There’s a lot that goes into launching a successful campaign: creating ad content, securing a budget, and optimizing for the most clicks and conversions. One step that ties all of the above together is deciding how to measure the effectiveness of a digital marketing campaign.
There’s more to campaign success than monitoring sales. Social media audience growth, email list sign-ups, website traffic, consumer sentiment, digital presence, and brand awareness are all worthy outcomes of a marketing campaign. But sales alone won’t paint an accurate picture of your success.
Measuring your campaigns starts in the earliest stages of planning. Let’s look at how to measure a digital marketing campaign in a way that ties directly to your campaign goals.
Here’s how to measure the success of a digital marketing campaign in 6 steps:
1. Set SMART Goals for the Campaign
Setting and achieving goals is a key part of any successful digital marketing campaign, yet many people struggle to do so effectively. One reason for this is because their goals aren’t focused enough.
The remedy: Set SMART goals. Smart goals are those that meet all of the following criteria:
- They are specific.
- They are measurable.
- They are achievable.
- They are relevant.
- They are time-bound.
A specific goal is one that is clearly defined and easy to understand. It answers the question, “What do I want to achieve?”
A measurable goal is one that allows you to choose metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress. For example, instead of saying you want to improve your marketing performance, you could say, “I want to get 100 new social media followers as a result of this campaign.”
Achievable goals take into account your ability and likelihood of bringing that goal to fruition. For example, spending $5 on Google Ads and expecting $5 million in sales is unrealistic. Take into account your resources and other factors to see what outcomes are within your reach.
Relevant goals tie back to your big picture. Ask yourself: Why are you setting this goal? What will achieving this goal do for your business or brand in the long run?
And finally, timely goals have a deadline. Instead of saying you want to increase your social media following, you could say, “I want to add 100 new followers in three days.”
Once you have your goals in mind, you can develop a sound strategy that directly relates to those goals.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
The audience you target can make or break whether you achieve your goals. If you don’t know who you’re speaking to in your campaign, your message will fail to resonate.
Think:
- Who is this campaign for?
- Why should they care?
- On which channels are they most active? (e.g., TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, email, etc.)
- What characteristics do they share? (e.g., age, gender, income, interests, values, etc.)
- What is your audience’s current familiarity with your brand?
- What makes them buy or convert?
You can discover these nuances among your target audience with data-driven consumer insights. For example, Meltwater’s consumer insights platform, Radarly, goes beyond basic social listening to get a more thorough understanding of your ideal customer.
3. Choose Digital Metrics That Reflect Your Goals
KPIs and metrics are a big part of SMART goals. They give you a way to track your progress and see whether your marketing campaigns met your expectations. And they do this through hard data — not hunches and guesswork.
But let’s be honest; there are tons of things you could measure. Marketers can fall down a rabbit hole of metrics and still not know whether their campaigns were successful.
Website Traffic Metrics
An increase in website traffic can be a healthy sign of overall growth. But within the website traffic ecosystem, there are a number of metrics that marketers can look at for clearer signs of digital marketing success.
Traffic by Source
Where are your website visitors coming from? Are they clicking through from ads? Or social media? Or a backlink from a website you’ve partnered with in your campaign? Reviewing traffic sources can give you a good indication of whether your campaign is working.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave your website after viewing just one page and taking no further action. This metric is a strong quality signal that shows whether you’re getting qualified, interested leads.
Also worth noting, bounce rate is different from exit rate. The exit rate shows the percentage of people who leave your website after viewing a particular page but have viewed or engaged with more than one page.
Page Views
Visitors who view more than one page during their session could indicate good lead quality. It helps you see whether others find value in your entire website or just a small part of it.
New vs Returning Visitors
Having mostly new visitors to your website could be a sign that not enough people cared about your content, product, or service to return. But a high number of returning visitors indicates the opposite — people are genuinely interested in what you do and keep coming back for more.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate refers to the specific desired action a user takes on your website. The desired action could be anything from making a purchase to signing up for a newsletter. A high conversion rate is the goal of any good marketing campaign because it means that more people are taking the desired action.
You can use Google Analytics or other analysis tools to track your website conversion rates.
Session Duration
The session duration is the average time someone spends on your website. A high session duration indicates that people saw value in your content.
Depending on the channels you use, there may be channel-specific metrics to monitor. Some general examples include:
- Social Media Follower Growth
As more people discover your brand on social media, your audience count is likely to change. Get a before-and-after snapshot of your social followers to see how many more people became interested in your brand. - Social Reach
Social reach shows you how far your posts have traveled. Use this metric to see how many people saw your content. - Impressions
Impressions tell you the number of times your campaign was viewed. It does not take into account the number of people who saw it, as one person might make up several impressions. - Engagement
Knowing the engagement of your social media posts give you an idea of how other people felt about it. Engagement metrics (sometimes called vanity metrics) include likes, shares, comments, Retweets, and clicks (if applicable).
4. Set Up Metrics Tracking
In addition to choosing the right KPIs, you also need to set up a way to track them. Google Analytics, other website analytics tools, and built-in social media analytics are great places to start.
Another option is to centralize your analytics in an all-in-one, third-party platform, like Meltwater. With digital marketing becoming more complex and campaigns taking an omnichannel approach,
Meltwater can help to anchor your metrics tracking
5. Analyze and Report on Your Results
Reporting on your performance can be a time-consuming process. But it’s a necessary part of understanding your online advertising success.
Centralizing your analytics and digital marketing metrics gives you an additional advantage when compiling your insights into reports. With all of your insights in the same place, you can quickly and easily turn that data into thorough, informative reports.
Analyzing your campaign results gives you a better understanding of what worked and what didn’t. This helps you to make effective changes for future campaigns to earn better results.
6. Learn From Your Outcomes
Learning how to measure success of a digital marketing campaign includes one last step: making good use of your findings.
All the data you collect and things you measure aren’t helpful unless you apply them in future campaigns. Without this final step, your digital marketing metrics won’t live up to their full potential.
Real-time insights from Meltwater allow you to learn from your outcomes before your campaign ends. Instead of taking a reactive approach, you can continually optimize your campaigns to get the best possible outcomes.
Ultranet –
For enquiries on any of our expertise or services, whether it is for website design & development, mobile application development, or digital media marketing, please feel free to contact or WhatsApp +6016-2032 000, email [email protected] or visit https://ultranet.com.my Thank you.
