What Do You Need to Do To Make Q4 Great For Your Clients

In This Episode

• Performance Prep

• Performance

• Post Performance

• Thanks To Our Sponsor - ClickUp

Performance Prep

The 4th quarter is where a healthy chunk of marketers make the majority of their annual profit. Because of that there is a huge amount of pressure on the agency to perform. In order to do that, you have to be in agreement as to what constitutes great performance.

While I am a FIRM believer that the initial definitions of success need to be clearly benchmarked and defined during the kickoff meeting, you should be revisiting those definitions frequently. ROAS or CvR or Purchase Freq will probably take on different shapes during Q4. For many ecommerce marketers, there may be Q4 only products and pricing - so that may be a change from year round merchandising. There are likely to be more promotions - are they for everybody or only for specific segments. It the ROAS target or margin target the same in Q4? Jump in and get these definitions and goals sorted NOW so there isn’t any confusion.

Performance

We know that you are maniacal about performance all the time. But in Q4, because the stakes are so high, you may be called on to show performance more frequently, or in different ways. Get those defined now, too. Also, if you are going to try any new techniques or data sources (like identity resolution from somebody like Customers.ai, or AI-powered content from Klaviyo, RIGHT NOW is a good time to run a quick test so that everyone knows what to expect.

Post Performance

When you are asked about performance more frequently, you’ve got to get better at telling stories based on the data that you are sharing. My favorite story structure for results reporting is:

• These are the results

• This is what we learned

• This is what we are going to do next

Don’t try to jump in and defend previous decisions or try to extrapolate some kind of macro-reason why things were the way they were - stick to the data. And even if the last reporting period was a total freaking mess, stick to this is what we learned and this is what we are going to do next. Done well, that takes away all of the “why did you do this” or “why didn’t you do that” kind of questions. They aren’t terribly helpful to either party…but what we learned and what we are going to do next is PRICELESS.

Thanks To Our Sponsor - ClickUp

ClickUp is on a tear…first docs, then AI integration, then a Slack/Teams competitor built in to your “do everything” workflow app. They are driving agency productivity ahead in a really unique way.