MARKETING
Citi, Aflac and Verizon: Three different Pega journeys
As reflected at this month’s PegaWorld iNspire, Pega’s offerings range from back-office process automation to customer-facing real-time journey creation — all driven by AI. We sat down with three major Pega clients to understand their very different journeys.
And we started with the business that is actually Pega’s oldest existing customer.
Citi and Pega: A ruby anniversary
“While Pega has been with Citi for forty years, I have not,” said Promiti Dutta, head of analytics, technology and innovation for the U.S. personal banking part of Citi. Her Pega journey started when she joined Citi, four years ago.
“The analytics group I am part of oversees how data and analytical capabilities get piped across the firm. We knew that our decision engine was end-of-life and we needed a new one, so the first interactions I had with Pega was with individuals trying to sell us the new Customer Decision Hub. Honestly, we did some research because Pega doesn’t have a monopoly on this — Salesforce has the Einstein machine, Adobe has one, there were some bespoke ones we came across from some smaller names — but the reality was no decision engine has it all and some customization would be needed.”
The conversation turned to who would make the better partner and who would be the best fit with Citi’s vision given the capabilities they were offering. “So which partner did we want to work with? Which partner fit into our vision in the best possible way with the capabilities they were offering at that point four years ago? Pega was certainly the top runner for that.”
Of course, for decades Citi had been running other Pega solutions such as various workflow tools and business case management. Indeed, it wasn’t new to decisioning (at one point it was using Chordiant, the BPM and CRM platform ultimately acquired by Pega). “We were already having customer conversations,” said Dutta, “just not with as much sophistication as the Pega decision engine offers.”
Pega Customer Decision Hub uses AI to identify and suggest next-best-actions for each individual customer in real-time. Citi makes a slightly narrower use of the Hub.
“What we offer to the customer is actually not decided by the decision engine,” explained Dutta. “We have a number of advanced methods and capabilities that we have built internally to determine the ‘what.’ It’s the ‘when’ and the ‘where’ that we use the Decision Hub for. All the ‘whats’ are loaded in an offer palette; using contextual clues and models that run in the decision engine, it figures out when the customer sees the offer.”
Citi already has predictions about what a customer needs, whether in the form of a product or an offer or some other form of engagement. “What Pega’s decision engine does is, knowing that you’re qualified to receive an offer, or something else, which one should be shown now to be contextually relevant,” Dutta said, adding that the full range of channel interactions are available for Pega to use to make that educated decision.
Like any financial institution, Citi exercises extreme caution in its interactions with customers, strictly respecting model risk management, fair lending and privacy protocols. That does mean some constraints on the use of AI. “Anything that feeds into our Pega Decision Hub undergoes the same scrutiny. We had to send the entire decision engine through that same process to ensure that customers would not be adversely affected.”
Dig deeper: Pega: AI will power the autonomous enterprise
Verizon: Hyper-personalization for business and consumer
Verizon’s business journey started before Tommi Marsans joined Verizon Business Group. Michael Cingari, now VP of marketing science, CX and CRM, had started using Pega’s next-best-action solution several years ago on the consumer side of the business in the customer call center.
“I came through the XO Communications acquisition by Verizon, ” said marketing tech strategist Marsans. “When Verizon 2.0 re-organized us, Mike Cingari started a marketing sciences practice and pulled some of us through there to do a Pega implementation for business. That was 2019. It took us a while to get started, but once we started and had our business case approved, it took us less than 13 months to start showing a return. We did better than break even the first year, then the second year: 20X.”
As with the consumer-side Pega implementation, Marsans and her team were working in the reactive decisioning space — determining next-best-action in response to customer behavior (in this case, business customers). “So when somebody called the call center and wanted to disconnect, there would be a next-best-action for them. We expanded to growth opportunities and upgrades; then went into the non-assisted space, digital, and grew from there.”
