Marketing Automationwith ExpressionEngine

1. Intro

2. What is it?

3. Platforms and Tools

4. Integration

5. Use it yourself

6. Next steps

Who I am

Ben Smith

Director of Technology

Vector Media Group

@aBenjaminSmith

ben@vectormediagroup.com

1. Intro

2. What is it?

3. Platforms and Tools

4. Integration

5. Use it yourself

6. Next steps

Everyone is selling something

Regardless if money is exchanged online

● One-time purchases (e-commerce)

● Software as a service (SaaS)

● Informational / Brochure websites

Thousands of visitors

Users have varying needs and desires

Your goal is to increase sales / conversions

Marketing automation aims to sift through the visitor pool to

identify qualified sales leads

Marketing automation aims to sift through the visitor pool to

nurture through sales funnel

● Have more qualified leads for the sales team to contact

The goal

How to measure lead quality?

Who is this person?

How engaged are they?

Marketing automation helps answer these questions

Who is this person?

● Website tracking code (JavaScript, like Google Analytics)

● Tracking pixel in email messages

● Submitted personal information via forms

How engaged are they?

● Have they visited the site multiple times?

● Submitted the "contact us" form?

● Signed up for the newsletter?

● Completed an online transaction?

Jimmy Doe's score = 129

Conversions = SalesRight?

Micro Conversions

Micro Conversions

● Visit the website

● Sign up for a newsletter

● Download whitepaper

● Share to Facebook

● Use "contact us" form

● Sign up for a free trial / demo

● Open an email

● Click link in email

Micro Conversions

● Visit the website +1

● Sign up for a newsletter +5

● Download whitepaper +10

● Share to Facebook +5

● Use "contact us" form +100

● Sign up for a free trial / demo +10

● Open an email +3

● Click link in email +15

1. Intro

2. What is it?

3. Platforms and Tools

4. Integration

5. Use it yourself

6. Next steps

Platforms are similar

● Contacts / leads

● Visitor tracking

● Lead nurturing and scoring

● Email marketing

● Forms

● Landing Pages

● Dynamic content

● Integrate with CRM, drip campaigns, etc.

Platforms are similar

● Robust REST APIs

● API clients

1. Intro

2. What is it?

3. Platforms and Tools

4. Integration

5. Use it yourself

6. Next steps

1. Install tracking code

Should be in a header/footer include or layout template:

{layout="site/.html-layout"}

2. Track micro conversions

Form submissions:

1. Build the form in the platform GUI

2. HTML code is generated

3. Copy & paste into the template

2. Track micro conversions

Form submissions:

<form> that posts to an EE Custom Action

Make HTTP request to REST API with form payload

2. Track micro conversions

Form submissions:

2. Track micro conversions

Gated content / downloads:

1. Intro

2. What is it?

3. Platforms and Tools

4. Integration

5. Use it yourself

6. Next steps

Growing in popularity

Google Trends

Platforms can be expensive

● Can be $1,000s per month

● Medium and smaller firms couldn't afford

● Many companies slow to adopt

● Requires shift in offline marketing/sales activities

Open source / inexpensive alternatives

● github.com/mautic/mautic

● PHP based

● Built on Symfony, uses Composer

● Self-hosted or SaaS

● REST API and official PHP client

1. Intro

2. What is it?

3. Platforms and Tools

4. Integration

5. Use it yourself

6. Next steps

Next steps

● How can you use marketing automation to drive sales?

● Ask your boss to use it on your company site

● Recommend it to your clients

● Use it for personal projects

Caveat

● Marketing automation is a tool

● Content is king

● Need to have solid business model, sales funnel, and user journeys

● Driving visitors to goals assumes you have well-defined goals

Thank Youben@vectormediagroup.com