By Kartik Sharma | Lead, Business Strategy & Analytics | ETML
Have you ever felt like you’re optimizing your marketing campaigns in the dark? You track events, but your KPIs seem lightyears away. This is a common struggle, especially for businesses with multi-step user journeys and high order value products. Focusing solely on the final conversion can lead to slow learning and frustration. Therefore, to address and overcome these challenges, we are sharing below a groundbreaking strategy.
Objective :
To share a two-tiered event optimization strategy to optimize marketing campaigns for multi-step user journeys, resulting in faster goal achievement and improved efficiency.
The Challenge:
Events are crucial for understanding the user journey. They tell us where people interact with one’s platform. But what if that journey involves several steps before reaching your desired outcome, like a purchase or application submission?
Here’s the dilemma:
- Optimizing for final conversions (like purchase) takes a long time for the platform to “learn” due to fewer data points.
- Focusing on early events might not directly translate to achieving your goals.
The optimal selection of mid-funnel events for optimization varies brand to brand and is heavily influenced by their average order value (AOV). We observed that for businesses with lower AOV products, focusing solely on final conversions is sufficient. However, for brands with higher AOV offerings, the conversion window lengthens considerably as users conduct extensive research before the final purchase. In such cases, optimizing for events like add-to-cart and/or final purchases becomes counterproductive. The first approach attracts low-quality users, while the second extends the learning phase due to the extended conversion window.
Imagine a high AOV e-commerce store where users have the option to customize jewelry. There are 17 steps before a purchase! Optimizing for the final step would mean waiting ages for the platform to learn.
| Funnel | Number of Events per day | Time (days) for complete learning |
| ATC | 30 | 1-2 days |
| Checkout | 15 | 3-4 days |
| Add Payment Info | 7 | 7-9 days |
| Purchase | 1 | 50-60 days |
The Solution: A Two-Tiered Approach for Event Optimization
To overcome this challenge, we developed a two-tiered event optimization strategy:
- Continuous Scaling with Mid-Funnel Events: We created events for each step, allowing us to analyze drop-off rates and identify bottlenecks. This helped us continuously improve the user experience and scale working campaigns.
| Definition | Meta | GG | GA4 | Trigger (datalayer event & event label combination condition) |
| Apply Now Button Click | apply_now_btn_click | ET-All Apply Now Button Click | et-apply_now_btn_click | Apply Now |
| Sign up success | Complete Registration | ET-Successful Sign up | et-signup_success | Create Account |
| Email verification | email_verified | ET-Successful_Mail_Verify | et-email_verified | Continue |
| Check Eligibility – Initiate | eligibility_initiate | ET-Eligibility_initiate | et-eligibility_initiate | Click Get Started |
| Eligibility Complete | Lead | ET-Eligibility_Complete | et-eligibility_complete | Click Continue |
| Personal Details Complete | Contact | ET-Personal_Details_Complete | et-personal_details_complete | Click Next |
| Finance Details Complete | Add Payment Info | ET-Personal_Finance_Complete | et-finance_details_complete | Click Next |
| Previous Education Complete | Start trial | ET-Prev_Edu_Complete | et-previous_edu_complete | Click Next |
| Employment Complete | Schedule | ET-Employement_Complete | et-employment_complete | Click Next |
| Ineligible Error | ineligible _pageview | ET-Ineligible_Error | et-ineligible_error | /ineligible-error |
| Application Submit | Application Submit | ET-Submit_Application | et-application_submit | Click Next |
| Provisional Offer Accepted | Subscribe | ET-Provisional_Offer_Accepted | et-provisional_offer_accepted | Click Accept |
- A/B Testing Top & Mid-Funnel Events: We created separate adsets, one optimizing for a strategically chosen mid-funnel event and another for the final KPI. A/B testing revealed which event drove the most conversions.
Selecting the optimal event for optimization isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, it’s a strategic decision influenced by several key factors like :
- Average order value (AOV) of the products
- The typical user journey within the industry, and/or
- Seasonal fluctuations in customer behavior.
The Results: Increased Sales and Reduced Costs
This approach has yielded impressive results for our clients:
- For a Fintech client: By optimizing for a mid-funnel event and the final application submission (KPI), we significantly reduced CAC by 45% while increasing loan approvals. We could also scale the account by 4x times within a span of 3 months.
| Metric | Feb | Mar | Apr | May |
| Spend | $10,000 | $22,000 | $35,000 | $49,000 |
| Traffic | 14,000 | 27,000 | 41,000 | 56,000 |
| App Starts | 400 | 1,100 | 1,800 | 2,500 |
| App Submits | 130 | 380 | 630 | 880 |
| PO | 70 | 280 | 490 | 700 |
| Verification | 50 | 230 | 410 | 590 |
| Loan Approved | 20 | 80 | 140 | 200 |
| Sign Loan Agreement | 10 | 60 | 110 | 160 |
| Disbursed | 5 | 50 | 95 | 140 |
| Cost per App Submitted | $77 | $58 | $47 | $45 |
| Cost per Loan Disbursed | $780 | $590 | $470 | $440 |
- For an ecommerce client: Optimizing for checkouts (a mid-funnel event) allowed us to build a retargeting funnel through push notifications, ultimately leading to a substantial increase in purchases by 3.4X. We could scale the campaign by 2.1xby this strategic call by keeping a desirable ROI for the client.
| Month | Custom Jewellery Initiate | Custom Jewellery Complete | Custom Jewellery Setting Complete | Std ATC | Custom Jewellery ATC | ATC | Checkout | S2S Purchase |
| September 2023 | 3,000 | 900 | 1,000 | 200 | 400 | 600 | 200 | 40 |
| October 2023 | 4,500 | 1,350 | 1,750 | 300 | 500 | 800 | 300 | 60 |
| November 2023 | 5,000 | 1,500 | 1,750 | 500 | 700 | 1,200 | 500 | 120 |
| December 2023 | 4,500 | 1,300 | 1,400 | 400 | 700 | 1,100 | 400 | 100 |
| January 2024 | 5,000 | 1,600 | 1,750 | 350 | 600 | 1,100 | 400 | 80 |
| February 2024 | 8,000 | 2,500 | 3,000 | 700 | 1,200 | 1,800 | 600 | 110 |
| March 2024 | 11,000 | 3,000 | 3,500 | 500 | 1,300 | 1,800 | 600 | 120 |
| April 2024 | 9,500 | 2,500 | 3,000 | 500 | 1,100 | 1,600 | 700 | 130 |
| May 2024 | 9,000 | 2,500 | 3,000 | 500 | 700 | 1,200 | 400 | 130 |
(Disclaimer : All numbers in the above tables have been masked for brand’s data privacy)
Conclusion:
By choosing the right events to optimize for, one can break free from the multi-step user journey maze. By combining mid-funnel event optimization with A/B testing, marketers can achieve their goals faster and with greater efficiency. So, partner with ETML to start using data to illuminate your user journey and unlock hidden opportunities for growth.
