What I’m about to write feels like blasphemy considering I’ve spent decades preaching the importance of precise tracking. However, four recent purchases have shown me the limits of analytics and reminded me that tracking is inherently imprecise.
More importantly, it’s possible to inadvertently prioritize accurate tracking at the expense of what matters most—-creating happy customers—-and that’s a terrible trade we all want to avoid.
I’ll start by sharing the purchases, the backstory for each, and how tracking failed. Then I’ll conclude with the larger lessons from these experiences and how it should affect our thinking about analytics and optimization.
The four purchases were:
I first heard about red light therapy, and Joovv, listening to a StrongFirst podcast with Hungarian strength coach Peter Lakatos more than a year ago. I was intrigued, but not enough to make the (substantial) purchase. However, I began to pay more attention to references to red light therapy, and I eventually read Ari Whitten’s book The Ultimate Guide To Red Light Therapy.
I can’t point to a specific tipping point for my buying decision—-it was the culmination of research, context, and opportunity. One significant factor was researching potential treatment for low-testosterone. Earlier this year I took a saliva test that showed low-T (which was later discomforted by blood testing).
Other factors were other ways in which red light therapy might benefit my family’s health (e.g., helping my daughter’s anxiety and my wife’s myopic macular degeneration). Each element built on the others, culminating in the decision to buy. Joovv’s modular setup (I can build a larger system incrementally) and risk-reversal (60-day return policy) also reduced friction.
There is no way Joovv could ever detangle causality in their tracking. From an analytics perspective, I appear to be someone who browsed their site several times, read a few articles, and spent $2,195 less than two weeks later. That data tells a very small part of my buying journey.
Purchasing the Apollo Neuro was a much clearer path. In the P.S. of an August 7, 2020 email I mentioned the following:
I’ve been exploring focus and mindfulness recently. Full disclosure—I struggle (mightily) with focus. I’m infinitely curious and my mind often feels like a hummingbird flying from one idea to the next, pausing briefly in between. I’m looking for any advantage I can get to offset that tendency.
A subscriber (thanks Iassonas!) replied saying he struggled with focus too and mentioned that he was considering the Apollo Neuro to test its ‘clear and focused’ mode. I looked at the Apollo quickly on my phone, scrolled through a few reviews, and made the purchase.
Later I realized that the Apollo Neuro had been advertised in my Facebook feed for a while. I never paid any attention to the ad because it didn’t speak to a specific need the way Iassonas’ recommendation did. Was I influenced by the ad in other ways? Maybe. I can’t rule that out, but if I was influenced, it was not consciously.
From an analytics perspective, I am puzzling for Apollo Neuro. I was a first time visitor who typed in their URL and purchased on my first visit. Analytics tells them nothing about me and why I bought.
My experience leading up to the purchase of the X3 bar started with a reference in Ben Greenfield’s book Boundless. (Which I received as a free gift when I purchased the Joovv.) I stumbled on that while browsing through the (enormous) book, and I suspect I paid more attention to it because I had seen ads for the X3 in my Facebook feed (but never clicked on an ad because nothing about it resonated with me).
I am an (aging) strength athlete—-6’2″, 220lbs, and a member of the 1,000lb club (deadlift, bench press, and squat combined in excess of 1,000lbs). I don’t get excited about the latest strength gadgets, but three things impressed me about the X3. First, the creator (Dr. John Jaquish) is a legit researcher (the X3 was a by-product of studying bone density).
Second, the X3 is based on an obvious when you hear it insight anyone who has spent time in the gym knows—-we’re far stronger in the end ranges of lifts than we are in the beginning ranges, yet the weight we can move is governed by our weakest positions (or we risk significant joint damage). Anyone who has ever squatted with chains (or kettlebells attached to the bar toward the end range of the motion) understands this phenomenon well.
Third, if you watch the 12-week training video series you can see John Jaquish pack on muscle (and he clearly looks the part now).
Context also mattered with the X3. I’m 49 which means I probably have another 10-15 years to pack on whatever muscle mass I’m going to bring with me into old age. And, let’s be honest, vanity is part of the context too. It’s important to me that I fill out my t-shirts more in the shoulders than the midsection.
Nothing in my buyer’s journey tells this story.
As far as X3’s analytics are concerned, my journey started with a branded search (“X3 bar”), then 5-6 days of exploring the site, watching videos, and reading testimonials, followed by a purchase. All of the other nuance is missing.