We asked her to explain the impact of next-best-action on customer service. “The difference that we’re making is in the assisted channels, where the service reps would delight the customer at all costs — so they always went to the richest offer because that’s the one that would stick, and they never really looked at alternatives. When we gave them alternatives, they used them and it was just as successful; solving a problem for the customer, rather than just paying them to stay, gives a better customer experience as well as a user experience.”
Marsans emphasizes that the customer decisioning is hyper-personalize. “It’s not what we would like to talk to them about; it’s the next-best-offer that we think they would want. It’s not just offers; especially on the business side, there are fully baked solutions. We talk to them about the next best one of those.”
Of course, for the Customer Decision Hub to make informed judgements on next-best-actions, it needs to be trained on what has worked in the past. “If you have transaction history,” said Marsans, “you can feed the engine and basically just jump-start it. We also have traditional regression models that we feed into it as well. We are just now starting to use the adaptive modeling [AI in the Decision Hub]. The AI part of the engine required some learning for us, not the machine, to know how to present offers and what’s the right sequence of events.”
Marsans told us she is excited about the generative AI solutions Pega is launching. “No matter what business case you have, no matter what use case you’re built out to solve for, you can re-use that. You can use that as the base for other things. I don’t think you need to have a full implementation that’s reaching to every single channel. I think you can start where you start.”
Finally, how difficult was it to get marketers to buy into what is, in many ways, a counter-intuitive mindset? “The dream of every marketer is to have a clear customer journey and be able to influence them along the way to get them to where you want them to be,” said Marsans. “It’s hard for them to think in terms of it being an ongoing conversation across many different channels, as opposed to ‘I need to send you something that you need to respond to.’ That’s a bit of a paradigm shift, but if you can show them with the first couple of use cases that you can get there, then they’re fully on board.”
Dig deeper: Mitigating the risks of generative AI by putting a human in the loop
Aflac: Shortening the time to value
Right now, Aflac has completely different use cases for Pega than Citi and Verizon. It’s just starting to look at the possibilities for Customer Decision Hub. Primarily, Pega has been deployed to analyze and automate business processes and workflows. Much use has been made of Pega’s low-code App Studio to create applications that understand and then automate business processes.
“It’s one of the initiatives which is aligned with our One Digital Aflac strategy,” said U.S. CIO Shelia Anderson. “I think the journey has been about six or seven years, focusing on opportunities to bring in a more automated approach to addressing some of the technical data and legacy issues that we had.”
Anderson is relatively new to both Aflac and Pega. “I’m still learning. I’ve been in the organization for ten months and, as you can imagine, I haven’t been focused at the very detailed level of the core platforms; I’ve been focused more on the enterprise strategy.” But she has witnessed the challenge some groups within the organization have had in adjusting to Pega’s low-code approach.
“For me the biggest adjustment that I see is around engineering staff and their expectations, because engineers enjoy creating code; there’s a bit of a pivot to get them to see the value not doing all of their code from scratch — a lot of that foundational work has been done for you, which gives you a jump start.”
Business users have embraced the opportunities created by low code. Aflac recently ran a “Pegathon” at which business users had the run of App Studio to create apps to address specific use cases. More are planned. “It’s a very immersive way to start getting some of our business users accustomed to the tooling, to leverage that low-code approach to development and letting them see some of the value they can create on their own.”
One impact Pega has had has been on claims processing. “We found we were spending a lot of time on lower-complexity claims (that are also more of a lower-dollar payout),” Anderson explained. “After looking at that, we found it would be more effective for us to just auto-pay those claims. We now use automation, AI or machine learning and a workflow process to auto-pay those. That’s been a huge simplification for our customer service reps, freeing them up to focus on more complex and critical cases.”
Anderson currently has a team focused on generative AI, where it’s a priority to monitor safe use and the protection of Aflac data. She has also established a Pega Center of Excellence and a Community of Practice: “That’s a huge piece of where the learning has occurred. Within that community we have people who have spent seven years with Pega and newer individuals coming into that group.”
