The marketing movement by Refine Labs. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Marketing Movement with the Refine Labs crew. We're really excited to be doing episode number two of the Self-Reported Attribution. This is a super fun topic for us here at Refine Labs.
It's one that you'll see us talking about quite a bit. If you haven't listened to episode one, I recommend going and listening to that one first. We're going to be covering what it is, why it's important, how to implement it, and then all the objections that you may receive when introducing this idea. So if you haven't listened to it, hold off on this one, go listen to that one, and then come back.
But if you already have listened to episode number one, welcome, this is the second rendition of it. We're going to be jumping into more of the fun, like, meaty pieces of this. We'll be talking about uncovering insights that we're receiving here at Refine Labs with ourselves and with clients with Self-Reported Attribution, how to use the data, and then how to use it for future growth. So before kicking off this fun topic, I want to make sure that we all introduce ourselves before going in.
I'm Ashley Luen. I am a director of Deman-Gen here at Refine Labs. I'll kick it over to Tori. Hey, everybody, Tori, can like VP of Deman-Gen at Refine Labs, and over to you, Sylvia.
Hi, everybody, Sylvia, Valencia. I am a director of Deman-Gen, and Dan, do you want to go next? I'm Daniel thanks, and I am the lone performance marketing manager on this episode. Daniel, we're so excited to have you on here.
You have all the really great actionable insights in the weeds and all that stuff. So let's just not waste any time. Let's get into it. So first and foremost, I want to talk about insights we're seeing here at Refine Labs and with our clients when implementing the Self-Reported Attribution.
Sylvia, I would love if you could take us away here and just dive into this topic. Let's do it. So this was a very interesting set of insights that I think we got with this one client, because we ended up taking action in platforms and in other places where we originally were not expecting to take action on. So this customer, of course, had implemented how do you hear about us with our best practices.
And we saw that we were getting a lot of people saying that they heard about that product through a colleague, through a coworker, their network, a lot of friend referrals. I heard about you through my connections, et cetera, in different ways, but that ended up adding more and more and more to the total chunk of submissions. It's important to note that what we were doing here on a demand generation standpoint in platforms, meaning in social, we were targeting a very strict ICP, decision makers, very specific job titles, industries, regions. We're very tight in that sense.
We started seeing that the influence of our audience's network played a big role in the products they chose to learn more about. And as we started to understand, okay, this is how our buyers really care about understanding our product. It's through the influence of their circle. We said, hey, is this a good call to maybe start also influencing those influencers, right?
So we started to expand our audiences in paid social to also capture the, let's call it inner circle of our buyers. Why? Because they are already influencing them to begin with, but let's add value to them and let's show them more about this product so that we can get that full circle going. I think we were missing out that really big part in a lot of companies, I think, go through this.
They're like, my decision maker is this one job title. But hey, at the end of the day, as users of products and colleagues and having a network in general, we are very, very influenced by our recommendations in general. So that was a really key insight that we got. And we are actually currently now starting to try to understand how those expanded audiences are performing.
But yeah, we did not expect that with self-reported attribution, we were gonna end up making changes in platforms and changing audiences and things like that. So that was a very great thing to see. That's awesome. I'll follow that up with another example that I've seen from one of our fine lives clients who implemented.
So a lot of our conversation thus far has been around the audience insights, what specific channels we're running our ads on and are they making an impact? Are there new channels that we should be on? Here's another perspective to consider here. So content marketing 101, right, is you have to, when you're building out your content, you wanna have the distribution strategy in mind.
And so when we're talking about a distribution strategy, when we're talking about kind of planning that far in advance, you're really thinking about what platform, what channel is this content going to live on? And so one of the examples, the positive takeaways that we've seen from a client that implemented this was, they were going heavy into written content. They had a really effective podcast as well, but when we started looking into their self-reported attribution data, we were finding that a lot of folks were mentioning a specific channel where there isn't a whole lot of blogs and white papers and e-books that are being shared around there. And so when you're seeing these common trends within the people that are coming in down, that they're spending their time and hearing about you on a platform where maybe all of the content is actually just conversational or very, very short term, excuse me, short style content.
The way that you need to kind of think about these insights now is, all right, am I creating the right type of content to support this, to really build it out and scale it? And this is what dark social and dark social content strategy is all about. It's not just understanding where your buyers are, but trying to figure out the right way to appeal to them, the right way to get your content and your brand in those channels and not just inject it in there and say, hey, I saw everyone talking about this topic and here's a white paper on it, no one wants your white paper, so don't do that. But if you were to, let's say instead, find some of those insights, find the topics that people are caring about, those are the type of insights that you want to kind of feedback into your content strategy and figuring out ways that maybe it's moving away from blogs, but still utilizing that same kind of outline that you would use to create a blog.
