Optimizing Organic Marketing Channels

Summary

MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth
Episode: Optimizing Organic Marketing Channels
Release Date: April 15, 2025
Host: Benjamin Shapiro
Guest: Christian Ashlock, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Branch

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of the MarTech Podcast™, host Benjamin Shapiro engages in a deep conversation with Christian Ashlock from Branch. The duo delves into the nuances of optimizing organic marketing channels, moving beyond traditional measurement techniques to embrace a more holistic approach that balances both long-term and short-term marketing strategies.

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Moving Beyond Traditional Measurement

[01:15] Benjamin Shapiro:
Benjamin sets the stage by referencing their previous discussion about the evolution of marketing measurement—from the broad strokes of the "Mad Men" era to today's precise, real-time digital metrics. He emphasizes the necessity of blending both perspectives to effectively gauge marketing success.

Key Insight:

• Blend of Long-term and Short-term Metrics: Successful marketing requires an understanding of both the overarching, long-term brand awareness and the immediate, short-term conversion activities.

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Optimizing Organic Marketing Channels

Emphasizing the "Brilliant Basics"

[02:52] Christian Ashlock:
Christian highlights the importance of mastering the fundamental aspects of organic marketing, which he terms the "brilliant basics." These include making word-of-mouth easy, facilitating seamless sharing, and optimizing websites and assets to enhance user experience.

Notable Quote:

"...making word of mouth easy, how you make sharing easy, how you use your websites and your stores and your assets the best."
— Christian Ashlock [02:52]

Key Strategies:

1. Ease of Action: Ensure users can effortlessly perform desired actions, such as sharing content or navigating to specific information.
2. Built-in Measurement: Integrate measurement tools from the outset to track user interactions and gather actionable insights.
3. Continuous Optimization: Treat organic channels as dynamic elements that require ongoing testing, investment, and improvement.

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Reducing Friction for Virality

[04:22] Benjamin Shapiro:
Benjamin introduces the concept of virality within organic channels, discussing how making it easier for users to share content can lead to credible and sustainable growth.

Notable Quote:

"Take the friction out of having someone who consumes your content away to make it easier for them to become your advocate."
— Benjamin Shapiro [04:22]

Discussion Points:

• Virality as Credible Growth: Organic sharing fosters trust and authenticity, leading to more genuine engagement compared to paid advertisements.

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Practical Examples of Optimizing Organic Channels

IMDb's User Experience Enhancement

[06:45] Christian Ashlock:
Christian provides an example of how IMDb optimizes its organic channels to enhance user experience without introducing disruptive elements.

Notable Quote:

"They showed folks the information and then they tested different little banners they could put at the bottom that they could actually make relevant and customized per users..."
— Christian Ashlock [08:51]

Case Study Details:

• User-Friendly Information Access: When users search for actor information, IMDb ensures they receive the desired content without immediate interstitials or roadblocks.
• Smart Banners: Instead of intrusive pop-ups, IMDb employs subtle banners that provide value, such as encouraging app downloads for enhanced features like shipment tracking.
• Balanced User Experience: This approach maintains a seamless user journey while achieving business objectives like app sign-ups.

Key Takeaway:
Integrating non-intrusive, value-adding elements within the user flow can enhance engagement and drive desired actions without compromising the user experience.

Etsy's Post-Purchase Engagement

[09:42] Christian Ashlock:
Christian discusses how Etsy effectively uses organic channels post-purchase to engage customers without interrupting their shopping experience.

Notable Quote:

"After you made that purchase and you were on your checkout page, they said, hey, I know you're excited to get the stuff you just bought. Do you want to track your shipment..."
— Christian Ashlock [10:01]

Case Study Details:

• Contextual Engagement: Etsy prompts users to engage with additional features (like app downloads for shipment tracking) at natural points in the user journey.
• Win-Win Strategy: This method provides users with valuable services while allowing Etsy to maintain ongoing communication and drive further engagement through their app.
• Enhanced Lifetime Value: By fostering a deeper connection through their app, Etsy can better track user interactions and optimize future marketing efforts.

Key Takeaway:
Strategic placement of engagement prompts, especially at moments of heightened user interaction, can drive app adoption and enhance overall customer lifetime value.

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Balancing Long-term and Short-term Marketing Strategies

Importance of First-Party Data

[12:03] Christian Ashlock:
Christian underscores the critical role of first-party data in bridging the gap between immediate interactions and long-term user relationships.

Notable Quote:

"You have to have some customers that can serve as a base..."
— Christian Ashlock [12:03]

Discussion Points:

• Building a Cohort of Engaged Users: Implementing loyalty and rewards programs to gather first-party data from subscribers and active users.
• Comprehensive User Insights: Utilizing first-party data to understand user behavior, lifetime value, and purchase history, enabling more effective long-term strategies.
• Beyond Tactical Metrics: Moving from isolated interaction metrics to a holistic view of user relationships and value over time.

