When you’re planning your marketing budget, you want to make sure you’re investing in a plan that will help draw new customers and interest to your brand. How do you measure your plan to ensure your marketing plan is effective? One of the first steps is to consider your campaign. You won’t measure the effectiveness of a YouTube ad the same way you would a postcard in the mail.

 Measuring Effectiveness for Digital Marketing and Online Campaigns

If your marketing campaign is all online, key performance indicators (KPIs) are the indicators that your target goals are being met. They may be items like how many sales you’ve made, how many customers you’ve gained, or how many of your goals/milestones were met.

Analytics tools offered by companies like Facebook, Google, and YouTube can really help you out. You do need to have some understanding of how to access the data you need. These online programs can be difficult for a layperson to understand at first, but online tutorials help a lot with data-driven marketing. Working with marketing experts skilled in Google and YouTube Analytics or Facebook Insights is also worth considering.

The reason it’s easier to track is that you can access reports that return this data in a matter of minutes. Here are the key metrics you want to measure and analyze.

 Clickthrough Rates

A clickthrough rate (CTR) is the number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown online somewhere. If 20 people click your ad and it’s shown 100 times, you have a CTR of 20%.

You want a higher number as this indicates that your ad is drawing attention and inspiring people to click on it. If it’s low, it’s an indicator that you’re missing the mark and should adjust your keyword or information to make it more appealing.

 Conversion Rates     

A clickthrough occurs when someone sees your ad and clicks on it. What you need next is a conversion. A conversion is when a consumer clicks on the ad and takes action. That action might be purchasing an item, asking for more information, or signing up for your newsletter.

To calculate a conversion rate, you take the number of actions and divide it by the number of people who reached that ad. If 500 people clicked on your ad and 80 people asked for a free quote, your conversion rate is 16%.

 New Users

Another way to track effectiveness is by how many new users check out your website, blog, or page. If you have 1,000 new users after a marketing plan is over, you’ve gained 1,000 potential new clients. Look at user acquisition to find out how they accessed your site or app.

It’s also important to track how long they’re staying on your app or website. Do they hang around or do they abandon your site or leave a full cart without purchasing? If people are quitting your app within seconds of accessing it, it’s worth looking to find out why they’re leaving so quickly. If they’re leaving a full cart, something is keeping them from completing the purchase. See if you can find out.

 Shares and Social Engagement

If you’re marketing through social media, track how many shares your posts and pictures are getting. Suppose you own a Yoga studio and you post about a new restaurant that’s opening up next door. You’re teaming up with the restaurant to offer a free class to anyone who stops by after dining at the restaurant.

Within a day that post gets shared 200 times. By the end of the week, the post has been shared 5,000 times. It’s reached 5,000 more people, so word-of-mouth news is spreading. It’s effective.

Make sure you remain engaged. A coffee subscription company mails a postcard to its new customers encouraging them to email the owners and share their thoughts. Those new customers do send an email and never hear another word. The marketing campaign was successful to that point, but now the consumer doesn’t feel as valued. Remain active with your customers, even after the marketing campaign is over.

 Measuring Effectiveness for In-Person or Print Marketing Campaigns

Print and in-person marketing campaigns are often measured by figuring out how many people stopped by your booth or pop-up. If you have a guest book set out to capture names and addresses for your mailing list and 500 people sign up, you have 500 new people for your mailing list. This is an example of lead generation, which is a good way to track your marketing plan’s effectiveness. There are many other ways to track how well you’re doing.

 Return on Investment

Look at how much you spent on an advertisement or in-person event. Suppose you own a publishing company that specializes in Manga and rented a booth at Comic-Con. In 2015, a 10 x 10′ booth was $3,000 per day. You’ve invested $12,000 for all four days and hope your marketing plan pays off.

By the end of the fourth day, you’ve made between $4,000 and $5,000 in sales per day. Your return on investment isn’t as high as you hoped, but you have gained more than you spent. Plus, you have built a lengthy list of people interested in your upcoming releases. You were successful.

 Revenue

Look at your revenues after an ad campaign ends. You invested 5% of your revenues in this campaign, as you weren’t sure the best way to target your audience. You decided to try an ad on Facebook and back it up with share-with-a-friend postcard mailings to your current customers.

If a few weeks have passed and your revenues increased by 35%, you’ve done well with your marketing campaign. The higher your revenues increase, the better, but if you’ve earned more than you spent, you’re in a good place. It’s far better than learning you’ve spent more than you gained.

At this point, you also have a chance to tweak your marketing plan using the things you’ve learned. Keep watching what people say on social media and in emails and use those notes to improve customer satisfaction.

Business owners may not have the staff or expertise needed to create a solid marketing campaign. If you’re new to digital and experiential marketing, it’s also difficult to figure out foolproof ways to measure success. This is why many business owners turn to professional marketing agencies for help.

Our marketing expertise covers all of your options. Factory 360’s team is specialists in content, digital, experiential, and social marketing strategies. Mix them together for a comprehensive marketing plan that captures attention and gets your target audience talking.

Talk to Factory 360 about your business’s brand, goals, and budget. Our marketing experts work with you to develop, implement, and analyze your marketing plan. Whether you want to mix digital marketing with pop-ups or want to stick to in-person events, our team excels in creating solid, effective plans and helps you adjust your plan as needed to ensure it remains effective.