And instead, finding ways to start conversations around these subtopics of that blog within these specific channels. So it doesn't just have to be exclusively focused on where we're going to run ads, but also, is our content strategy the things that we're investing time and people and resources into, is it the right strategy to really continue understanding and utilizing these insights? And I just want to jump in and put a bow on that point that you made, Tori, in that I think one of the things that's really underutilized is a focus on aligning the type of content you're putting out with the channels that you're using. So I know I've talked a lot about Reddit over the span of this last episode and change, but there are certain platforms where the language that you're using, where you're immersing yourself into that platform, TikTok and things like that, is really, really crucial.
So that's another way that you can kind of leverage some of those insights to really not only determine what type of content you should be putting out, but how to make sure that you're using the right content on the right platform to deliver the optimal result. And then one other point that I had around this is we see a lot of, I spent a lot of my time in platform. So we see a lot of discrepancies between in platform attribution and backend. You guys are dealing on the backend and the client facing side a lot more, but there's something that we're always talking about between PMMs and DDGs here is, and I think that support attribution is a great way to kind of close some of that gap and really be able to see, like, when we walk through with a client on a performance report, like we'll go through the platform numbers, but we'll also go through the self-reported numbers and we'll be able to give them a clearer picture of, okay, yes, at the platform level, this looks like it's maybe underperforming a little bit, but we're actually seeing that more social is actually happening and not being attributed because people are coming organically because maybe they saw your ad on LinkedIn, and then they remember the company name and they just went right to your website because they're not a lazy person like me who will Google a company, even though I know you aren't all that I'm going to.
And like you were saying, I think it also serves as a really great heat check for any given platform or content theme. And one of the other things I think that it's helped me with in seeing these conversations, a lot of organizations really heavily rely on search. It's kind of where they start their plan from and build backwards from there. And then I've been in a lot of conversations across a lot of different industries where the conversation is like, okay, we know that we want to allocate 75% of our budget to search.
And if there's money left over, we'll put it on LinkedIn or all these other platforms as a test. And if you've been following, we're fine in the work that we're doing in the message that we're preaching for a while, you know that we talk a lot about the kind of split between demand creation and demand capture, your search channels are really meant to be your demand capture channels and really creating demand in those other channels where you can reach people that don't already know your brand or need further push along that funnel. And having those insights from self-reported attribution is a great way to push that conversation as to your conversation towards, okay, maybe we should be shifting more of your budget away from searching and towards social or towards these other activities where we can get these kind of new, whether it's new customers, whether it's new insights, and ultimately let the channels function the way that kind of aligns with creating and capturing and in the best structure. So I've seen that help where we've had some of those conversations, some of our clients tend to come in and they tend to be spending a little bit more or the majority of their budget on search.
And we try and move them away from that and using the self-reported attribution piece is a great way to kind of help your conversation. Yeah, that's, sorry, go ahead, please. No, I was just gonna say that when those self-reported attribution fields that say I heard about you on LinkedIn or on Facebook start coming in as you start to actually create value in those platforms, that feeling is the best as a marketer to know that your ads, your content, the work you're putting in is not just like, you know, a vanity thing per se, but that it's influencing your highest intent buyers and it does take time. But once you do start to see, you know, people recognize you because they heard about you or they saw you in platforms, it's a really great point that then you can take back to your leadership or whoever you are dealing with and say, but this is the proof that what we're doing is giving us the right, you know, insights.
So yeah, go tell me what. No, I think that's a perfect segue, right? Because there's kind of two ways to really look at this data, right? There's the validation or justification of your current strategies, but then there's also the, you know, the identifying of potential new strategies and channels and fortunately, unfortunately, right?
The reason that we've kind of gotten to this point where so many people are over-indexing on attribution data or over-indexing on attributable channels, like the example that Daniel just gave, you know, with AdWords and Search, you know, the attribution is clean there. And that's why people think that that's where I wanna invest in most money because it's the most impactful. Well, no, it's just that it's as close to a straight line purchase and conversion as we're gonna see in B2B. And so, you know, I think that people have over-corrected towards utilizing that attribution data over time.
