Marketing Unf*cked

Mark Rofe is the answer to the question, ‘what happens when you combine a great mind for marketing with a love for humorous stunts?’ With several e-commerce businesses, a PR course, and a viral billboard campaign advertising himself in his portfolio, Mark has a unique perspective on digital marketing and PR. But is there anything he wants to Unf*ck about the industry?

Join me, Siobhan Solberg, and my co-host Russell McAthy as we chat with entrepreneur and digital marketer Mark Rofe about running a Christmas tree farm. Yes, really! In our ‘Christmas’ episode, we delve into the real impact of the cost of living crisis on consumers, how to time Christmas campaigns, and why having fun with marketing can be hugely rewarding.

In this episode:

• What happens when you buy a billboard at the beginning of a global pandemic?
• Can you create a successful business by solving real problems with fun solutions?
• How does the rising cost of living impact customers' engagement with e-commerce brands, especially seasonal ones?
• How do your PPC campaigns change from the first year to the second year of running an online business?
• How can you time your Christmas campaigns perfectly to avoid being caught in a landslide?
• When building a course, all advice should be actional and useful
• What’s the difference between traditional PR and digital PR?
• What three things would Mark Unf*ck about marketing?

Mark Rofe’s directory of links:

Mark on Twitter

Mark on LinkedIn

ChristmasTrees.co.uk

Digital PR Course

Mark’s OnlyFans (just kidding)

If a company makes a $50m profit in its first year but goes bankrupt less than a decade later, should it be considered a successful business? It’s easy to equate success to sales, yet chasing short-term profits makes long-term success unattainable. Developments in digital marketing have made it easier than ever before to deliver quick results. Still, new businesses that jump in without doing the work to support cross-departmental collaboration will soon face stagnation. So, do we need to unf*ck marketing, or do we just need to learn to work together better to support business-wide goals?

In this episode of Marketing Unf*cked, your hosts, Siobhan Solberg and Russell McAthy, chat with digital consultant Tim Stewart about why it’s not the state of marketing that’s the problem: it’s everything. We delve into the origins of split testing, why the big picture should guide all business teams, and the importance of always asking ‘why?’

In this episode:

• Marketing covers everything that impacts the audience’s perception of the company; this isn’t limited to advertising or PPC.
• How has the introduction of digital technology impacted marketers’ approach to audience segmentation and split testing?
• Is the greater degree of accountability for legal and social responsibilities in digital marketing a sign of maturity in the market?
• Is it arrogant of digital marketers to assume the data they’ve collected is accurate or ‘theirs’?
• As marketing is such a broad category, is it inaccurate for consultants to call themselves ‘marketing experts’?
• While specialisms are important, extensive fracturing can lead to inefficiencies.
• How can specialist marketing teams work better with the wider business to improve their understanding of the big picture?
• ‘Business as usual’ rules set for a company or team’s convenience can harm customer satisfaction.
• Growth hacking is the enemy of long-term success; incentivizing marketers to deliver quick results has led to a narrow and short-term view of marketing.
• We need to encourage people to communicate, admit when they don’t understand, and ask ‘why?’
• Why do we fight fires with CRO instead of focusing on fire prevention?
• Why businesses should always prioritize efficacy over efficiency.
• Focus on measuring what’s important, valuable, and can be changed rather than measuring for measuring’s sake.
• Why the ‘that’s just how it is’ mentality and standard operating procedures don’t account for the nuance of our clients’ businesses.
• When businesses allow teams to develop innovative solutions without fear of repercussions, they see optimizations happen naturally.

Resources:

Tim on Twitter

Tim on LinkedIn

Tim’s website

Technology isn’t as smart as people think it is. Assuming our tools are clever enough to figure out what we want to know without additional input is a rookie mistake many businesses make. Unfortunately, this leads marketers to make decisions based on (unintentionally) confabulated reports — potentially tanking their conversion rate. With Universal Analytics set to stop processing new data in 2023, teams that aren’t educated in marketing analytics will struggle to benefit from the more convoluted GA4. But is that a bad thing? And what can analytics consultants do to better support businesses that don’t understand their reports (or read them)?

