building a content marketing machine -dan patterson's deck

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CONFIDENTIAL. © 2016 CITY PASS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CityPASS® IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF CITY PASS, INC.

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Who Am I?

● Director of Internet Marketing for CityPASS

● Oversee SEO, PPC, Display, Affiliate, Analytics

● Previously Director of SEO for SEO.com● Been in the industry since 2003

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CityPASS

Package prepaid admission to top attractions in 12 North American destinations for up to 50% off

Based in Victor, ID

Atlanta Dallas Philadelphia Southern California

Boston Houston San Francisco Tampa Bay

Chicago New York Seattle Toronto

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Lessons Learned in Content & Analytics

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Lesson 1: Content Marketing Isn’t Just Infographics and Blog Posts

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What is the Main Goal of Content?

● Increase Traffic● Increase Conversions

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Common Goals of “Content” I Hear...

● Links● Social Buzz● Etc.

If that’s your only goal, it’s a link building strategy.

Think bigger!

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Remember Basic SEO?

● Do keyword/topical research● Identify a need ● Figure out which kind of content would work best for your audience and site● Build out the content● Promote the content● Continue to build links to the content (internal and external)

In other words, think of a long-term piece of content, not just a flash in the pan.

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Where Do Infographics, Blog Posts, etc Shine?

● Building links● Social media buzz● Passing internal link value

Links

Social Buzz

MoneyContent

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Case Study: “Things to Do” Pages for CityPASS

● Found a hole in our content● Did the research

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Analyzed the Competition & Built It Out

● Most ranking content at the time was “listicle” format● Built one out for every city● Made it part of the main site architecture

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Increased Traffic and Conversions!

Page became a major traffic source

vs. most one-off pieces

Which would you

rather have?

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Lesson 2: Multi-Channel Assisted Conversion Reports are Your Friend

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Marketing Funnel

Where does most content fall?

$$$

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… But Attribute to Last Non-Direct Touch

We Live in a Multi-Touch World...

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Is Last-Touch Attribution the Way to Go?

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Enter Assisted Conversion Reports

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A Few Reminders About Assisted Conversions

● Choose one conversion type● Remember that the attribution

is different in this report, so channeldata won’t match up

● “Assisted Conversions” by their natureare multi-counted, so don’t use it asan absolute metric

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Annie Cushing’s Post

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Use Assisted Conversions to See the Real Influence of Your Content Pages

What do clients and bosses care about?

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Flipping Attribution is Helpful for Multiple Channels

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Lesson 3: Evergreen Content Can Go Stale

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Case Study: “Things to Do” Pages Lost Traction

● Overall format didn’t change for a long time● Content got out-dated● Other competitors moved in and took over

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Redesign and Relaunch

● Analyzed the new competition● Restructured the pages to make them more interactive● Built out the content more

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New Launch

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Lessons Learned

● Keep an eye on good content● Don’t let evergreen content go stale● If it does, analyze the competition and take a new approach

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Lesson 4: Google Analytics Dashboards & Sheets API are Huge Time Savers

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Limitations of Basic GA Reports

● Have to pull data from a lot of different reports● Only allowed one secondary dimension● Filters can get hairy● Etc

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Build Dashboards

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Value of Dashboards

● Quick snapshots of your KPIs● Sharing with clients/bosses

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Customize To Your Heart’s Content with Sheets API

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Get the Add-On

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Learn the Language

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Tools to Learn the Language

● GA Regular Expressions● GA Metrics and Dimensions Explorer

○ Gives you API names of all metrics and dimensions○ Shows which don’t jive with each other

● Analytics Management API Segments List○ Gives you the code for each default and custom advanced segment

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Lesson 5: Keep Up on Google Analytics Errors and Changes

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Some Examples Over the Years...

● (Not Provided)● Apple iOS 6

○ In 2012 Apple traffic was going Direct● Bing July-Aug 2015

○ Bing search traffic was going Referral

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Understanding “Direct”

What does “Direct” really mean?

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Some General Suggestions

● Annotate all inconsistencies● Be patient when you see something off, might be out of your control● Watch SERoundtable, SearchEngineLand for headlines● Sometimes the error is on your end

○ https to http○ Tracking parameters○ etc

● Fix what you can, understand what you can’t

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@dan_patterson

I Hope You Learned Something!