And that has led to, you know, folks really spending too much money on search, on demand capture, and not enough on-demand creation. And so, you know, kind of going back to that original point, right, the kind of the two core ways that you can use these insights, there is a lot of value in being able to justify and validate your current strategies, whether that's something that you're needing to do because your strategy does not have a lot of attributable touch points on it, or whether it's, you know, something that is a little bit newer, and you're really looking for some of that validation, those qualitative examples before maybe you're seeing some of the new deals that are gonna come from it, right? Almost looking for leading indicators. You know, I think that there's gonna be a ton of value for marketers who are moving from the lead gen strategy to the true demand-gen-demand creation strategy, and stuff-reported attribution can absolutely play a huge part in that.
The other part that I think it's really important for everyone listening right now to think through is the more future-facing strategy, and the insights that you can gather that are gonna help you improve what you're currently doing now, and find new ways to get better and reach new people, and experiment on new channels. And, you know, self-reported attribution to me is really how you can jumpstart that, and, you know, really go full, or at least a heavier focus on dark social in general, and part of that is by, you know, understanding what's happening, the buyer behavior, on those platforms and their habits, and, you know, where they are and what people are talking about, right? So you have, you know, some level of understanding now that you've implemented this around where people are going, you know, you're starting to understand, do you have the right content strategy in place right now to continue appealing to these folks, and really hopefully influencing some of that word of mouth, but now that you've identified these things, you know, what do you do there? Well, to start, you don't just show up and start pitching your product, because that's a great way for people to just tune you out, or block you, or maybe go start a new, you know, community that you're not in, because they're not worried about getting pitched to, or something of that nature.
But I think that the other thing that can be really, really helpful is, you know, as you're maybe just, in the beginning, sitting on the sidelines and checking out these channels and trying to figure out what your play is, you know, take note of the people that are truth-thought leaders on some of these new channels, the folks that are starting conversations that other people are gravitating towards and maybe signaling that they want that particular person or user to provide some more insights. Guess what? These are the people that you want to be trying to include in some of your upcoming content creation, right? If you have a podcast, hey, there's a person that could be on your next podcast.
If you are looking for new ideas for content, that can come from just spending time in these new channels. You know, if you're looking for people to write a guest blog or even do like a Q&A session with, you know, this is how you find those new personalities, those new people, and they've also got some clout in these channels and other folks around there are gonna listen to them. So, you know, that's gonna be another way that it's almost like a mini influencer strategy, but you know, these things can be really, really impactful. So, yeah, I think it's important to not just think about these things in terms of, all right, can this help me validate my strategy that doesn't have a lot of attribution touch points, but more than anything, it can really help you understand what your dark social content strategy should look like and really start to kind of put some guardrails and have it take shape a little bit instead of just, you know, thinking you're putting a blindfold on and throwing a dart at a dart board.
You would be surprised at how specific people get, right? I think that's a misconception that we have that nobody is going to say anything that can give us really informative insights, but the truth is that it's personal, like for me, it's been surprising how detailed people get. Like I heard about you from my friend, Jane Smith, who works at Amazon or whatever, and she told me this and this and this and again, what you're saying, the amount of insights that you get truly are, you know, it's something that as a marketer, I had never gotten before in any other way, like through, you know, any other field in general. So it's good to not, to think that people will get specific, not everybody will, but you will get some clear names, some clear action items from it.
Yeah, and so let's pull the moderator into this discussion here so that she's not just asking us questions, but I actually borrowed a couple ideas from you, Ashley, with some of the information that you were putting in front of a client. A couple ideas on, you know, really how to utilize these insights in particular, you know, understanding potential new audience targeting, and also, you know, maybe some new ways to look at your, your pipeline sources. So yeah, can you kind of share with us, you know, some of what you're doing with your clients? Yeah, I would love to go.
So I think first we need to know that this is just another piece of your data puzzle to help guide decisions. They should always guide conversations and decisions. I always like to say data informed and not data driven because you're taking in these, you know, bits and pieces and piecing them together to make a really great strategy. So this is just another element of that.
It gives you another leg up and to figure out, okay, this strategic decision, why are we making it? How can we pull in different levers for this? So it's self-reported attribution. You're able to do that.
You're saying, okay, I saw that we're making a big hit or big waves over here on people remembering us from LinkedIn and then we're capturing them on paid search. Like those are those two things. So in Q2, we're going to focus on employee advocacy on LinkedIn because we're noticing that a lot of our audience is over there. So that's another kind of like stacking growth lever that you can pull.
We're also going to maybe put more money behind our LinkedIn ads because we're, again, we're noticing a huge sway over on that platform. So it allows you just to take these different pieces and figure out, okay, how can we kind of like piece and all this together in order to start stacking growth in a strategic and data informed way, but not a data driven way. I think another thing too is when you look at it, I love to look at it in multiple different kind of lights. So I love to put it up against your pipeline.