Today on Marketing Unf*cked, Siobhan and Russell chat with analytics consultant and trainer Jill Quick about the future of marketing analytics. Listen in as we delve into what GA4 and helicopters have in common, discuss Jill’s unique approach to analytics audits, and debate whether there’s really such a thing as a free (and good) out-of-the-box data analytics tool.

In this episode:

• Why is it so important for digital marketers to understand how their data is collected and processed?
• Can we unf*ck digital marketing by validating our collection strategies and aiming for a more honest perspective?
• Marketers need to figure out what questions they’re trying to answer before turning to their data.
• What are the consequences of businesses relying too heavily on out-of-the-box solutions?
• Is there any point in collecting data on everything if it’s never going to be used? Can we say the same for expensive analytics tools?
• People don’t use tools because they don’t understand how to use them or because they don’t trust the data they collect.
• Understanding what’s important to each team, from marketing to professional services, helps tie their goals together to create a cohesive company-wide objective.
• Are quick and dirty audits valuable, or should consultants push businesses by asking difficult questions, leading to more in-depth reports?
• Businesses that lack the education needed to decipher in-depth reports won’t benefit from using GA4 — and that’s ok.
• Building a network as a freelancer is just as important as the work you do and your marketing.
• Has shifting to GA4 forced people to think more critically about how they collect and use data?
• How will moving into an era where we pay for analytics change the landscape?
• Why technology is not as smart as people think.
• How do we help businesses shift from thinking, ‘What can Google answer’ to ‘What should I be asking Google?’
• Will Google’s lack of documentation and guidance for GA4 become a problem? Do they care?

Resources:

Jill on LinkedIn

Jill’s website

Jill on Twitter

One simple truth is redefining the marketing landscape: consumers are getting smarter. With businesses like Amazon setting an increasingly high bar for customer experience, doing the bare minimum is no longer enough — especially when algorithms are learning to judge website quality on how much businesses care about their customers. But with so few willing to invest in delivering quality online experiences for their customers, what’s to be done?

Join hosts Siobhan Solberg and Russell McAthy as they catch up with Jono Alderson, head of SEO for Yoast, digital strategist, and award-winning marketing expert. Listen in to hear Jono’s views on prioritizing customer experience, the importance of accessibility for SEO, and why images are criminal. Plus, stay around until the end for Jono’s challenge to our listeners (it may win you a beer!)

In this episode:

• Considering the tools and research available, does having a slow website suggest you don’t care about your customers?
• Are disruptive companies investing in developing fancy yet ineffective SPAs (Single Page Applications) just as bad as old-fashioned businesses that rely on outdated tech?
• Today, the only differentiator between brands is whether or not customers want to shop with you, so doing the bare minimum to keep your website functional is not enough.
• Many organizations can’t deliver quality experiences as this has never been their focus. Without an organizational restructure, site optimization is a losing battle.
• Are algorithmically-driven systems like Google, Meta, and Amazon preventing some brands from reaching their audiences?
• Site speed is about more than load time; it’s impacted by accessibility, trends, and a business’s operations, including tech stacks, leadership, and marketing strategies.
• Why are businesses so hesitant to invest in improving their sites and marketing, despite their importance for driving growth?
• If you’re reacting to what a competitor is doing, you’re already too late; businesses need to be proactive in giving their marketing teams the resources and investment they need.
• Website quality scores are no longer based on site speed alone but on whether a company is taking steps to improve and is considered deserving of a high ranking.
• How is Google’s website analysis algorithm evolving to assess whether businesses care about their customers?
• Site speed isn’t about customers being irritated by slow load times but reducing the friction experienced as they browse.
• Why do so many businesses fail to use images appropriately?
• A complete organizational restructure is often the best solution to a poor website quality score. But when this isn’t feasible, what are brands to do?
• Should we treat mobile differently from desktop, or has this separation led to businesses’ hesitancy to invest in better experiences?

