Looker Studio

In recent years, our company has used Google’s data visualization product called Look Studio for our marketing reports. Even though Looker Studio has many limitations (which I won’t get into), I thought I would see if we could use this platform for our clients implementing the principles of Intentional Marketing (our book). David Cooper has graciously allowed us to use data from Tukaluk Campsite and Cabins for this purpose. 

Intentional Marketing Model

As a refresher, the marketing model that Joanne O'Connell developed, has seven measures and ten metrics. 

The goal when using Looker Studio is to be able to include each number. In this article, we will look at measures for Impressions. 

Impressions

As can be seen in the illustration above, impressions are the first level of measurement for the acquisition model. 

“Impressions occur when an advertisement or an image is served.

Ideally, the view is in the market selected by the company, and they

can see (or hear) the advertisement, message, or post related to the

company and its products.” (pg. 159)

In a nutshell, marketing buys impressions. Creating and managing impressions is fundamental to managing marketing. There is no marketing if there are no impressions. 

Trends for Impressions

The first page of the marketing statement in Looker Studio is a quick look at the trends for impressions for the last 90 days (roughly a quarter). Over the last year, the primary marketing channels for Tukaluk have been:

• Google Search Ads

• Organic Search

• Facebook Organic  

• Instagram Organic

• Referrals from other websites (backlinks)

We will ignore Referrals because it is very difficult to measure impressions from other websites.

Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to separate impressions for Facebook and Instagram so these are combined. As far as I can tell, this is an issue with Facebook (Meta), not Looker Studio. Although less than ideal, this isn’t a huge limitation because most of the posts and reels created are posted on both platforms. When using Google Analytics we can separate these two platforms. We will see this in a later post when we focus on visits. 

As a result, for the page on trends, we are only showing measures for:

• Google Search Ads - no measure for the last 90 days

• Organic Search

• Facebook Organic (both Facebook and Instagram) - measures are only available for the last 3 months

Impressions: Details

The next page of the marketing statement includes measures for different months. These include:

• This month - the current month 

• Last month - the month before this month

• Previous month - 2 months ago

• Last Year, Last Month - measure from last month one year ago (for seasonal comparison)

Unfortunately, measures are not available for every period. 

• Google Search Ads were only done last year. A campaign has not been operational since early last fall (2023).

• The impressions for organic search come from Google Search Console. My understanding is that this platform was not linked to the website until more recently when the new website was developed.

• Exportable reports from Meta are only available for the last 3 months. Going forward we will be able to retain data but a the moment historical data is limited. 

Observations

The following can be observed:

1. Google Search Ads generated a massive amount of impressions during August of last year. 

2. July had the highest number of impressions for organic search (the month of September is not finished but the total will not match July)

3. There was a huge increase in impressions for Meta in August. Most likely this is due to the new social media marketing campaign that started later in July. 

Summary

The questions that arise are:

1. Did the increases in impressions create more visits and offers?

2. And did this result in more sales and more revenue?

We will look at visits in our next article. Hopefully, we will get some answers at that time. 

Past Articles

In our first article, Step 1: Asking Important Questions, we laid the groundwork for understanding key questions before starting this project. This article followed our previous series, "10 Things I Learned from Joanne," which began with Each Level of the Model Must be Measurable.

In the second article, Step 2: Design the Model, we took a look (pun intended) at designing the customer acquisition model. This step is critical for defining the levels of the model and the marketing channels. The financial aspects of the model are implied, but not listed explicitly. We will get to this later. 

In the third article, Step 3: Collect the Measures - Visits, we looked at how to find and collect the measures to add to the model.

In the fourth article, Step 4: Calculate the Metrics, we looked at the task of using 2 measures to calculate a ratio. In general terms, as defined in our book, all calculations using measures are called metrics. 

In the fifth article, Chipping Away at Revenues, we calculated the absolute maximum revenue ($796,795) that was possible and then identified various external forces that whittle away at this optimistic number. Eventually, we arrived at the realistic maximum ($234,623) which is significantly less. The rest of the article focused on options for achieving this level of revenue. For this year, we decided that social media marketing was the best tactic. 

In the sixth article, The Intensiveness of Marketing is a Choice, we looked at a 2X2 that Joanne and I developed. The matrix compared % of Reach for the Selected Market on the y-axis and the Intensiveness of Marketing on the x-axis. I answered a series of questions on behalf of David Cooper, the owner, and concluded that the strategy moving forward is to focus marketing on a few reliable channels (low % of reach and low intensiveness).

In the seventh article, Awesome Tenting Campsite, I briefly described staying at Tukaluk Campground during a trip I took to BC.