Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

This is when metrics come into play. Your customer acquisition cost and lifetime value are the two magical numbers you need to calculate for each one of your campaigns. Cost of Acquisition (CAC): The total cost of acquiring a user through a given channel. See Also: The Top 10 Tools for Tracking Your Web Metrics.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Haystack

DECEMBER 29, 2018

Also during this time, the underlying metrics in that business can change positively, potentially trapping companies to accept the initially-agreed upon valuation. Governments blocking acquisitions, the curtailment of company expansion, more scrutiny on overseas operations of U.S. That will take a long time to settle.

Technical Review 165

Technical Review Venture Capital Russia China 165

ConversionXL

JULY 3, 2020

Paywalls, by default, are a barrier to organic acquisition—they stop some users from accessing some content. News is an especially challenging vertical since no site owns a newsworthy event. A third option, of course, is a hard paywall—denying all access to searchers or searchers and crawlers. Metering vs. lead-in. Metering. “As

SEO 122

SEO HTML Technical Review Caching 122

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

But it’s surprising to me how many companies with recurring/subscription revenue don’t understand the interactions between the elements that make up customer acquisition cost (CAC), churn and lifetime value (LTV). The black horizontal line represents time and the unlabeled vertical access represents relative profit.

Churn Rate 288

Churn Rate .Net Metrics Hosting 288

ConversionXL

AUGUST 19, 2016

Inspired by the movie ‘Moneyball,’ MoneyBall syndrome refers to the fact that companies aren’t looking into the right metrics when measuring the effectiveness of their mobile website. Some marketers try looking at conversion as a solo metric of determining how their CTAs perform on mobile. Revamp Mobile Metrics to Combat Moneyball.

Mobile 48

Mobile Technical Review Software Review Metrics 48

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 3, 2022

They work to improve top-of-funnel metrics like brand awareness and identify opportunities to improve customer activation, retention, and referral efforts. If your campaign works and your brand awareness metrics improve, you win. Then, compare any change in the awareness metrics you’re measuring in that region with other markets.

Framework 102

Framework Marketing Acquisition Retention 102

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. The chart below illustrates this, with the black vertical line representing the average VC return. My hypothesis is that one of the biggest drivers of extreme outperformance for less mature funds is outlier acquisitions that happen early in a fund’s life. .

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

Lightspeed Venture Partners

JANUARY 6, 2011

And congrats to Alex Le, cofounder of a prior investment, Serious Business, whose first game since the Zynga acquisition is CityVille.]. Shawn Gupta of OhLife , a personal journaling tool over email, has similar sentiments in using metrics to drive product innovation: Make metrics a core part of our product development.

Stealth 60

Stealth Startup Lean Cofounder 60

Occam's Razor

OCTOBER 14, 2014

Any big changes in your marketing/customer acquisition strategy over the last time period (more money doing Search, less money in Email, elimination Facebook as it does not work, etc., Conversion rate is one of those metrics that I strongly encourage you only create benchmarks for from your own data. Direct Traffic (I get a lot of it!)

Analytics 133

Analytics Vertical Metrics Web 133

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. The chart below illustrates this, with the black vertical line representing the average VC return. My hypothesis is that one of the biggest drivers of extreme outperformance for less mature funds is outlier acquisitions that happen early in a fund’s life. .

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Tech acquisitions went crazy at the same time the IPO market did. The Rise of Mergers and Acquisitions -– March 2003 -2008 After the dot.com bubble collapsed, the IPO market (and most tech M&A deals) shutdown for technology companies. And some companies didn’t even have to go public to get liquid. billion.) So what’s left?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

Seeing Both Sides

DECEMBER 5, 2011

Yet, in my own work with various incubators, I am often struck by the lack of vertical focus. But if you believe software is eating the world, vertical industry by vertical industry, business process by business process, then we should start seeing more entrepreneurs pursuing vertically-centric strategies.

Vertical 41

Vertical Incubator Software Acquisition 41

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 21, 2017

Revenue multiples, profit multiples, premium over the previous financing — these are metrics used by sellers to help determine a minimum acceptable price. In terms of acquisition, they ask more specifically: “How can we trade balance sheet assets (cash, equity) in exchange for executing our strategy better?”.