Key Takeaway:
First-party data is essential for developing a nuanced understanding of customer behavior, facilitating strategies that enhance both immediate and sustained business growth.

Balancing User Experience with Conversion Goals

[11:22] Benjamin Shapiro:
Benjamin reflects on the importance of balancing short-term conversion tactics with the long-term goal of building a trustworthy and valuable relationship with customers.

Notable Quote:

"You can look at every interstitial banner pop up that you're putting in front of your user and say well this one seemed to work, it had a higher click through rate than yada da yada. But it doesn't mean it's necessarily driving the best user experience."
— Benjamin Shapiro [11:22]

Discussion Points:

• User-Centric Approach: Prioritizing what users want and need over mere conversion metrics to foster loyalty and trust.
• Avoiding Annoying Tactics: Steering clear of intrusive marketing methods that may yield short-term gains but harm long-term relationships.
• Holistic Optimization: Ensuring that every marketing tactic aligns with the broader goal of enhancing the user experience and building lasting connections.

Key Takeaway:
Effective marketing optimizations should harmonize immediate conversion efforts with strategies that cultivate enduring customer relationships, ensuring sustainable business growth.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Benjamin Shapiro and Christian Ashlock provide a comprehensive exploration of optimizing organic marketing channels by emphasizing user experience, integrating robust measurement systems, and balancing short-term and long-term marketing strategies. Through practical examples from industry leaders like IMDb and Etsy, they illustrate how thoughtful optimization can drive both user satisfaction and business growth.

Final Thoughts from Benjamin Shapiro:

"When you're thinking about what type of products and services and what the relationship you want with a customer, think about the experience and think about some of your optimization techniques and just generally what it means to the customers as they're going through your purchase funnel."
— Benjamin Shapiro [13:11]

Key Takeaway:
Focus on creating meaningful and seamless experiences for customers, leveraging both creative and technical strategies to optimize organic marketing channels effectively.

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Additional Resources

• Christian Ashlock's LinkedIn: Accessible via show notes.
• Branch's Website: Branch IO
• Podcast Summaries and Contact Information: Visit martechpod.com
• Subscribe to the Newsletter: Stay updated with weekly insights and opportunities to guest on the podcast.
• Follow on Social Media: @martechpod on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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Transcript

[Benjamin Shapiro]

The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com.

From advertising to software as a service to data across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55 to 65% open rate. Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising. Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours. If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast you'll hear the stories of world class marketers that used technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

Welcome to the Martech Podcast. I'm your host Benjamin Shapiro and today we're going to discuss measurement and optimizing your marketing strategies. Joining us is Christian Ashlock, who is the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Branch, which is a trusted linking and measurement partner for growth focused teams. Branch maximizes the value of evolving digital strategies for world class brands like instacart, Western Union, NBCUniversal, Zocdoc and Sephora. Yesterday Christian and I talk about moving beyond the old way of bean counting measurement and today we're going to discuss optimizing organic marketing channels. All right, here's the second part of my conversation with Christian Ashlock, the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Branch. Christian, welcome back to the Martech podcast.

[Christian Ashlock]

Great, thank you. Glad to be back.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Excited to have you back and continue our conversation yesterday where we were talking about the theoretical challenges of measuring marketing. Where we've gone from the Mad Men era of awareness marketing and counting the bottom line over time to this very precise real time conversion style digital marketing activity. And the reality is you need a blend of both. You need to be able to look at the long view and understand what is right in front of you and take one step at I want to get a little bit more practical and talk about some of the channels that are a little harder to measure. Branch being an expert at digital measurement and me being in organic content and podcasts specifically something that's hard to track. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you can optimize organic marketing channels. Tell me your thoughts.

[Christian Ashlock]

I think what's great about organic Marketing in general and is maybe kind of a benefit in this time period where some of the ads tech is getting more complicated or getting harder. Is it is a time to spend some time nailing how you optimize these channels, how you create great experiences and how you measure them. I had an old marketing leader I worked for that kind of called a lot of these, like the brilliant basics, the simple things of how you make word of mouth easy, how you make sharing easy, how you use your websites and your stores and your assets the best. If they're not getting as much budget as ads, maybe it seems like simpler or forgotten sometimes. So I think it's a really important area and I think that the three ways I would probably think about it are, are you making it easy for the user to take the action you want them to take or the action that they're trying to take? Right. If they're trying to share your content, when they share it, do people have a great experience? If I'm scrolling TikTok or scrolling something and I see a great piece of content or an offer or something and I want to send it to my friends when they click on it, like, do they go where they're trying to go? Does that work? So did you make the experience work? And then I think the second thing is, did you build measurement in to the start? Can you tell when people take those actions? Do you have links that report when a user's clicking on it or trying to do something that feeds back to you so you can get some insights on like every time people saw this, did they do something? And then I think like, finally, are you able to pull all of that together to think about how to optimize all these organic channels and think about them just like you'd think about any other marketing channel where you're doing investments, running tests, and always kind of improving the experience you're creating for users so you can drive more actions for your business?