Perhaps the most tangible impact Aflac cites, though, sprang from its use of Pega to consolidate multiple customer care applications on multiple screens into a single platform and simplify the work of customer care representatives. Anderson reports a 33% reduction in handling time for calls requesting claims forms; a 65% reduction in handling time for customer authentication; and approximately 77% of all chats fully handled by Pega virtual assistants last year (representing a saving of approximately $4 million).
On the PegaWorld main stage, Anderson talked about “shortening the time to value for everything we’re doing and keeping the customer lens and focus on.”
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MARKETING
Unlocking AMC Insights Series: Leveraging Media Overlap Analysis for Enhanced Conversions
In today’s data-driven marketing landscape, the ability to ask the right questions is paramount. Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) emerges as the magic 8-ball of advertising solutions, offering advertisers a robust platform for precise analytics and strategic decision-making. If you’re new to AMC, it’s a secure, privacy-friendly, dedicated cloud-based measurement and analytics solution introduced in 2021.
Understanding the Value of Amazon Marketing Cloud
Built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), AMC provides a flexible environment that empowers advertisers with customizable reporting capabilities based on event-level data across various data sets. These data sets can encompass both advertiser data and Amazon Advertising data, granting advertisers a comprehensive view of campaign performance. In essence, AMC equips advertisers with transparent, cross-channel data essential for making informed marketing decisions, a necessity in today’s marketing landscape.
For a comprehensive understanding of AMC basics, Tinuiti’s AMC overview provides all the essential information about the Amazon Marketing Cloud.
This article marks the first of a 3-part series where we dive into specific AMC use cases. In this installment, we focus on the Media Overlap analysis, guiding you through utilizing this report to address critical business questions, pinpoint key metrics, and strategically apply derived insights.
What is the Media Overlap Analysis?
The Media Overlap analysis determines the collective impact of Amazon ads and isolates the incremental impact of a specific media type. The metrics provided by this report analyze reach and performance across a full-funnel strategy, including DSP Display, Streaming TV, and Sponsored Ads.
To utilize this report, it is required to have data from at least two of the aforementioned ad types in a single AMC instance. The same products must be advertised in each ad type, and each ad product must have been running for at least one week during the same time period. It is recommended to wait 14 days after the query’s end date to use this analysis to capture all conversions due to Amazon’s 14-day attribution window. This use case is designed to help answer business questions surrounding how to best leverage the array of Amazon Ad products.
Here are a few examples of the types of questions the Media Overlap analysis addresses:
- When shoppers are exposed to any combination of Display, Streaming TV, Sponsored Ads, what is the impact on conversion rates?
- What impact does each ad type have on conversion beyond ROAS or last-touch attribution?
- What is the average order value when shoppers are exposed to a combination of ad types?
The following metrics tend to be the most useful in addressing the business questions above:
- Purchase rate: Percentage of unique users who purchased at least one time compared to unique users reached
- Reach: Number of unique users reached
- Users that purchased: Number of unique users who purchased at least one time.
- Purchases: Number of times any amount of a promoted product or products are included in a purchase event. Purchase events include video rentals and new Subscribe & Save subscriptions.
- Order value: Total amount resulting from a single purchase event
Below is a sample case study used to address the following question: When shoppers are exposed to any combination of Display, Streaming TV, Sponsored Ads, what is the impact on conversion rates?
Here is an example of a what a finalized report looks like:
Top 7 Media Type Mixes based on Purchase Volume (CE Advertiser)
To answer the original question, the key metric to review here is the Prospective Purchase Rate (PPR). When exposed to fewer than three ad types, the PPR is significantly lower. However, when exposed to three or more ad types, the PPR increases. For users who were exposed to Sponsored Display (SD), Sponsored Products (SP), Demand Side Platform (DSP), and Sponsored Brands (SB) ads, the PPR was 8.19%, demonstrating the correlation between the number of ad types shoppers were exposed to and an increased Prospective Purchase Rate.