Resources:

Jono’s website

Jono on LinkedIn

Jono on Twitter

Yoast for Shopify

Taking the path of least resistance can be incredibly tempting. After all, if a solution promises to fix all your business’s problems, isn’t it worth a try? In reality, clever tools and tactics never deliver the fix-all solutions they claim to offer. Only an understanding of how our work impacts that of others, fluid communication, and a willingness to learn can improve business operations in the long term. But in a world where ego reigns supreme, how do we make communication a priority and become less reliant on tools? Simply, how do we unf*ck this process?

Join me, Siobhan Solberg, and my co-host Russell McAthy as we chat with Simmer founder and digital marketing consultant Simo Ahava about all things communication and control. We get into why better communication is the solution to siloed working, the importance of prioritizing collaboration over ego, and how the server-side model can help any company within the digital space get better control of their data flows.

In this episode:

• Are businesses too reliant on tools that promise to cure the symptoms of their problems rather than identifying the prime mover that causes them?
• All problems come back to two people failing to communicate their plans effectively.
• Stereotypes, like slow IT teams delaying marketing innovation, hold us back: how do we move on from them?
• How do we communicate complicated ideas and concepts around improving collaboration to all the different audiences these issues affect?
• To improve inter-team collaboration, egos must be dropped, barriers to cooperation removed, and company-wide goals implemented to connect siloed teams.
• Improving communication within micro teams is relatively simple, but how can we implement great communication structures across a large and complex organization?
• Could adopting agile practices be the solution to siloed working?
• Do consultants and agencies worried about becoming redundant prioritize protecting their tools and tactics over taking their clients on journeys?
• What is the function of a digital marketing consultant: to launch great campaigns or to answer questions their clients didn’t even know they were going to ask?
• What is server-side, and how can it help businesses control their data flows better?
• Browsers were previously intended to represent and protect the needs of the user. Why has this been turned upside down in recent years?
• What happens when businesses use server-side to try and circumvent data regulations?
• What GTM does well and why it should never be recommended as a blanket solution.
• Why it’s a red flag when vendors market their tools as 100% privacy compliant.
• Do companies use the server-side model to distract from the real conversations they should be having about improving their operations?

What came first, the process or the insight? In an ideal world, a business’s processes would be informed by data, with teams seeking information to help them reach pre-established goals and objectives. But when it comes to data collection, can we really understand what we want to do with this information before we have it in front of us? And as clients become increasingly concerned about maintaining growth in a changing world, how do we convince them that collecting more data isn’t a business-saving silver bullet?

Join me, Siobhan Solberg, and my co-host Russell McAthy as we chat with Rick Dronkers, founder of Data to Value, about how to unf*ck marketing analytics. We get into how to get the most value out of our data, why people, not technology, are the answer to our problems, and the importance of learning to step back and embrace uncertainty. This episode is a fantastic look at the difficulties modern businesses face as technology evolves, even though we had a tech fail when we forgot to record the Zoom video (whoops).

In this episode:

• The loop of turning data into actual value is often not completed as businesses don’t use what they collect to inform their actions.
• Humans seek information to help control the uncontrollable, a desire that innovative technology firms selling insights-as-a-service appeal to.
• Is there any truth to the idea that businesses should collect data on everything because it might be valuable in the future?
• Why marketers should ask themselves what real-life action they’ll take when they collect specific data rather than letting the data guide their actions.
• Businesses invest heavily in software because it’s perceived as a silver bullet solution, is an easier option than creating new processes, and is more controllable than people.
• Do businesses rely too much on oversimplified, top-level data from dashboards to inform their decision-making?
• To understand what data to collect, you must first understand your goals.
• As economic outlooks change and growth starts to slow, CMOs should focus on prioritization and goal-setting to maintain upward momentum.
• Data itself doesn’t improve conversion rates; instead, it provides insights that allow teams to make optimizations across processes that work together to generate growth.
• Clients need to better differentiate between the metrics they should be monitoring and the results they view as success.
• Why it’s impossible to hold a team accountable to an outcome metric and how to hold them responsible for practical output goals instead.
• How do we support clients concerned about privacy, an issue which increases uncertainty?
• Do marketers misunderstand the role of data analytics? Data is a tool to help businesses explore uncertain territories, optimize processes and answer questions.
• What does the future of data collection and processing look like with the rise of machine learning?