[Benjamin Shapiro]

That's interesting. When you're talking about optimizing organic channels, your head goes to make it easy for people to share the content. I think of that as virality. And when I think of how I describe growing a podcast, there's four different ways to grow a podcast. Organic, viral, paid in partnerships. And you went to viral first, which to me is a fully credible way to drive and optimize organic growth. Take the friction out of having someone who consumes your content away to make it easier for them to become your advocate. Totally makes sense. When I think about optimizing organic channel first Coming from a content marketer background, I think of understanding the audience and making sure that the content you're producing that is supposed to drive organic consumption is what people actually want. Have you seen marketers or does Branch have any tools, thoughts, philosophies on how to understand what to create, not necessarily how to syndicate it?

[Christian Ashlock]

Honestly, that's not the focus for Branch. There are a lot of great partners that do that. And I think that what Branch's really mission is and I think was really helpful for folks is that you can spend all this time understanding your audience, creating the right content, creating really interesting things, making sure the hamburger you're trying to get people to sell is as tasty as possible and a good value and things like that. But if you miss those brilliant basics, like those points of friction in the process, all that work you did to create the best thing falls off if people can't actually get it or if it's hard for people to promote it to people or they saw your ad and they clicked on it and then that doesn't work. I think there's all these points of action where you're trying to either turn an existing customer into a bigger fan or try to get them to do more, or you're trying to take people you know about a little bit that you're trying to get to have a deeper experience. And if it's hard for them to do what they're supposed to do, I think you lose them. So I think Branches value is more like you've got the goods and you want people to experience it, but if they can't, then that's a hole in your bucket that you need to be able to measure and understand and then work with folks that can help you do that.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

So, Christian, I want to move away from the theoretical of marketing measurement and talk about some more concrete examples of how brands are using organic marketing channels and optimizing them. Well, give me an example of somebody who is taking this tactic of reducing the friction and driving great business results.

[Christian Ashlock]

Yeah, we have a pretty cool example from IMDb. I don't know if you're a fan.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

The International Movie Database. Sure.

[Christian Ashlock]

Yeah. I am constantly looking up who is in this episode of Shogun or things like that.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

I heard Shogun was really good. Is it worth it?

[Christian Ashlock]

Yeah. And I believe it just got renewed for two more seasons, so definitely worth a watch. So if I'm looking up who is this actor in this scene? A lot of times you're going to do that on Search, you're going to do that with your phone you're going to land on their mobile page identifying what this person is doing. Now there's kind of like I always think it's interesting when there's competing interest for a marketer. You want to serve the person that information that did that search. Right. So they got it and go aha. This person was also in this other thing I saw. But you probably also have goals as a marketer knowing that for IMDb, like most businesses, a mobile user is their most valuable user. I think from our research we've done, on average mobile users are three times more valuable than just people who are visiting your mobile website. So you have choices. Right. You could not show them who that actor is and put a roadblock in the way that says you have to sign up for the IMDb app before you can get this info you wanted.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

What a great experience.

[Christian Ashlock]

Yeah, not a great user experience. Maybe to measurement, maybe you get a short term bump in signups but as you're talking about like your brand and long term measures, it's going to hurt that. So being able to like experiment, measure those user interactions, like test different strategies of banners or messages or encouragements are going to help you optimize that? Yep, we're going to try to get this business goal done. Maybe it's getting people to sign up for IMDb and become an app user and serve the user purpose of I've got the information I've wanted. So I think the value of measurement there is really into feeding creating the best user experience where you can make them happy by getting them to use your app and loving movie and TV trivia all the time, but also helping them with the thing they're trying to do in the second.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

So what was the user experience IMDb when you find that Scarlett Johansson was the voice of her and topical. There you go. OpenAI lawsuits and everything. We're on IMDb looking for an actor and actress and some bio information and oh, I want to share this with my buddy Christian. Instead of getting a pop up that's an interstitial that says, well, you have to download the app to see who the voice of her was. What did IMDb land on?

[Christian Ashlock]

So they showed folks the information and then they tested different little banners they could put at the bottom that they could actually make relevant and customized per users that would have a little bit of a value out of explaining why you could get the app, whether it's to make these kind of searches easier like you mentioned, do sharing or things like that. So I think it's thinking about how to complement what the user is seeing on the screen, which the content team is driving with something that's some real estate. It's not interruptive, but that the marketing team can control and test and have these smart banners that can be targeted and customized that can encourage the actions you're hoping to get them to take.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Now that seems like it's something that's in the middle of the product flow while somebody is experiencing the product. Talk to me about ways where companies are driving organic marketing channels and optimizing their marketing efforts where it is not necessarily interruptive of their product flow.