As a result of these findings, two prominent potential opportunities to improve performance emerge:
- Continuing to invest, or increasing investments, in DSP and video as they are key drivers in a user’s path to conversion. The advertiser should diversify their media mix with these ad products.
- Due to the correlation between Sponsored Products ads in combination with other ad products and higher conversion rates, there is an additional opportunity to build an AMC audience retargeting SP clickers. This will ensure advertisers are capitalizing on shoppers moving through the lower to upper funnel in their shopping journey.
AMC’s Media Overlap Analysis: Key Takeaways and Next Steps for Enhanced Conversions
AMC’s Media Overlap analysis highlights the impact of middle and upper funnel ads on conversion rates. Tinuiti’s teams observe many brands prioritizing Sponsored Products due to their perceived low risk and high returns under Amazon’s last-touch attribution model. However, this approach overlooks the influence of other ad types. Data from this analysis underscores the effectiveness of a holistic strategy. While a Sponsored Products ad may lead to a sale, it doesn’t consider other ad exposures that shape purchase decisions. The Overlap analysis underscores the value of a full-funnel strategy and the impact of DSP media on overall performance. Advertisers should consider adjusting budget allocations to DSP and streaming video based on these insights.
Furthermore, a full-funnel strategy can drive higher average order value.
The average order value significantly increases when exposed to a media mix of three or more ad types. While each advertiser should analyze their own business, Tinuiti consistently observes that users exposed to a greater number of ad products typically correlate with higher conversion rates and higher order values.
The Media Overlap analysis is part of the Instructional Query Library (IQL), which offers pre-built templates by Amazon to get started with the basics. If you’re seeking deeper insights with the guidance of experts who understand AMC’s unique landscape, reach out to Tinuiti today.
Liked this article? Don’t miss Part 2 of our AMC use case series on Tinuiti’s blog next month!
This post was authored by Averie Lynch, Specialist of Strategic Services at Tinuiti.
MARKETING
Introducing Variation Generator for Web Experimentation
If you attended Opticon ’23, you saw first-hand how Optimizely has been investing in AI. Optimizely introduced Opal, an AI assistant designed to accelerate the entire marketing lifecycle. Opal is ever-present across Optimizely One, providing generative AI, smart insights, and recommendations to transform how our customers create, test and personalize digital experiences.
Now, our latest AI capability is here: Variation Generator. Available for all Web Experimentation customers, Variation Generator helps experiment authors expedite the ideation and creation of test variations.
What does it do?
Variation Generator leverages generative artificial intelligence to create a list of phrasing suggestions based on a site’s text elements like headlines, product descriptions, or call-to-action (CTA) wording, ultimately making it easier and faster for experimenters to plan multiple variations for their tests, which can be quite time-consuming.
Who is it for?
Based on our research, around 30% of experiments include text changes. So, experiment authors like optimization managers or digital marketers are spending a lot of time ideating/brainstorming multiple versions of the original copy to decide which should be tested. Variation Generator empowers users to add more variations in an experiment, which we strongly suggest after our Experimentation Benchmark research found that experiments with more variations (4+) tend to see higher win rates and return higher uplifts on the metrics tracked.
Cool…but generative AI is popping up everywhere, why does it matter here?
- Directly embedded into our UI: No separate tools or tabs to click out to…No typing out a prompt to a chatbot…just click the text element you want suggestions for, and click “generate.” All interaction stays within our Visual Editor.
- Reduce time and effort in variation ideation: Shorten the time it takes to come up with new experiment variations, allowing experiment authors to get more time back into their day.
- Optimize each variation in an experiment: Variation Generator provides unbiased and creative alternatives to experiment authors so they can make sure that each variation is different enough to avoid duplicative messaging, yet effective enough captures visitors’ attention.
