Case study shows analytics driving ROI at Western Union

- The "advanced attribution model" used was BigWednesday's proprietary "Propensity Engine," which analyzed customer data to identify eight key conversion themes and uncovered hidden value in organic and direct channels. This model helped to reallocate 20-25% of the paid media budget from low-impact search ads to these higher-performing channels. - The engagement with BigWednesday was part of Western Union's broader "Evolve 2025" strategy, which focuses on accelerating digital growth to complement its extensive physical agent network of over 550,000 locations. A key goal of this strategy is to reduce digital customer acquisition costs to under $20, a 50% reduction since 2022. - Prior to this analytics initiative, Western Union faced significant challenges in understanding marketing effectiveness, as 45% of converting customers interacted with both paid and organic media, making last-click attribution models unreliable. This cross-channel confusion contributed to a 22% year-over-year increase in blended customer acquisition costs. - The results of implementing the new attribution model included a 21% decrease in customer acquisition cost, a 45% increase in return on ad spend (ROAS), and the reallocation of $2.4 million in media spend to more effective channels. - For marketing analyst roles in agency environments, proficiency in SQL and Python is often required to automate tasks like data exporting and cleaning, calculate custom KPIs, and analyze customer segmentation. Free online courses are available from platforms like Great Learning and DataCamp to build these foundational skills. - To build a compelling portfolio for marketing analyst positions, students can create Tableau projects that analyze marketing campaign effectiveness, customer churn, or sales pipeline data. Datasets for such projects are widely available, and the final dashboards can be showcased on a public Tableau profile. - Interview case studies for marketing analytics roles often present scenarios requiring the candidate to measure the effectiveness of a marketing channel or investigate discrepancies in campaign performance data. A common task is to calculate and analyze metrics like Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and propose data-driven strategies for optimization. - Entry-level marketing analyst job descriptions frequently list skills such as data visualization (using tools like Tableau or Power BI), familiarity with Google Analytics, strong communication, and proficiency in Excel for data analysis. A degree in marketing, business, or statistics is often a preferred qualification.