Purchasing the Traeger Grill followed a similarly unconventional path. I first saw a reference to Traeger grills in an email several months ago. I can’t remember the sender or the context, only the rave review (which I suspect was an affiliate relationship). A month or two later, I saw a similar rave review from a different person (also in an email, and also presumably an affiliate or advertising relationship).
Because of their popularity and restrictions from COVID-19, Traeger grills are difficult to find. They’re often backordered online. I live in a rural area and was surprised to find a Traeger retailer twenty minutes away. I bought a model that was twice as expensive as I anticipated, sight unseen, after a ten-minute conversation with a salesperson. (If you’re curious, it’s even better than I expected and no, I am not compensated in any way for sharing that opinion.)
Traeger has no way to know why I purchased. Whoever they paid for the email mentions won’t get any credit. They can’t connect me browsing the website to purchasing at a retail location. They have no idea what, specifically, caused me to hand over a king’s ransom for one of their products (or setting myself up for a lifetime of recurring payments for their wood pellets).
Frankly, I don’t either. Context matters—-a lot. I rebuilt a 21-year-old Weber grill last summer and something still isn’t quite right. I have had zero motivation to try and fix that again. I told myself several times that grills aren’t expensive if you replace them every twenty-one years. (Ever heard the phrase ‘we buy with emotion and justify with logic’?…)
Additional context—-my wife is from Texas and I love (LOVE!) Texas barbecue. Traeger’s low and slow smoke is perfect for brisket.
Perhaps strangest of all is timing. Two years ago I was in so much pain recovering from head and neck surgery I couldn’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time, and couldn’t eat for more than a week. If you’ve ever been awake late at night and early in the morning, you’ll know there are a lot of cooking shows on TV. I spent countless hours watching shows like Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, and Barbecue Across America, daydreaming about eating again eventually.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I bought the ultimate grill when the anniversary of my post-surgery experience (and all of those food shows) was fresh on my mind.
Each of these buying experiences point to insights that are important to consider when you look at customer data. For example:
- People buy for different reasons—functional, emotional, social, etc. (This is a core concept from Jobs to Be Done Theory discussed in the Audience and Offer Masterclass, Part II.)
- Context matters (a lot), and context probably is impossible to deconstruct completely (for the seller or the buyer).
- Paid advertising is useful to make people aware of you and what you have to offer (that’s the foundational truth of The Traffic Engine). However, paid advertising also is useful as a way to be visible when your prospects are ready to buy, not just when you’re ready to sell. (Think about my experience with the Apollo Neuro and the X3, for example.)
- The is no hard and fast rule for the length of a buyer’s journey or the number of touch points you need to have with a prospect before s/he becomes a customer. I purchased the Joovv 12-18 months after first visiting their site, and the Apollo Neuro within minutes of my first visit.
- Recommendations from others matter (a lot). We’re social creatures and we pay attention to what our friends, peers, acquaintances and people we consider subject matter authorities say.
The final insight is the most important and it needs a more in-depth explanation.
Systems theory warns us against the perils of ‘local optima’ at the expense of the ‘system optimum’. Or, simply put, don’t optimize the parts, optimize the whole.
Tracking for any one of my buying experiences in the list above could have been improved with simple interventions. For example, Traeger could have required an email address to use their retailer search, or any of the checkout processes could have required that I fill out a ‘how did you hear about us?’ question.
However, most attempts to make me more trackable and my purchase more attributable (i.e., optimizing a part) would have subtly undermined the overall goal—creating a happy customer (i.e., optimizing the whole).
This becomes particularly problematic online when we blindly embrace direct-response marketing principles. For example, do you force a prospect to provide an email address before s/he can download content? That helps with tracking (local optimization), but what’s the effect on your overall goal (the system optimum)?
What if, instead, you made the content in that free PDF report available without requiring an opt in first, then gave your audience an opportunity to build trust and rapport before inviting you into their inbox?
That’s only one example, of course, but it’s something to get you thinking. Other questions to consider:
- How do prospects become aware that you exist?
- What do they want to know first?
- What do they need to know that they might not be aware of?
- What’s the functional outcome they’re looking for when considering your product or service?
- What emotional needs might that outcome satisfy?
- What does that outcome say to others about who they are?
- Where can you minimize friction for the buyer by making the experience easier, more informative, and more fun?
- What are the common themes in reviews for your products (or similar products)?