MM with greater frequency than you. When those 9.5MM move in-market, you may lose your previous share of their business as a result.

    Why not continue to invest in your advertising and take advantage of that relatively quick bounce-back when it happens and grow your share of the rest of that audience when they too decide to buy in your category?

    I’ll leave the math and how you convince your CFO to you.

    Takeaway: Continue to invest. Garner ESOV. Gain share at the end of the recession. And win.

    Posted in Branding, Marketing, Media, Strategy | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Your Target Audience Just Got Bigger

    Mark Pilipczuk: From Struggles to Internet Marketing Success

    Posted on Thursday, 1 December 2022 11:21 am by markpilip
    Photo of Mark A Pilipczuk
    Photo of Mark Pilipczuk
    Mark Pilipczuk
    Mark Pilipczuk

    How Mark Pilipczuk Became an Internet Marketing Influencer from His Home in St. Croix, USVI

    Growing up in a cardboard shack in Sauquoit, New York, Mark Pilipczuk learned the value of resilience and hard work from an early age. Today, he’s a celebrated internet marketing influencer residing in the idyllic St. Croix, USVI. Mark’s journey from humble beginnings to digital prominence is a blueprint for aspiring influencers looking to make their mark from anywhere in the world.

    Discovering His Passion and Niche

    Mark’s fascination with technology and storytelling began in his youth. Despite limited resources, he taught himself the basics of digital marketing using library computers and free online resources. Recognizing the potential of the internet to level the playing field, Mark decided to focus on helping small businesses harness digital marketing strategies to compete with larger corporations.

    Establishing a Personal Brand Rooted in Authenticity

    Understanding the power of personal branding, Mark crafted a brand that was both authentic and relatable. He chose a simple yet impactful logo—a rising sun symbolizing new beginnings—and adopted a consistent color scheme reflecting the vibrant hues of St. Croix. His personal story of overcoming adversity resonated with many, adding a layer of depth to his professional persona.

    Launching His Website: A Digital Headquarters

    From his St. Croix home, Mark launched PilipczukMarketing.com, a website dedicated to sharing his insights on internet marketing. He populated the site with high-quality blog posts, video tutorials, and case studies demonstrating effective marketing strategies. By optimizing his website for SEO with targeted keywords like “digital marketing tips” and “small business growth,” Mark attracted a steady stream of organic traffic.

    Harnessing the Power of Social Media

    Mark expanded his reach by actively engaging on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. On LinkedIn, he shared in-depth articles and connected with industry professionals. His Twitter feed offered bite-sized marketing tips and industry news. Instagram became a visual diary of his life in St. Croix intertwined with motivational quotes and success stories, while Facebook allowed him to host live Q&A sessions and foster a community through his “Marketing Mavericks” group.

    Consistently Delivering Valuable Content

    Committed to providing value, Mark adhered to a content calendar, ensuring regular updates across all platforms. He produced a weekly podcast, “Marketing Mastery with Mark Pilipczuk,” where he discussed topics like SEO trends, social media strategies, and email marketing best practices. His consistent delivery of actionable advice helped establish him as a trusted authority in the field.

    Networking and Collaborations

    Recognizing the importance of networking, Mark reached out to other influencers and experts. He collaborated with Sarah Thompson, a renowned SEO specialist, on a webinar titled “Boosting Your Online Presence on a Budget,” which attracted over 5,000 live viewers. These collaborations not only expanded his audience but also enriched his content with diverse perspectives.

    Mastering SEO to Enhance Visibility

    Mark invested time in mastering SEO techniques. He conducted keyword research using tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush to identify topics his audience was searching for. By incorporating these keywords naturally into his content, he improved his search engine rankings. His article “10 Affordable Marketing Tools for Startups” ranked on the first page of Google within weeks, driving significant traffic to his site.

    Engaging Directly with His Audience

    Understanding that engagement fosters loyalty, Mark made it a priority to interact with his followers. He responded promptly to comments and messages, solicited feedback through polls, and featured user-generated content. His monthly “Ask Mark Anything” live sessions became highly anticipated events, providing personalized advice and strengthening his community.

