A Decade of Learning

For a bit more than the last decade, my career has focused on data and data visualization within sales, marketing and finance.   From understanding data architecture and database design to deploying insightful and effective reports to teams across the organization, I have come to appreciate the profound role data plays in today’s highly competitive marketplace.

Understanding how to use data and integrating it into one’s daily routine is a challenge for many.  As I reflect back on my career and the challenges for sales reps and analysts ahead, I chose to shift gears and focus on sharing my experiences with a greater audience.

With the purpose of sharing my skills, I created Saalun.  Saalun is short for Sales Analytics University.  The subscription based service is geared toward sales reps and analysts.  While sales leadership can also benefit, the product is to help reps get the training they need without relying upon corporate leadership to provide it.

While we are just launching an early preview, we will open the doors in Q4’17 with content, newsletters, webinars and podcasts.  Head over to our site and signup for notifications, early previews, and the latest news on this exciting project.

Why Use Google Adwords to Get Started on Marketing

I run a startup called TrainingMetrix, a company dedicated to bringing accessible analytics to fitness users around the world.

With a beta release of our first online product for triathletes, we needed to start a marketing campaign or two to draw in traffic beyond the inner circle of developers and “friend” based beta testers.   We aren’t fans of Facebook, so using a Facebook Ad campaign was not an option.

Google Adwords was a suggestion from a friend of mine.  As it turns out, Adwords is a great platform to get started on.  You can set a budget, big or small, you can run one or many campaigns for as long as you want and the text “adwords” means you don’t have to have a graphic artist and fancy banner ads to attract customers.  For us, the control, flexibility, and simplistic nature was why we chose Adwords for our first marketing platform.

So, we signed up with Google Adwords and started experimenting.  We had two goals for this project:

1. Test the waters with different keywords, messaging, and landing page styles to understand trigger words
2. How effective Adwords are in terms of cost

We setup four different campaigns, each with two separate Ads and sat back.  Before too long, we were getting plenty of traffic to the site.  We let the campaigns run for one week and then ran a report.  The results were fascinating to us and exactly what we were looking for.  Our first goal was met.

As for our second goal, the cost of Adwords was within our budget, but the overall cost per acquisition (CPA) was quite high, higher than we expected.  If we had Lifetime Value data to compare against, we could make a smart decision as to whether or not to continue on.  Since we are in the beta phase and not collecting revenue, the overall costs of the campaigns were acceptable, on budget and appropriate for the knowledge that we gained.

If you have a startup, please consider using Adwords as a jumping off platform for marketing. Leverage the simplicity, the control and the knowledge that you can get from it.