Creating effective marketing campaigns is as much about experimentation as it is about strategy and careful planning. Campaign measurement can help you initiate this experimentation and cope with the changes.
There are multiple aspects of a marketing campaign that make it successful. For example, an email campaign has a subject line, call-to-action (CTA), layout design, and content you can experiment with. But if you don’t know how well your campaign is performing, how will you know what aspect to change?
However, measuring your campaigns can be challenging, especially if you’ve never done it before. So, let’s discuss this process and how you can initiate it with steps and metrics!
What Is Campaign Measurement?
Campaign measurement is the process of tracking, analyzing, and evaluating the performance of a marketing campaign. It’s about determining a campaign’s effectiveness in achieving specific goals and objectives. This involves tracking multiple metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) for the campaign.
For example, that can be the click-through rate (CTA), conversion rate, and return on investment (ROI) on email campaigns.
However, you need to use the numbers to generate specific insights rather than simply tracking results. Without this step, you won’t be able to make data-driven decisions, which is the ultimate goal of measurement.
After all, what’s the use of spending resources on measurement when you won’t use the data?
With that said, let’s discuss why this process is so important. Measuring your campaigns gives you tangible data on whether your efforts are reaping results. It gives you direction for your following decisions. For example, if a campaign is effective, move quickly to enhance its impact.
On the other hand, discard or make the appropriate changes in any campaign that isn’t bringing the desired results.
Measuring your campaigns also tells you where you can improve your efforts. As a result, you don’t have to use guesswork to experiment. Instead, you have actionable data on which to base your decisions.
Consistent measurement and experimentation are the only ways to ensure your campaigns remain effective. You won’t have to waste resources on things that aren’t working. This means measurement also frees up resources so you can use them at places that need them the most.
Moreover, you can judge how well your employees perform when you measure your marketing campaigns.
For example, consistently ineffective designs might mean it’s time to change your graphic designer.
Lastly, measurement gives a holistic view to stakeholders like partners and investors.
How To Measure Success of Marketing Campaign in 5 Steps
At this point, your next question should be, “How do you measure the success of a marketing campaign?” After all, that question will help you enjoy the benefits mentioned above.
Measuring the success of a digital marketing campaign involves several steps. You can’t simply pick up a calculator, enter the numbers, and call it a day. Just like launching a campaign needs a proper strategy, measuring it does, too.
So, let the following sections guide you through the steps!
1. Start With Setting Clear Goals
Anything related to marketing channels and their campaigns starts with proper goals. You must know what you want the campaign to achieve before you can create its content. Later, these goals help you determine whether the campaign achieved what you hoped for.
For example, a discount campaign should bring you increased sales. On the other hand, an awareness campaign should increase brand visibility and recognition among your target audience.
Both of these campaigns have very different goals. Of course, awareness campaigns also bring you sales and conversions in the long run. However, measuring them would require different metrics than a promotional campaign.
Moreover, setting objectives means comparing the results with the goal and seeing if the campaign worked. Skipping this step would not only make the campaign ineffective, but it would also mess up the tracking.
Now, there are a few formal techniques to develop these goals. For example, setting SMART goals will work in your favor.
This means your goals will be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. Defining goals this way ensures clarity and focus, making it easier to track progress, evaluate success, and make data-driven decisions.
2. Choose the Right Metrics and Benchmarks
The next step is to choose the right metrics for measuring a particular campaign. As mentioned earlier, measuring different goals requires different metrics. Let’s extend the example above to understand this in detail.
Since an awareness campaign should increase brand recognition, the right metrics are customer engagement and reach are the right metrics. On the other hand, you can easily measure the effectiveness of a promotional campaign by measuring its ROI.
Choosing the wrong metrics might still give you a look into your campaign’s performance. However, you won’t get the holistic view and actionable data that the right metrics bring to the table.
Once you’ve chosen the metrics, you must create some benchmarks. You must have something to compare your results against. Otherwise, how will you know if your results are good or not? Now, while there are multiple ways to do this, simply setting SMART goals can give you an idea.
Let’s say your goal was to “Increase website traffic from organic search by 20% over the next three months.” If your campaign was able to get this number within three months, it means it was effective.
Apart from this, you can look at your history. Striving to outshine your own numbers is an excellent strategy to improve your business. Alternatively, you can compare your numbers to industry standards and averages. Reaching those numbers is another way to improve your efforts.
However, don’t forget to research how your competitors are doing. By comparing your numbers to similar businesses, you can set yourself apart and outshine the competition.
3. Create a Schedule
Tracking and measuring a campaign’s performance isn’t a one-time venture. Since the beginning of this discussion, we’ve been emphasizing the fact that you need to track things continuously.
However, this doesn’t mean you should spend countless hours every day on this task.This will only take away your focus from other things like strategy. Instead, work up a schedule and follow it to track your campaigns. Most marketers do this every month or every few months.
Besides, there should be a set time frame for each campaign. Once that duration passes, you should replace the campaign with something else. This way, you engage your audience, and you’ll be able to experiment. The point of the matter is to consider this time frame when you create a tracking schedule.
Marketers who track and improve their campaigns successfully often do this with the help of an analytics tool. They also have a marketing tool to automate emails and enhance efficiency. You can monitor open rates and customer loyalty analytics.
You must follow in their footsteps if you want the same for your business. Now, while multiple free tools exist, the more effective ones come at a cost. The best direction would be to research options and choose the one that fits your marketing budget.
Google Analytics is one of the best options when starting out. It is available for free for all businesses.
So, use it to track the customer journey across the sales funnel through things like website traffic, bounce rate, etc.
5. Share the Results
A marketing strategy isn’t the product of a single person’s effort. From creative teams to data analysts, all are stakeholders here. So, everyone should be aware of the marketing campaign success.