Resources:
Rick’s Twitter

Rick’s LinkedIn

Life after GDPR

It’s easier now than ever before for businesses to run CRO experiments, but what happens when great technology is misused? From not running enough tests to manipulating data to prove a favored hypothesis, there are many ways businesses use testing resources incorrectly — and screw up their growth in the process. So, how can we Unf*ck these issues?

Join me, Siobhan Solberg, and my co-host Russell McAthy as we chat with Optimal Visit’s Optimiser in Chief, Craig Sullivan, about all things testing. We get into why there is no such thing as a ‘failed’ test, the importance of optimizing your experiment programs, and how A/B testing can help you grow better tomatoes (literally).

In this episode:

• Many more businesses are starting to run tests, but few run enough to drive real impact.
• The more you test before setting updates live, the fewer mistakes you’ll make.
• There’s no such thing as a failed test. Tests that don’t prove your hypothesis are as valuable as ‘successful’ tests — and can actually tell you more.
• Tests should provide strong evidence that changing from what you’re doing now is the right idea.
• Hunches and leaps of faith have their merit but need to be augmented by data, not driven by assumptions.
• What should start-ups focus on if they don’t have adequate sample sizes or KPI outcomes?
• How can businesses blend qualitative and quantitative data to generate better quality ideas?
• Tests should never be run until a clear and measurable hypothesis that’s rooted in critical thinking has been written.
• Manipulating data to support your hypothesis and personal biases leads to flawed business decisions.
• The only way to truly understand your audience is to talk to them and run tests.
• Accurately and authentically representing your audience drives better results and can change the way they engage with your business.
• How to optimize experimentation programs in order to scale.
• Big decisions can’t be made based on one A/B test that fails to take into account wider contexts.
• Marketers should not ignore the importance of segmenting mobile and desktop users when running cross-device experiments.
• Why governance and transparency are the largest things to be Unf*cked in testing.

Resources:

Craig on LinkedIn

Craig on Twitter

Collecting customer data is something businesses take for granted. It’s an expectation: if they can’t gather data on their customers’ behavior online, how else are brands meant to optimize their user journeys? Yet as legal battles between Google Analytics and European data protection authorities show no signs of slowing down, global businesses risk losing access to data on a massive market. They need to reconsider their compliance strategies — and quickly. The shifting landscape of data security is impacting marketers, businesses, and consumers, but are the changes benefiting anyone?

In this episode of Marketing Un*fucked, Siobhan and Russell talk to Cory Underwood, Analytics Engineer at Search Discovery, about all things privacy when it comes to marketing, legal, and analytics. Listen in as Cory shares his expert views on why brands can no longer collect data on everything and deal with compliance later, how data privacy goes beyond analytics teams to wreak havoc for marketing teams, and the rocky future of international data transfers.

In this episode:

• The legal issues Google Analytics is facing in Europe will get worse before they get better.
• What is the impact on consumers when their analytics data is accessible by a foreign government?
• The issue extends beyond Google Analytics to become an issue of American businesses versus EU laws and regulations.
• Data security becomes alarmingly complex when laws and regulations differ from state to state and country to country.
• Will hefty fines for breaching GDPR encourage businesses to act to avoid being caught off guard?
• Legal councils, marketers, and IT teams must share knowledge to protect businesses and customers.
• Is it possible to be 100% compliant when privacy requirements evolve rapidly?
• A lack of clear and unbiased materials explaining the situation and its implications prevents marketers from understanding rulings.
• Are marketing agencies aware enough of privacy regulations to make effective decisions?
• The challenge of retooling systems with entirely new architectures when the rules are constantly changing.
• Could the cost of maintaining compliance see small businesses priced out of the market?
• Will we see an increase in the number of businesses building compliance teams?
• Businesses will need to weigh up the value of their data versus the potential risk.
• How differing legal language and definitions between states and countries cause confusion.
• Marketers need to move on from talking about third-party cookies and email open rates.

