Predictive Analytics for Marketing Campaigns

“Moving to Lityx took an expensive, long, outsourced process and brought it in house. It’s cheaper and so far seems a whole lot better. It’s a win for the company and me personally.”

-Alexa Langford, Director of Research & Analytics at one&All

one&all LogoThe Client

one&All is a full-service agency partner that works exclusively with nonprofit organizations. They serve over 1400 clients with their expertise in data analytics, omnichannel creative, and account services.

One of the ways the team at one&All works to create value for their clients is through modeling and predictive analytics. Alexa Langford, Director of Research & Analytics, builds models from client data that guide mailing decisions and provide substantial ROI for each client.

“More isn’t always better and if you can mail smarter, and not just to more people, it’s very compelling to our clients.”

Modeling Gains ChartThe Problem

one&All uses predictive analytics to improve the approach and outcomes to marketing programs that they manage for their clients. They find the approach to be a powerful way to enable their clients to spend less money, and make more, usually to support direct-mail fundraising efforts. “It’s the way fundraising is moving. More isn’t always better and if you can mail smarter, and not just to more people, it’s very compelling to our clients,” says Alexa.

Before becoming a Lityx client, one&All paid a full-time outsourced group for predictive analytics support. Alexa shared that their previous provider was expensive and took months to build a model, at which point, the results weren’t as fresh and at times outdated. “The time it took made us less comfortable. It meant that we couldn’t have a lot of different models, so we were relying on more general models. And general models are good but the tighter the model build looks like the model audience, the better your model will be. Having campaign-specific models I believe has really helped differentiate from what we were doing before.”

“It makes something that’s very difficult accessible, and I think that is really a good thing for our clients. I’m really happy that we can bring it to them at a price which is right.”

The Solution

In 2015 one&All became a Lityx customer and user of LityxIQ, a cloud-hosted analytics platform designed to make modeling and sophisticated data analytics easier and more available to a broader audience of analysts. The move was empowering to Alexa, her team, and ultimately the client. According to Alexa, Lityx is “a good product. It makes something that’s very difficult accessible, and I think that is really a good thing for our clients. I’m really happy that we can bring it to them at a price which is right.”

one&All is now generating 3 x the number of custom models with the same internal staff. “We are spending 70% less annually, and getting monthly campaign models, versus generic holiday and non-holiday models.”

Now, with LityxIQ, it only takes a couple of hours to build and run models. “It’s amazing that I can build eight models in just a couple of hours. It does take LityxIQ some time to crunch the data, as it should because the files are very large. But, because it’s on the cloud, I don’t have to have my computer on, or I can be doing other things and it’s building those models in the background. And certainly, I need to check them and make sure that nothing funky happens. But it’s happening.”

The team now has more options and more control with how they model which creates more value for their clients. “We’re able to mail fewer pieces at a higher net revenue per donor. And at the end of the day, that’s what our clients want. They want to raise more money, they want to pay less, and they want to be good stewards of their dollars for their donors, and we want to do the same for them. These are nonprofits that we’re working with so they don’t have that kind of money. And if I can help them reduce their costs and improve their revenue then that’s a really good feeling at the end of the day.”

Using LityxIQ allows the team at one&All to be more nimble and flexible and bring modeling in-house “Moving to Lityx took an expensive, long, outsourced process and brought it in-house. It’s cheaper and so far seems a whole lot better. It’s a win for the company and me personally.”

Beyond creating more value for clients, Lityx empowers Alexa at an individual level. “Lityx added a huge skill for me, personally. Now I can say that using software, I build models. That’s a differentiator for a business analyst…At one&All, it makes me an in-demand resource.”

The Results

  • 3x the number of custom models with the same internal staff
  • Spending 70% less annually
  • Mailing fewer pieces at a higher net revenue per donor
  • It only takes a couple of hours to build and run models vs. weeks