5 steps to customer acquisition success

When you’re looking to acquire new customers, the tried and true isn’t always effective. Sometimes you need to try something new or to rethink your existing strategies. But rest assured—we won’t leave you hanging.

We’ve outlined five steps to get you thinking and bring you closer to your customer acquisition objectives. Let’s dive in.

1. Drive consent at the point of acquisition

Not all acquisition strategies are created equal. How consumers find your brand will determine the duration of the customer journey, and if they will ultimately transact with you. The point of acquisition is critical, and obtaining affirmative consent up front will greatly affect future behavior.

Rokt, for example, creates brand awareness when consumers give their consent and are in the mindset to take an action—at the point where they just made a purchase on another brand’s website. We prompt consumers to invite your brand into their lives early on by agreeing to receive further communications from you. As a result, we’ve seen the typical marketing funnel narrow and shorten versus traditional acquisition methods. That consent up front helps spur interest and action sooner and more often.

2. Start slow, measure, and stay close

With any acquisition campaign, you need to take it slow in the beginning and don’t rush your efforts. If you pace yourself, you can glean insights and make incremental improvements that will pay out big dividends in the long-run.

At Rokt, we start every acquisition campaign off slowly. We test numerous variables, such as the creative, offers, site placement, and more to determine the best mix to achieve optimum results. Oftentimes, this means changing campaign variables on different sites and different audiences (e.g., gender). Only after we know what works do we then scale out the campaign and increase budgets against it. It’s a win-win for everybody.

"With any acquisition campaign, you need to take it slow in the beginning and don’t rush your efforts."

3. Track acquisition from beginning to end

In most circumstances, brands that acquire new customers often have an incomplete picture of how and where their customers originate and the complex journey customers take to the point of conversion. This often makes marketing attribution difficult to understand. On which stages of customer acquisition should you focus your advertising dollars and efforts? And marketers agree. In a recent study conducted research on tactics that will occupy marketers’ time and resources in 2017. They found that cross-channel measurement and attribution topped the list at 57.1 percent. This is a change from prior years’ surveys that revealed interest in cross-channel attribution was at the top of the list among 35.4 percent of marketers in 2015 and just 33.3 percent in 2016.

Obtaining a clear picture at the beginning and end of your acquisition campaign allows you to have a more reliable attribution view. At Rokt, we have a tag at the point of acquisition (where you acquire leads/referrals) and on the advertiser’s transaction pages so we understand exactly where consumers originate and convert. What’s the benefit? We close the loop.

4. Communicate your goals to your partner

We know that you have well thought out goals and objectives. You know what works and what doesn’t in your acquisition efforts. While you have these planned targets in mind, you should communicate these same goals to your partner so you’re on the same page to ensure success.

At Rokt, we want to ensure the best outcomes for your objectives. If growing your customer base and grabbing market share quickly are your objectives, we can help you define a specific strategy that helps you achieve scale quickly. Meanwhile, if you’re hoping to acquire customers while focusing heavily on the economics of ROI, we can help define the KPIs to meet your needs. We bring a ton of industry-specific knowledge to the table, and we can help you navigate the complexities of acquisition to achieve your goals.

5. Seek full transparency with your partner

Transparency is paramount when it comes to working with any partner. From media costs to the placement of your offers, you will be best served if you fully understand your partner’s capabilities, toolsets, and vision for your brand.

At Rokt, every client has access to the same client and campaign management tools as their full service account management teams, such as reporting, data, ad campaign setup, partner analytics, and controls. Being transparent and providing access to the right tools builds confidence in our approach and cultivates greater accountability and trustworthiness with clients. Every partner you work with should have the same ethos.