Balance Sheet 242

Balance Sheet Vertical Acquisition Revenue 242

ConversionXL

JUNE 5, 2014

Improving each of these areas might boost your customer retention – BUT it’s only by scrutinizing your customer facing metrics & direct customer feedback that will provide you with your top priorities. Retention, along with many of our usage metrics, have improved as a result of some of these changes. image source.

Retention 115

Retention Customer Developer Programming 115

ConversionXL

JUNE 5, 2014

Improving each of these areas might boost your customer retention – BUT it’s only by scrutinizing your customer facing metrics & direct customer feedback that will provide you with your top priorities. Retention, along with many of our usage metrics, have improved as a result of some of these changes. image source.

Retention 112

Retention Developer Customer Programming 112

Steve Blank

MARCH 25, 2009

When we looked at the color graphics board market, our competitors had defined the market as one measured by technical metrics: screen resolution, number of bits of color, screen refresh rates, acceleration, etc. It didn’t take much imagination to realize that what we had to do was to tell our story around one key metric performance ?

Silicon Valley 141

Silicon Valley Marketing RSS California 141

ConversionXL

JUNE 5, 2014

Improving each of these areas might boost your customer retention – BUT it’s only by scrutinizing your customer facing metrics & direct customer feedback that will provide you with your top priorities. Retention, along with many of our usage metrics, have improved as a result of some of these changes. image source.

Retention 105

Retention Customer Developer Programming 105

ConversionXL

JUNE 5, 2014

Improving each of these areas might boost your customer retention – BUT it’s only by scrutinizing your customer facing metrics & direct customer feedback that will provide you with your top priorities. Retention, along with many of our usage metrics, have improved as a result of some of these changes. image source.

Retention 98

Retention Customer Developer Programming 98

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 26, 2011

To begin with, there seems to be a serious shortage of customer acquisition experts--particularly given how hot subscription services have gotten. If you are in marketing right now, or a student thinking about it, an *instant* way to get a job is to build up customer acquisition skills. In New York City, that just shouldn't happen.

New York City 113

New York City Marketing SEM Acquisition 113

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Warning – this assumes some basic knowledge of VC performance metrics. The chart below illustrates this, with the black vertical line representing the average VC return. My hypothesis is that one of the biggest drivers of extreme outperformance for less mature funds is outlier acquisitions that happen early in a fund’s life. .

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

Seeing Both Sides

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

Conventional wisdom suggests that the most important metrics for a startup - such as unit economics, cost of acquisition, lifetime value, churn rates - typically get better with time. One of the themes I explore in the class is the tough reality that many metrics can actually get worse over time for a startup.

Metrics 20

Metrics Churn Rate Acquisition SEM 20

ConversionXL

JULY 8, 2020

This is a subheading for your ad, separated from the first title by a vertical bar. Inside the competition tab, you can peek at some of the key advertising performance metrics of your competitors, such as impression share, average position, and many more. People usually notice your title first to decide if your ad is relevant.

PPC 100

PPC Matching Software Review Campaign 100

Austin Startup

APRIL 25, 2017

In order to achieve 20x growth, Snap needs grow both of those metrics 4–5x. The smartphone is for everyone, we don’t have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country or vertical market: it’s for everyone. I won’t dive into cost structure in this blog post, but let’s think through how Snap could grow revenue 20x.

Valuation 48

Valuation Technical Review Forecast Social Network 48

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 7, 2017

Full stack vertical AI startups actually work – main reason: low level task based AI gets commoditised quickly whereas vertical AI plays solve full-stack industry problems with subject matter expertise and unique data which make them defensible. This reached the point where $m per PhD was talked about as an acquisition metric.

Artificial Inteligence 80

Artificial Inteligence API Vertical Algorithm 80

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

Bootstrapped startup Omnisend carved out a $19 million niche in an already saturated vertical. Organic search is a highly competitive domain for many SaaS verticals (email marketing, for example). With a tactical understanding of two different marketing strategies: demand generation and lead generation. SEO should lead with intent.