- Increase a test’s chances of winning: Our Benchmark research shows that experiments with 4+ variations are ~90% more likely to win than experiments with just 2 variations. Variation Generator helps experiment authors create more variations, leading to higher lifts.
- Fine-tune brand positioning: Improve existing headlines, product descriptions, CTA buttons, and more, ensuring a consistent and impactful brand message across digital properties.
Increase a test’s chances of winning
This outcome is important enough to highlight a second time. Mentioned earlier, we know from our Experimentation Benchmark research that tests with more variations (4+) are more likely to produce a winning (statistically significant) result versus a traditional A/B test that pits a baseline (original version) against a single variation. Variation Generator can help experiment authors get into the habit of testing more variations and producing more winning results.
Future enhancements
Optimizely is committed to continuous innovation and improvement. Potential enhancements for Variation Generator include generating suggestions for other content types like images, icons, HTML, and CSS, as well as giving users more control over output fine-tuning, such as adjusting length, tone, and other fields.
At the end of the day…
Optimizely’s Variation Generator is a simple yet powerful feature that empowers experiment authors to create more effective and winning experiments. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, this feature saves time, optimizes variations, and fine-tunes brand positioning, ultimately leading to better results, stronger brand presence, and an effortless workflow.
Want more info? If you’re an existing customer, ask your account manager about Variation Generator, and if you’re a future customer, contact us to learn more.
MARKETING
Tips and Tricks for Digital PR
In the bustling digital landscape of the 21st century, public relations (PR) stands as a beacon of brand visibility, trust-building, and reputation management. As businesses navigate the complexities of online competition, the synergy between search engine optimization (SEO) and PR has become increasingly evident. This article delves into digital PR, exploring how strategic integration with SEO practices can elevate brand visibility, drive organic traffic, and amplify PR success.
The SEO & Digital PR Power Couple
In today’s digital landscape, success hinges on a strong online presence. Two crucial aspects of achieving this are SEO and Digital PR. While they may have functioned as separate strategies in the past, they’re now recognized as a powerful team.
SEO focuses on optimizing your website and content to rank higher in search engine results, driving organic traffic. PR, on the other hand, builds brand awareness and cultivates positive press mentions.
However, creating compelling content that resonates with audiences and search engines can be challenging for many PR professionals. A recent Institute for Public Relations study found that nearly three-quarters (70%) of PR practitioners struggle with content creation. This is where the magic of SEO and digital PR working together comes in.
Combining these forces creates a synergy that delivers impressive results. Effective SEO techniques in PR campaigns can amplify brand messaging and ensure it reaches the right audience through search engines.
Conversely, strong PR efforts can generate backlinks to your website, a significant factor influencing SEO ranking. This teamwork propels brands to industry leadership by establishing online authority and positive brand sentiment.
Optimizing Your PR Efforts for SEO
PR and SEO go hand-in-hand in today’s digital marketing landscape. By aligning your PR activities with SEO best practices, you can significantly boost your online presence and reach a wider audience. Here’s how:
Keyword Research
Just like any successful marketing campaign, PR needs a strong foundation. Keyword research is crucial for understanding the language your target audience uses online. According to Google, more than half of consumers (53%) consult online resources before purchasing a product or service.
This includes potential students researching educational options. For instance, terms like “best online degrees for 2024” can be valuable keywords for online schools to target in their PR efforts to reach potential students actively searching for programs.
By identifying relevant keywords with high search volume, PR professionals can craft messaging that resonates with their audience and increases the discoverability of their content in search results.
Content is King (and Queen)
Compelling and newsworthy content is the cornerstone of any successful PR campaign. But for SEO, it’s not just about capturing attention.
High-quality content, such as press releases, blog posts, and infographics, should also be optimized for search engines. This includes using relevant keywords strategically throughout your content and adhering to on-page SEO best practices. By creating content that is both informative and search-engine friendly, you attract not only readers but also valuable backlinks and organic traffic.
Building Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites pointing back to yours. Search engines consider backlinks a sign of trustworthiness and authority.