Again, simply sharing the numbers won’t be enough. You’ll have to share the insights so decision-makers can make better decisions.
However, sharing this data isn’t easy. Your best bet is to use a tool where you can store the information and segment it before analyzing it. Google Data Studio is a good option, especially if you’re just starting.
How To Measure Marketing Campaign Effectiveness Using Metrics?
Earlier, we discussed why you must choose the right metrics when measuring a marketing campaign. Your next move should be to learn how to measure marketing campaign effectiveness using metrics. You should also be curious about the metrics you can use. Here are five of the most common ones:
- Return on investment (ROI): It measures the difference between revenue from SMS or email marketing campaigns compared to its cost. However, not all campaigns have an immediate ROI. An example would be awareness campaigns.
- Cost per lead (CPL): Taking things to a finer detail, CPL measures your investment to gain a single lead. However, this metric is more useful for long-term campaigns.
- Cost per acquisition (CPA): CPA measures the cost you bear to acquire a customer. It differs from CPL because a lead might not bring immediate revenue, but an acquisition does.
- Website visits: As the name suggests, this metric tells you the number of people who visited your website. When more people visit your website, you have more chances of making sales.
- Cost per click (CPC): Platforms like social media and Google often charge a specific amount per click from a campaign. This is the cost per click.
How To Measure Influencer Campaigns in 3 Different Ways
The fact that a blog or social media profile influences the decision of 60% of shoppers makes influencer marketing effective. People follow certain people in every industry and trust their words. Getting them to promote your brand means you get a broader reach and a surge in sales.
However, not all influencers have the same “influence.” It takes time to find the right one to make the face of your brand. For this process, you’ll need to measure influencer campaigns and make the appropriate changes. So, here are three ways to measure such campaigns.
1. Campaign Reach
The main goal of influencer campaigns is to ensure your content reaches a broader audience. You want to combine the influencer’s audience and your own to get as many eyes on your business as possible.
Analyzing the campaign’s reach can help determine whether a particular campaign achieves this goal.
However, remember that “reach” usually refers to the number of unique people the campaign reaches. Your followers already know and love your brand. Getting new loyal customers will work in your favor now.
You can also check how many impressions a particular influencer campaign gets. It differs from reach because every time a person sees the ad, you’ll get an impression.
2. Engagement, Conversion, and Sentiment
While reach and impressions give you insights into how your influencer campaign performed, they’re not enough. Your campaign might reach hundreds, even thousands of people.
But what’s the use if they don’t do anything after seeing the campaign? You’ll lose money if people outright ignore it.
So, tracking engagement, conversion, and sentiment works in your favor. See how many people engaged with the campaign and showed interest. You should also check how your overall engagement changed after the campaign. If it increases, that particular influencer is the right choice.
While checking engagement, also see what sentiment people have towards your brand. Did the comments show excitement? Were they positive or negative? These things will help you judge the effectiveness better.
On the other hand, conversion rates will tell you how many people took the intended action.
3. Brand Awareness and Traffic
Apart from conversions, reach, impressions, engagement, and sentiment, you can also track brand awareness and traffic from influencer campaigns. For this, you must check how much awareness and traffic you had before running the campaign.
Then, compare those figures with what you have after running the campaign.
You’re using the influencer’s following to reach new people. As a result, you should see an increase in brand awareness and traffic. If you don’t, it might be time to try a different influencer or change the campaign.
3 Steps To Use Campaign Measurement to Your Advantage
Now that you know how to measure your campaign’s performance, how do you use this data? As mentioned, campaign measurement isn’t just about calculation. So, follow these three steps to use this process to your advantage:
- Identify trends and patterns: Proper and continuous measurement often reveals patterns and trends that might be good or bad. Identify these trends and use them to guide your future campaigns.
- Segment and analyze data: Measuring your campaigns will give you a plethora of data to manage. Segmenting this data based on various factors would be a good idea before analyzing.
- Extract actionable insights: Once you’ve identified trends and segmented your data, you can extract actionable insights from it. These insights will help you improve your efforts.
Frequently Asked Questions About Campaign Measurement
Before officially ending this discussion, let’s answer a few frequently asked questions about campaign measurement.
Why Is Campaign Measurement Important?
Campaign measurement is essential because it provides data-driven insights. Marketers can use this data to assess the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.
This gives them the means to optimize their strategies in real time and achieve better results by making informed decisions.
What Key Metrics Should I Track in a Marketing Campaign?
The key metrics you should track in a marketing campaign depend on its goal and broadcast channel. However, the most common metrics include conversion rate, click-through rate (CTR), cost per acquisition (CPA), and cost per lead (CPL).
Apart from these monetary metrics, you can also track engagement, reach, and sentiment.
How Do I Set Realistic Benchmarks for My Campaign’s Measurement?
You can set realistic benchmarks for your campaign’s measurement by factoring in historical data. Comparing the results to your previous campaigns will help you learn how you’ve improved over time.
Industry averages also play a role in setting realistic benchmarks. You can see how you’re doing against your competitors and devise ways to stand apart.
Analyze and Improve Until You Achieve the Desired Results
Campaign measurement isn’t just about recording the numbers and storing them away. It’s your chance to use the insights, experiment, and improve your marketing campaigns.
After all, the perfect marketing strategy doesn’t shape up in a day or even months. You need years of experimentation and improvement until you achieve your desired results.
However, markets change, and people and their demands change too. So, the perfect strategy won’t always remain perfect. You’ll still have to measure things, factor in the changes, and continuously make improvements for consistent results.
If you want to increase your positive reputation and attract customers, consider adding WiFi marketing software to your repertoire.
At Beambox, we offer unique software that gives insights into your customer’s interests. That way, you can perfect your marketing effort. Ready to learn more?
Start your free trial to start growing your business!