So in episode one, we covered how you should be tracking it over on different objects within your CRM, especially in Salesforce. I think it's almost mandatory that you put it on almost every single object, especially the opportunity object because I love to see and I love to have the conversations with clients of, hey, let's look at your close one pipeline for this quarter. Let's look at where the buckets of self-reported attribution are. Are we seeing a trend and then comparing it against, maybe a change log of decisions you made.
Like, hey, yeah, we noticed that in this quarter, we put heavier budgets into LinkedIn than we saw more of your pipeline closed one with the self-reported attribution of LinkedIn. So it's a nice way to kind of leverage those pieces and make those strategic decisions. But I would say you definitely need to be putting this up against pipeline reports, close one, even close loss. Like if you see a lot in your close loss from a certain category, that may mean that you are not investing in the right areas and so that you can put your money and your effort and your time into a better utilized category.
But also pipeline created average deal sizes, the average sales cycle. Like you'll start to see these trends and be able to make some really great strategic conversations or decisions from it. I would love to see how you guys are also using it. Like any certain reports or how is it helping derive a lot of the strategic conversations with clients?
I think one of the things that I've seen so far is it's actually been a tool that's helped us in terms of evaluating and expanding our ICP and our audience targeting a little bit. I think one of the things that a lot of marketers fall into is thinking that just we need to reach the decision makers and overlooking how many people are actually involved in that process, especially you have a longer sales cycle. And that's something that I think gets overlooked a lot. So we've seen some insights that come out of this where we're getting better insights into who the person is on the other end and what kind of content is resonating with them and aligning the strategy with that in a way that has helped us look beyond just those kind of core decision maker kind of titles to be able to say, okay, you know, maybe I'm a CEO and my executive assistant is the one that I'm assigning to go research this product that we may need as a business.
But you're only targeting me and you're not targeting that assistant, you're missing those opportunities. So I think that's one thing that we take out of it is like, just the way that you can tie all of these pieces together to help you build a more targeted audience and expand that stuff out of targeting out or refine it further or really make some of those changes to your approach across the board. Sylvia, are you seeing anything else with your clients or how are you using it to fuel the momentum for future growth? Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think what you mentioned there is key of integrating it into your reports. To do that, we went in particular about how to make that happen with bucketing those fields through automation workflows. You need to do that to make sure that you can actually read and use the data and pull it into all of these fun CRM reports. So I would say that can be a little bit of a step to have all these actionable insights.
And I would also say that even after you've categorized it, that you do take a peek here and there to see what those free text fields are still coming in as, so that you can get further insights or see if there's anything, perhaps on the flows that needs to be corrected. But I just wanted to quickly touch base on that. But for sure, you need to have this against your conversions, meaning let's say those are demo requests. You need to have this against the pipeline that is created.
You should have it against the pipeline that your sales teams can consider as qualified pipeline, which is not just all pipeline. Ideally against one revenue and close lost, as you mentioned, Ashley as well. And yeah, I think for some reason, as someone that has implemented self-reported attribution barely recently, I think it surprised me in ways that I was like, so many years ago, I think that was a very popular field that we've seen in forums. How did you hear about us?
Or tell me more about how you heard about us? And I was always marketing automation platforms give me that, but I have been shocked at how much more detail and insight you get from your most valued audience. So yeah, it's been critical. I just wanted to jump in real quick.
And I love that both Sylvia and Tari brought up like things that sort of run. This might be something that I think about a lot. I started my career working in content marketing, and specifically at a company that started as print-first and built in digital later. And then it's always below in my mind how we've really gone in this pendulum swing from like, when you're running print ads or build words or TV or all these other unmeasurable mediums, where the only thing you're going off of is a potential impression to the age where we become so reliant on the attribution of digital.
And I really think that self-reported attribution has put itself into great place to be that middle ground, which ties into that growth piece really well, because if you want to be ahead of it heard, if you want to be the last company that's implementing something that everybody's going to be moving to in a year or two, because they see the value in it. So get on board early and push your leadership or be the voice raiser for that and raise your flag. For sure. So as you can tell, we could talk for hours on this topic.
It's one that we are all very passionate about, have seen incredible success with. Maybe the only in episode three? I don't know. But anyways, if you would love to keep talking about this topic, find us on LinkedIn.
I'd love to geek out about this topic, where we're always kind of running posts about it too. So definitely continue the conversation with us. But yeah, thank you so much for your time. That's a fun to dig into.
And I know there'll be even more content about this in the future. So hope you enjoyed it and thanks for your time.