Strategic PR campaigns can help you secure these valuable backlinks by pitching newsworthy content to relevant websites, building relationships with journalists and influencers, and leveraging social media to promote your content. However, focusing on earning backlinks from reputable sources is crucial, as spammy tactics can hurt your SEO efforts.
Optimizing Media Coverage
Every media placement you secure, whether an article, interview, or social media mention, presents an opportunity to enhance your SEO. Encourage journalists and influencers to include relevant keywords and links to your website in their coverage.
Promoting these media placements on your social media channels can amplify their reach and drive more organic traffic to your website.
Advanced SEO Techniques for PR Success
Today’s audiences crave engaging content; SEO is crucial to seeing your message. Incorporating advanced SEO tactics into your PR strategy can amplify your reach and achieve tremendous success.
Leveraging Multimedia
We’re living in the age of visual storytelling. Eye-catching images, infographics, and videos aren’t just trends; they’re powerful tools for grabbing attention and boosting SEO.
A Demand Metric report highlights the power of video marketing for conversions. 93% of marketers agree that video is just as practical, or even more effective, at driving conversions compared to other content formats.
These elements enhance user experience and provide opportunities for keyword optimization. Descriptive alt tags and strategic file names can help search engines understand your content and improve your ranking for relevant searches.
Data-Driven PR
Gone are the days of guesswork in PR. You can achieve laser focus and maximum impact by integrating SEO data with your PR strategy. Tools like keyword research can help you identify topics and language your target audience is actively searching for.
Analyzing website traffic and other SEO metrics allows you to tailor your content for optimal performance. This data-driven approach ensures you craft content that resonates with your audience and achieves your PR goals.
Collaboration is Key: Aligning SEO & PR Teams
Many companies have separate SEO and PR teams, but these teams should work together closely for maximum impact. By collaborating, SEO and PR can achieve more than they could. Here’s why:
- More robust results: When SEO and PR share information, like keyword research and content plans, they can create campaigns strategically placed in search engines and reach the right audience through media coverage.
- Unified Voice: Consistent team communication ensures a consistent message across all channels, from website content to press releases. This builds trust and credibility with your target audience.
- Measurable Success: Working together allows SEO and PR to track the combined impact of their efforts. This data can refine future campaigns and demonstrate the overall value they bring to the organization.
In short, by breaking down silos and working as one unit, SEO and PR can create a powerful force for achieving your company’s goals.
The Future of SEO & Digital PR
The digital world is constantly changing, and how we approach SEO and digital PR also needs to evolve. Here’s a look at some of the biggest trends we can expect to see:
AI-powered everything
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to become a game-changer in SEO and digital PR. AI can help create high-quality content tailored to specific audiences, analyze vast data to identify trends and opportunities and personalize outreach efforts for journalists and influencers.
Voice search is king
With the rise of voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, voice search optimization is becoming increasingly important. This means websites must be optimized for natural language queries and focus on long-tail keywords that people might use when speaking.
Focus on user experience
Search engines are becoming more competent at understanding what users are looking for and giving more weight to websites offering a positive UX. This means creating sites that are easy to navigate, load quickly, and provide valuable and relevant information.
Building trust and authority
Search engines also emphasize Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) when ranking websites. This means businesses must establish themselves as thought leaders by creating high-quality content and building relationships with other reputable websites.
By staying ahead of these trends, businesses can ensure their websites are visible, and their brands are well-represented in the ever-changing digital landscape.
Beyond the Buzz: Building Lasting Success with SEO-Fueled PR
In the dynamic realm of digital PR, mastering the art of SEO integration is paramount for sustained success. By optimizing PR efforts through strategic keyword research, compelling content creation, and targeted link-building strategies, brands can amplify their visibility, drive organic traffic, and forge lasting connections with their audience.
As we march towards the future, the synergy between SEO and PR will continue to be a guiding light, illuminating the path towards digital supremacy.
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