Resources:

Cory’s Blog

Cory on LinkedIn

Cory on Twitter

Marketers often exist within a bubble that messes with their perception of their audience. They build ideas about their customers based on their own desires and preconceived notions about different segments, thinking that older audiences are slow and don’t engage with brands online. That an instant conversion is always a win. And, most dangerously, that everyone looks and acts like them.

This is based on ego, not data, and is totally F*cked. But how do you move away from comfortable ideals and begin to engage with your audience in a way that drives higher lifetime value by embracing their diversity and changing behavior?

Join me, Siobhan Solberg, and my co-host Russell McAthy as we speak to Janis Thomas, Ecommerce Marketing Director of Look Fabulous Forever and ex-Marketing Director at Birchbox, about everything from marketing Playboy to young men to marketing make-up to post-menopausal women.

In this episode:

• Granular customer data that tracks journeys helps businesses attract the right sort of customers that stay long term.
• Content that doesn’t drive instant conversions is still a valuable part of the customer journey and can drive higher retention.
• Businesses should look to shift from the short-term goal of instant conversion to lifetime value. Customers that take more convincing often leave later on.
• Representation and accurate portrayals of real people are key when marketing to underrepresented audiences like post-menopausal women.
• Older audiences may take longer to make decisions and convert but are willing to push through longer page load times.
• While older audiences may have lower expectations of side speed and load time, it is important to give them the best possible experience in return for their loyalty.
• Looking at customer data can help e-commerce marketers avoid the common pitfall of believing their customer looks and acts like them.
• Talk to and listen to customers to get the most valuable behavioral insights via Facebook groups and research.
• Over 65s is one of the fastest growing markets, and their experiences should be invested in rather than only chasing Gen Y and Z.
• Continually learning about marketing and evolving technologies helps marketers understand their customers' journeys better and create consistency.
• There are company-wide benefits of engaging with marketing teams across the business and learning from each other’s work.
• Creating a culture where everyone can submit ideas for optimization invites ideas from people without set assumptions. Mixed ability groups create better results.
• Brands have a duty to support their customers through the difficult periods of life.
• Mentoring is important for women to take the next step up in their careers, and encourage more to consider where a board role may fit in their careers.
• Mentors have just as much to gain from the two-way relationship as mentees.

Resources:

Janis on LinkedIn

Public speaking

Rob Jackson’s WYK Digital

Look Fabulous Forever

Small business owners often make the mistake of not fully understanding where their marketing dollars are going. This sticky issue has a fancy term: attribution marketing. That is, if you spend x amount of dollars, what’s the true return? Where are the customers coming from? How much do you need to spend for them to find you?

Join me and fellow host, Russell McAthy, on Marketing Unf*cked as we talk through the analytics that can shift the needle in your business and how to identify them. Russell is a marketing attribution expert. We talk about the common pitfalls he sees business of all sizes make when trying to master the data-led approach to marketing. 

We’ll dig into how you can dig deep to ask the right questions to improve performance markers, the pitfalls of software like Google Analytics and the metrics you need to measure for success (and the ones to ignore!)

• The truth about what data-led strategic approach really means.
• Why it is important to be data-driven in an actionable way.
• Should you use opinion-based hypotheses or evidence-based decision-making to transform your marketing?
• The 5 whys method - How to ask the right questions to identify how to make your performance better.
• Identifying the levers of change in your business framework isn’t always easy.
• How politics in business can get in the way of your marketing strategy.
• Cost per acquisition vs number of returning customers - which metrics really matter?
• When is your business ready for the mindset change necessary to unf*ck your marketing?
• Google Analytics encourages you to ask the wrong marketing questions.
• How to identify the best program to support your marketing strategy.
• The difference between Google Analytics 3 and Google Analytics 4.
• You need other data resources to build a more holistic portrait of your marketing data.
• How to get the best answers from all advertising platforms. Is machine learning the only answer?
• Statistics on how cost per acquisition changes from new customers to returning customers.
• How to follow through with marketing attribution in the face of the current privacy landscape.
• The “cookieopolis” - do cookies still work?
• The pitfalls of Facebook advertising.
• CPM (cost per mille/impressions) model vs CPC (cost per click) model vs CPA (cost per acquisition) model - which is better?