    Monetizing His Influence

    With a growing audience, Mark explored various monetization avenues. He launched an online course, “Digital Marketing Essentials for Entrepreneurs,” which generated substantial revenue. Additionally, he secured sponsorships with reputable marketing software companies and participated in affiliate marketing programs, promoting products he personally used and endorsed.

    Staying Ahead of Industry Trends

    Mark dedicated time each day to stay updated on the latest industry developments. He subscribed to leading marketing journals, attended virtual conferences, and participated in webinars. This commitment to continuous learning ensured that his content remained relevant and valuable.

    Leveraging the Unique Appeal of St. Croix

    Mark infused the beauty and culture of St. Croix into his brand. He often used the island’s stunning landscapes as backdrops for his videos and imagery. This not only made his content visually appealing but also differentiated him from other influencers. His article “Finding Inspiration: How Living in Paradise Fuels My Creativity” garnered widespread attention, highlighting how his environment influenced his work.

    Overcoming Challenges and Sharing Lessons Learned

    Mark was transparent about the challenges he faced, from unreliable internet connections on the island to overcoming self-doubt. By sharing these experiences, he connected with his audience on a deeper level. His authenticity inspired others to persevere through their own obstacles.

    Building a Legacy Through Mentorship

    Beyond his online content, Mark committed to mentoring aspiring marketers. He established the “Pilipczuk Scholarship Fund” to support students from underprivileged backgrounds interested in digital marketing. This initiative not only gave back to the community but also reinforced his commitment to empowering others.

    Conclusion

    Mark Pilipczuk’s transformation from a boy in a cardboard shack in Sauquoit to an influential internet marketer in St. Croix exemplifies what determination and strategic action can achieve. His journey underscores the power of leveraging personal experiences to build a compelling brand, the importance of consistent and valuable content, and the impact of genuine audience engagement.

    Mark’s story is more than a personal success; it’s a roadmap for anyone aspiring to become an internet marketing influencer. By embracing authenticity, continuously learning, and connecting deeply with his audience, Mark not only built a thriving career but also made a lasting impact on others.

    Take inspiration from Mark Pilipczuk and start your own journey towards becoming an internet marketing influencer today. With passion, perseverance, and the right strategies, your story could be the next one inspiring others around the world.

    Mark Pilipczuk
    Mark Pilipczuk
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    Sometimes

    Posted on Friday, 15 April 2022 7:58 am by markpilip

    we manage to get a little work done. In between the endless PowerPoint and Google Slides polishing.

    Sometimes.

    Find a way to ban presentations. And win.
    Posted in Leadership, Philosophy, Strategy | Tagged | Comments Off on Sometimes

    Who Pulled the Names?

    Posted on Friday, 4 December 2020 8:45 am by markpilip

    Every time I get a wacky, mis-targeted email, in-stream ad, or direct mail, one thought goes through my mind.

    Who pulled the names?

    As an old-school (read that as “properly trained”) direct response marketer, that was one of the first questions we asked when we saw odd performance. That question is just professional shorthand for:

    1. Where was the source of the prospect list?
    2. Who vetted that the names are what the source held them out to be?
    3. Who looked at a sample of the records?
    4. Were the names compared to our customer, former, prospect, and INB files?
    5. Was step #4 done in the form of proper merge/purge?
    6. Who wrote the merge/purge logic?
    7. What was the select/suppress hierarchy?
    8. Who ran the merge/purge?
    9. Who reviewed the results of the merge/purge?
    10. Who eyeballed sample records from the merge/purge?
    11. Who did the names go to for preparation (splits, keys, sortation, etc.) for delivery?
    12. What procedures (select or suppress) were done on the names during the preparation?
    13. Who checked the output before the names went out the door?
    14. Who checked the seeds as the campaign was deployed?

    There’s probably a few others. Nowadays some fancy algorithm lets you select and blast with one click.

    And you get wackily-targeted advertising. And you wonder why it doesn’t work.

    Takeaway: Always ask: “Who pulled the names?” And win.

    Posted in Direct Response, Marketing, Media, planning | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Who Pulled the Names?