Every digital marketing campaign has a simple, straightforward goal – to get a positive return on investment.
Yes, the endgame of all marketing and digital marketing, is to increase profits for the client. However, not every campaign will lead to a heap of dollars. Some campaigns are designed to raise awareness for your brand, while others just focus on increasing visibility and bringing more visitors to your website. Both of them will eventually increase profits, but their primary goal is not financial gain. And, because of this, you cannot determine how successful they are. So how do you know if your campaign is successful? How do you measure success in digital marketing?
This short guide will show you nine ways to measure the success of your campaigns. To help you, we’ve split the methods into two separate categories – conversions and website behavior. Let’s begin:
Conversions
Conversions are quite simple to understand – they occur whenever visitors or customers take specific actions because of your digital marketing campaign. For instance, they click on the ads, land on the sales page, and buy the product. These customers “convert,” meaning that you will make a profit almost immediately. Conversions are directly linked to more revenue and better sales, so they are critical if you want to increase profits. You’ll have to make sure the digital marketing campaign converts.
Here are five excellent ways of measuring conversions:
1. Online sales
This is the #1 performance indicator all managers and business owners look at. It’s the simplest conversion metric for gauging success. You just have to track your online sales via any simple tool, like Google Analytics or any similar platform. After installing a simple snippet of code on your website, Google Analytics provides easy-to-understand metrics that will help you see how successful your digital marketing campaigns are.
2. Online-to-store sales
Not every sale will be made online. Some customers will visit your website but will want to visit the physical store to make the purchase. These sales are difficult to measure, but there are ways to do it.
For instance, you can collect information from potential customers on your website. You can collect email addresses from your clients and then compare them with the cash register data. Similarly, if you offer special discount codes, you can check them on your website and at the cash register. If you are doing this right, you can determine how successful your marketing campaign is.
Another more direct way to gauge the campaign’s success is to ask your customers how they find you. Record their answers in a spreadsheet, but make sure you ask for the source of information – did they find you on social media, on Google, or via PPC ads? This will help you determine which strategy works better for you.
3. Leads acquired from web forms
Many websites use forms that customers use to ask for services, get more information, or schedule appointments. Google Analytics helps you see which campaigns result in the most use of these web forms. Every visitor who completes web forms can convert to a customer, which can be very beneficial in the long run. You can determine the success of a marketing campaign by the amount of web form submissions generated.
4. Leads and sales generated by phone calls
Tracking phone calls, and most importantly, the sales generated by those phone calls are essential for every business. Luckily, many software tools can help you track calls and how they generate. The technology is quite simple, and it’s based on the dynamic number insertion (known as DNI); this technology shows the different phone numbers calling your company. After receiving this data, you can look at the phone logs and see which campaign resulted in the most calls.
5. Leads generated by live chats
Live chat implementation on websites can help convert quite well. If you don’t use live chat, try to implement it as soon as possible, as it will bring a boost to your sales.
Once your live chat is working, you can track which campaign works best and which doesn’t. You can do this using Google Analytics, which has a unique feature for live chats.
Web Behavior
These were the five main ways to measure conversions from digital marketing. Let’s go over to the next part of our guide to learn how to track how visitors behave on your website. Keep in mind that not all visitors convert immediately, but you still have to monitor their behavior. Let’s see a few great ways to do it:
6. Tracking website visits
This is probably the most apparent behavior – a prospective client has visited your website and sees what you have to offer. And it’s the simplest to track – you have to use a counter that tells you how many people visit one or more pages on your site.
The metric may seem shallow, but it’s essential to know how many people visit your page. It’s particularly crucial if you want to see traffic trends and how they evolve over time. For instance, you will need to use this metric to measure SEO traffic and see whether your efforts are successful. What’s more, the number will tell you if something goes wrong Ex: You experience a sudden drop in traffic.
7. The number of page views per visit
Sure, website visits are incredibly important, but the metric is very shallow. You don’t see what people are doing and how they behave while visiting your website. The number of page views per visit tells you a lot more – it explains how people visit your site and how many pages they see.
Google Analytics lets you see how your visitors interact with your website, how long they stay on each page, and what they do while there. Pay particular attention to the pages that get the most visits. It will let you know which part of the business is more attractive to clients and where you should focus on in the future. For instance, it will help you focus on specific products or services and develop ideas on how to redesign the website. You can also get ideas for your blog and better understand your visitors’ topics.
8. The time spent on your website
How much time visitors spend on your site? It is an important metric to track if you want to see how successful your digital marketing campaign is. Fortunately, Google Analytics can help you and will give you an in-depth report. No, the time spent on your website won’t tell you a lot about possible sales but will tell you what people want, what they find exciting, and what they are likely to buy in the future.
9. The bounce rates
Bouncing is terrible when it comes to digital marketing. So what is the bounce rate? It’s a metric that tells you how many people hit their “back” button as soon as they land on your website. If your bounce rate is high, there is a severe issue between your site and what visitors expect. Simply put, your marketing strategy is disconnected from components such as your landing page and website. Google also sees high bounce rates as unfavorable and often penalizes these websites. Fortunately, Google Analytics will provide you with an in-depth report to learn more about your bounce rate.
Conclusion
Measuring the success of your digital marketing campaigns is critical for any business. It will save you much stress in the future, and you won’t have to spend money on ineffective campaigns. Tracking will help you adjust, boost, or turn off campaigns, depending on your needs and goals.
Always know how you’ll measure your campaign before launching it. It will need some planning, but it’s worth it. Plan, pay attention to your goals, adjust if needed, and enjoy your campaigns’ success!
