This document discusses the importance of measuring marketing work, not just outcomes. It argues that analytics should focus on setting work targets and metrics to monitor, then identifying which work improves metrics. Examples are given of potential marketing work like social sharing, link building, content creation and their metrics. Tools for tracking work are mentioned. Past experiments are cited that measured how certain work like tweets or content affected metrics like traffic. The conclusion advocates experimenting to identify the work that moves key metrics.

1. Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com
The Measure of a
Marketer’s Worth

2. “A dream is nothing without action. Whether
one fails or succeeds is irrelevant; all that
matters is that there was motion in life. That
alone affects the world.”
Mike Norton, White Mountain

3. Let’s Watch Some
Basketball

4. 2:48 – 5:22

7. Rand’s Fitbit Story

8. I Have Degenerative Disc
Disease

9. Three Things Really Help Lessen My Daily Pain
#1: Walking #2: Back Exercises #3: Losing Weight

10. IAssumed I WasAlready Doing Plenty Of Them
I didn’t realize how much
opportunity I had to improve
here and positively impact my
health.

11. My First Few Days with Fitbit,
I Realized I Wasn’t Nearly asActive as I Thought
Oh crap...

12. I Became Obsessed with Hitting My Targets Fast:
That’s better.

13. TrackingAll These Have
Made Me:
Healthier
Happier
In Less Pain

14. I’ve Had These Goals For Years
Tracking WORK, Not Just Progress, Made the Difference

15. Work

16. Progress

17. In Analytics,
We Assume…

18. We Know the Right Inputs
+
More Citations
More Links
= #1!

19. We Know What Work Matters vs. Doesn’t
Don’t Bother Do It Every Day
Blog Post CreationManual Link Outreach
Tweaking Facebook Ads New Facebook Posts
Asking for Yelp Reviews Follow Instagram Accounts

20. Focusing on Outcome Metrics vs. Inputs Will Bring Success
This is a great
report, but it tells
me nothing about
the work that went
into improving
rankings.

21. What If We’re Wrong?

22. Goals of Analytics
3

23. 1) Reporting (aka measuring success & failure)

24. 2) Diagnosing (aka finding what caused change)

25. 3) Generating Targets (aka uncovering which
inputs are required to produce successful outcomes)
Via Moz & Hubspot’s 2015 Publishing Frequency Experiment

26. We’re good at #1 and #2
We rarely talk about #3…

27. The Challenge With
Generating Targets

28. Uncovering What Works is Hard
These elements might
be well correlated with
sites that tend to rank
well, but that doesn’t
mean they’re the best
investments your site can
make?
Via Moz’s 2015 Google Ranking Factors

29. The Process of
Experimentation, Failure,
& Discovery is Rarely
Embraced by Managers
or Clients.
Via Rand’s Art of Product Marketing Presentation

30. We Need to Know What Works to Create Success
Via Groove’s Blog

31. Rather Than Just Measuring
the Output of Our Various Tasks
Via Moz’s 1Metric Content Tracking System

32. I think this may be the greatest
analytics challenge facing
marketers today.

33. It’s Not Just
Software

34. It’s Not Just Numbers

35. It’s Not JustAbout Up-and-to-the-Right Graphs
Via Majestic’s Backlink History

36. It’s About Finding…
the Work that Creates Improvement

37. It’s About Finding…
Effective Targets that Impact
the Right Metrics

38. The Story of
Ikaria

39. What’s So Special
About Ikaria?

40. Via NYTimes Magazine’s Piece on Ikaria

41. Diet

42. Exercise

43. Sleep

44. Rich Social
Lives

45. The World’s Five Blue Zones Have These in Common:
Via National Geographic

46. Translating these
longevity-promoting
activities into measurable
targets creates analytics
that improve lifespan.
Via Fitbit’s Blog

47. Resting heart rate is a strong predictor of health &
longevity. This is the work that correlates.
Via Cardiogr.am’s Blog

48. These lines show me the
daily goal for WORK, not
just a goal for results.

49. This is what’s missing from our
current approach to marketing
analytics.

50. We ignore the inputs that create
those results.
We measure the results.

51. Our Job:
Find the Right Targets

52. What are the everyday actions that
consistently improve your site’s
metrics?

53. Regular Content Creation?
Establish metrics for content
cadence, and you’ll know
the benefits of 1X/week vs.
1X/month.

