Which key campaign metrics should be monitored?

Transcript

– When running any campaign, it’s always really important to remember to first, set out a goal. Do I want to make a 5X on advertising spend? Do I just want to reach more new people? Do I want to bring new users to the site? And then when the campaign is up and it’s launched and it’s running, it’s really important to not lose sight of that. I think before any campaign that we run, we need to know the target market and the end goal for the campaign. So, there’s so much data that is generated by a digital marketing campaign. So, if you’ve got multiple different campaigns running at any one time, it’s very easy to get lost in the data. You might end up with data paralysis because there’s so much data coming through at any one time. It’s difficult to stay on top of and more importantly, it’s difficult to know which bits are important and which bits are less important. When it comes to campaigns, you need to really be pulling some tangible, measurable statistics. And many people will be running campaigns and looking at the big priority at the end which is how much I spent, how many clicks I’ve got. And that really is not the way about looking at campaigns. So, if your campaign target was to make 5X on whatever you spent, if it’s making a 2X, it’s not successful. However, if your initial goal was to send new users to the site and then you find your percentage of new users has risen by 20% however, it’s not making a return, that doesn’t necessarily matter. People very rarely buy on the first touchpoint but you have achieved the goal you set out to do. So, I think it’s important to remember what was actually the aim of the campaign because not all campaigns can achieve everything. I think first and foremost, the one which always really, really interests me is the conversion rate. The rate at which people that land on your site are completing that conversion action. Whether it be filling in a form, making a call, making a purchase, what is the conversion rate? The conversion rate can tell you so much about the quality of the traffic that you’re getting and it can also tell you so much about the website functionality that people find when they get there. Are they landing on the right page? Are they finding the information that they need on that page? Is the contact form in the right position? Is the phone number hard to find on mobile? All of these different things are questions which can be asked out of a good or a bad conversion rate. So, that is the first thing which advertisers must absolutely know when advertising. So, a lot of people come to us and want just general marketing but they don’t know what they want yet. So, you need to know whether you want brand awareness, whether you want more sales, whether you want general leads. And then that can determine what channels your campaign gets put on and how to move around the budget. The number-one objective for you as a Marketing Manager, Marketing Director, or Managing Director is to break your campaign down to the most micro, micro, niche data point you can possibly find. And when you do that, you’ll be able to work things backwards. And I always say this: Let’s say, for example, we wanted to try and get a client to be a Distract client. Now, I know the average order value that a client will bring to our business. I also know the conversion rate from a meeting to someone signing. I also know the conversion rate from someone filling in a contact form to having a meeting. And I also know the conversion rate from the traffic on the site to filling in the contact form. So, once I’ve done that and I’ve gone all the way backwards, I then, actually, can figure out the exact number that I can spend on a Cost Per Click getting someone to the website. And that is the real, nitty-gritty, niche data points we should be bringing from our marketing campaigns. And then when you start looking even deeper, you can start saying, “Actually, if I bring a female to the site rather than a male between these age demographics or these locations, they have a higher conversion rate at this point, this point, this point,” and you can get even tighter into it. But if you aren’t doing the basic level of niche-ing down your marketing campaign, then you’re never going to be able to do the stuff that really makes the impact, which is when we get into demographics and geographical locations and all the hyper-targeting we can get involved with. So, make sure you’re pulling real detailed metrics when you’re doing your marketing campaign. The other thing which I think is really, really important to keep a handle on is your Cost Per Acquisition, or CPA you’ll see it abbreviated to. CPA is massive, massively important because it’s essentially the amount that we’re paying per lead or per conversion or sale that we’re getting through the door. So, really, really important to keep a handle on this because if you’ve got a good understanding of what a lead is worth to you or what an average order is worth to you, and then your Cost Per Acquisition is too high a percentage of that lead worth or that sale worth, then you’ve got yourself an issue there. You’re going to have to bring that down to make sure you’ve still got a margin in there. Now, there’s several conversations out there which talk about losing money on the first sale because people will come back and buy from you more and things and that’s a very good trail of thought. But when tracking an advertising campaign in the here and now, I want to know what the Cost Per Acquisition is. I want to know what percent of the sale value that that Cost Per Acquisition is because if it’s too high, my margin is going to be eaten in and the business isn’t making any money. So, they’re two things, amongst many, which I highly recommend that you’ve got a handle on at all times.