Lead Generation 107

Lead Generation Demand Audience eCommerce 107

A Crowded Space

AUGUST 20, 2015

Once the product / market fit is established and acquisition channels are better understood, the startup can enter the next phase. Founders should have a clearer idea about which customer verticals work the best and focus exclusively on those. At the second stage, they are in a scaling phase. Product features should probably be cut.

Vertical 60

Vertical Channel Acquisition Metrics 60

ConversionXL

JUNE 3, 2019

Compare that to more than two-thirds of CMOs who expect to increase customer acquisition, increased purchase volume, and more effective cross-selling: That’s too bad. But only scrutinizing your customer-facing metrics and direct customer feedback will provide you with your top priorities. Poor customer service is why 82% of U.S

Retention 82

Retention Developer Customer Programming 82

ConversionXL

JANUARY 14, 2020

Crawl your site on a staging environment with freshly deployed features and compare metrics like crawl depth and internal links to similar pages on the live version of your site. In addition to monitoring rankings for targeted query patterns, look at user satisfaction metrics , which depend on the original intent of the query.

SEO 159

SEO Framework SCRUM Search 159

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Knowing where you stand in relation to competitors helps define product positioning, channel acquisition, messaging, and more. Depending how you’re benchmarking and with what metrics, it could be beneficial or it could be a waste of time. We selected 4-5 sites from each sub-vertical. How does it work? The Vitamin Shoppe.

Conversion 48

Conversion eCommerce Database Vertical 48

Occam's Razor

APRIL 25, 2011

That means I get to spend loads and loads of time across many industry verticals, see many many campaigns, translate many many foreign websites (thanks Google Chrome for auto-translate!) Have a balance in your spend between acquisition and website. Making lame metrics the measures of success: Impressions, Click-throughs, Page Views.

Marketing 126

Marketing Flash Analytics Web 126

ConversionXL

OCTOBER 25, 2018

Bogdanovich, who’s worked with dozens of companies on Salesforce integration and marketing automation, sketched an order of operations for data acquisition and deployment in demand gen campaigns: Bring clean data into the CRM. How large is the business’ investment in the customer acquisition channel? Scale of investment.

Demand 132

Demand Vertical Campaign Channel 132

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

By taking advantage of TikTok’s vertical split-screen, the ad cleverly demonstrates the before and after effects of the product to show its USP. Track the right metrics for performance. For ecommerce ads, the main metrics to focus on are: Click-through rate (CTR). Shoot videos vertically in 9:16 aspect ratio.

Customer 102

Customer Viral Audience Campaign 102

ConversionXL

AUGUST 21, 2014

That’s why you need to be simultaneously feeding your growth engine , while monitoring churn and your other startup metrics. They refer to these differences as “ Red Flag” Metrics (or RFMs). Total number of logins also proved to be an important metric, though not as much so as the former two. times per day on average.

Retention 106

Retention Churn Rate Metrics Software Review 106

ConversionXL

APRIL 7, 2021

Sorry, but ABM is not B2B, nor is it right for all markets, business models, or companies (just like every company should not be running freemium aka PLG for acquisition.) Most notably a tool like Listenloop will plug into Salesforce and sync with account lists and share relevant data such as ad metrics such as impressions and clicks.

IP 98

IP Marketing Technical Review Software Review 98

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Lean Case provides standard business models & metrics, so you can apply a standard approach to business planning, modeling, and profitability tracking. The simplest way to track a company’s performance: have them give you access to their internal metrics dashboard. the Untouched Vertical. The VC Software Stack?—?the

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Cracking the Code

MARCH 28, 2022

One of the 2020 giants also left this select club: Zoom, which was impacted by the failed acquisition of Five9 and people’s gradual return to offices. For example, Snyk has recently announced a number of acquisitions. We’ll also see the emergence of more low code / no code platforms that address specific vertical needs.

Global 62

Global Europe Software Review 62

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 2, 2021

He also shared his perspective on M&A (including Uber’s recent acquisitions of Postmates and Drizly), autonomous vehicles, the complexities of working in highly regulated industries, and how his personal and professional background shaped the way he approaches leadership today. RH: The honor is ours. This is awesome. She’s great.

Iran 39

Iran Technical Review Non-Compete Lean 39