54. Inconsistent, Higher-Effort Content?
Many times, one piece of
extraordinary content every
quarter or even every year
can be enough.
Via Rand’s List of 10X Content

55. Links & the Relationships Forged to Earn Links?
1-2 new relationships w/
influencers each week
might be key to your
marketing efforts

56. New Citations and Brand Mentions?
Many times, a brand
mention/citation are
enough (even without
the link)
Via Fresh Web Explorer

57. Social Shares? Or Social Followers?
What actions earn
social engagement?
Are they worthwhile?
Via Followerwonk

58. Interacting in Online Communities?
A few replies a week, or
each month, may have a
compounding impact

59. Mainstream or Niche Press Coverage?
Press outreach, or crafting a press-
worthy story/event each month could be
a worthwhile endeavor

60. Barnacle SEO?
Getting listed in the
sites/pages that already
rank is often a huge
needle-mover.

61. Reputation Management in Branded SERPs?
Searchers often
investigate a brand
before making a
purchase decision.
Optimizing your
SERPs may be as
important (or more)
than optimizing your
site.

62. More Keyword-Focused Pages?
A handful of keyword-
focused pages could
have a big, long term
impact.

63. More Broad Topic-Focused Pages?
Broader, topic-focused pages may
be less-competitive and bring
positive, 2nd-order impacts.

64. Fixing Errors in Search Console?
Fixing, redirecting,
and/or finding the
linking sources to
these may drive
additional rankings &
traffic.

65. Optimization of Your Google My Business Page?
Via How to Fix a Google Business Summary by Eric Rohrback
Wrong info, reviews,
or summary data
might severely
impact your ability to
rank in Google
Maps/Local results.

66. Optimization of Your Google My Business Page?
In fact, that’s happening to Love Mamak right now.

67. Physical Space Conversion Tests
Via Combine Web & In-Store Analytics for Improved Retail Performance

68. Inclusion in More Local Listing Sites?
Via Moz Local’s Citation Sources by City and by Category (and Google Search)

69. Comment Marketing?
See more in this WB Friday on Comment Marketing as an Inbound Tactic

70. Guest Content Contributions?
Via Time for Guest Blogging with a Purpose from Jen Lopez

71. Competitive Link Building?
Via Open Site Explorer

72. Every Tactic Can Be Broken Down Into:
The Work The Metrics The Goal(s)
Put up two Facebook
posts/week
Fix any broken links
Pitch a guest contribution
1X/month
Participate in three
discussion threads/week
FB shares, new
page likes, traffic
Traffic increase
Acceptance of post,
traffic driven
Traffic from
discussion site
Grow reach on &
through Facebook
Direct+search bump
Visibility to new
audience, traffic
Brand awareness,
branded search

73. The Classic Way
to Do Analytics:

74. Set Metrics to Monitor

75. Create Targets
Traffic will go up 30%
this year!
Or I will jump on all of
you!

76. Do Work You Think Will Reach Those Goals
OK…. I’ll buy some ads I guess.
You guys… blog… or something.

77. Measure Improvement vs. Loss
Not good enough!

78. A Different Way
to Do Analytics:

79. Set Both Work Items & Metrics to Monitor
For the next 12 weeks,
2 Facebook posts a week.

80. Uncover What Work Moves Which Metrics
Crap.
That didn’t work. Let’s try
something different.

81. Measure the work against
*work* targets, not just metrics
goals
That’s 177 broken links fixed. Just 81 left. You
can do this, Mortimer. Breathe.

82. Double Down on Work that Improves
the Metrics
You CareAbout Most
Oh damn! Those weekly discussion thread
contributions are totally working!

83. Improve Your
*Time to GoalAchievement*
I’m an unstoppable marketing force!
Come at me, bro!

84. Some Tools
Can Help:

85. Wunderlist
Via Wunderlist

86. Strides
Via Stridesapp.com

87. SomeAlternatives:
Via Slant.co

88. Moz’s Success Stories

89. Do More Tweets = More Traffic? Or More Unfollows?

90. Does More Content = More Traffic?
Moz’s Blog Post | Hubspot’s Blog Post

91. Let’s Experiment

92. Let’s Find Our
10,000 Steps

93. Let’s Measure Both Metric
Goals and
the Work
that Improves Them.

94. Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com
Questions Welcome!