[Christian Ashlock]

A great example is from Etsy and you can imagine anybody that's a retailer, they are really feeling that tension, right? I'm searching for a product, you know, maybe I want a hand built katana. Now that I'm such a shogun fan and I find one being made on Etsy, their choice is do I try to ask this user to do more and become a bigger fan of Etsy right away.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Let me interrupt you. The one that drives me nuts is you get to a website, you're just about to start your searching and browsing experience, you're like, oh, I think I found the perfect katana. I really want to get into this website and read the product details and what happens. Bam. Interstitial. Do you want 10% off your purchase for us being able to collect your email? No. I haven't figured out if I even like your brand, your products or services yet. That one drives me nuts. I know it's a best practice. It's a bad user experience. How do we get away from that?

[Christian Ashlock]

Exactly. And it's going to tie back to measurement. Are you measuring just the interaction with that one thing? Are you measuring the overall lifetime value of your customers and all the interactions you're having with them? So what was great that Etsy implemented was that after you made that purchase and you were on your checkout page, they said, hey, I know you're excited to get the stuff you just bought. Do you want to track your shipment? Then you can serve a banner or something that comes up at the bottom of the screen that says, hey, get the Etsy app so you can find out when your cool sword is showing up. But you didn't have to go to the mall to buy it like the 90s. So I think that's another thing where it's a win win, right? You are creating a great experience for the user. There's something they really wanted like knowing status updates on their package and you accomplish your business objective of you know, people that have the Etsy app, you can communicate with them better, you can send them alerts and updates and they're going to buy more, which is what all the research shows, that your biggest fans are going to have your app and you're just going to have a lot more surface area to work with them.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

I'll bring it back to what our conversation was yesterday, which is there's times when you need the short view and times when you need the long view, right? You can look at every interstitial banner pop up that you're putting in front of your user and say well this one seemed to work, it had a higher click through rate than yada da yada. But it doesn't mean it's necessarily driving the best user experience. Right? Part of getting people to know, like and trust you is by understanding what they're trying to accomplish and creating and adding more value to them as opposed to just harvesting them for clicks. Christian, when you're thinking about some of these marketing optimizations, what's your advice for just generally balancing the long and short term view?

[Christian Ashlock]

I think this is a good A hot topic is around first party data. You have to have some customers that can serve as a base of these are subscribers, these are people that are logged in, these are people that are big fans of your brand that are willing to share some information with you in exchange for whether it's discounts, offers, anything like that. So that you have a cohort of folks that you can really understand what their experience is and that when you're testing things like doing offers or creating new user experiences, can you see how this is affecting the value of those users over time? Right. Do you understand their lifetime value? Do you see their purchase history, their interactions so that every person that shows up to your site or app isn't an anonymous person, that all you can see is did they click on this banner, one second, this one time or not. So having that like long term view from a very like tactical measurement, why is it something you can do if you have signed in users? And that's why you see a lot of companies that don't necessarily think about having that first party data like Pepsi or things like that, building loyalty and rewards programs so they can measure it. And then back to the earlier part about the point of marketing. Then sometimes it's just talking to users, which is not something any tool can solve for you, but just doing focus groups, talking to folks, seeing how they're using your app and how they're interacting on top of it.

[Benjamin Shapiro]

Yesterday I said that marketing was a balance of art and science and I think that's one of the two axises. You have to understand the creative and the technical piece to be able to master marketing. You also have to understand the duration that you're focusing on. You have to be able to balance the long term and the short term impacts of all of your marketing efforts. We've all seen those brands that are just out there doing every little marketing trick and tactic that probably drives conversions, but also is annoying as all could be. And it doesn't mean that you want to build a relationship. So when you're thinking about what type of products and services and what the relationship you want with a customer, think about the experience and think about some of your optimization techniques and just generally what it means to the customers as they're going through your purchase funnel. And that wraps up this episode of the MarTech podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Christian Ashlock, the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Branch. If you'd like to hear more from Christian, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes, or you can visit his company's website, which is Branch IO. Just one more link in our show notes I'd like to tell you about. If you didn't have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast, head over to martechpod.com where we have summaries of all of our episodes and contact information for our guests. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, where you can even apply to be the next guest speaker on the Martech Podcast. Of course, you can always reach out on social media. Our handle is martechpod. M A R T E C H P O D on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or you can contact me directly on LinkedIn. My handle is Benjschapp. B E N J S H A P and if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, we're gonna publish an episode every day this year. So hit the subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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