How to Measure Marketing at the Right Level

In previous blogs, we’ve shared the first and second phases of executing an operational marketing plan. Too often, marketers only measure metrics at the channel level. Doing so is limiting because it doesn’t indicate if you are targeting the right people with the right messages. That’s especially true if you’re broadcasting several marketing messages to multiple audiences on the same channel.

In this blog, we will discuss why measuring your return on investment at the campaign level is important in order to get the most out of your marketing budget and efforts, and shed light onto how you can achieve operational success with strategic budget allocation and data-driven insights. By taking a look at the campaign level, marketers can analyze how each channel is performing and make better decisions on where to allocate their budget. This will help increase ROI and improve overall marketing performance.

When it comes to advertising, it can be difficult to determine whether a channel is working or not. Take Facebook, for example.. More than likely, you’re running several ads targeted at different audiences with different messages. If none of your ads are performing well, then you may not have chosen the correct channel (for instance, maybe the audience you are hoping to reach doesn’t spend much time on Facebook). When you can’t see if the issue is in the target audience or the content, it can be challenging to assess the success (or lack thereof) of the ad. Dropping the whole channel would be a mistake, but zeroing in on the ads that delivered positive ROI would be wise. However, determining the ROI at that level can be a challenge.

If you measure ROI at the channel-level only, when budget cuts arrive, your expensive channels will be cut first since they tend to generate a lower ROI. It’s important to maintain multiple channels to reach a variety of audiences. Rolling multiple channels (free, low cost, and expensive) under a campaign and reporting on ROI at the campaign level masks the true costs of expensive channels and might incorrectly convince you to keep spending.

The better approach is to run a campaign-based marketing plan and measure spend and performance at the campaign level. If you tie paid channels, such as advertising, with free channels, such as email, you can reduce overall costs by aggregating the expenses at the campaign level.

 

By being strategic about allocating your budget and measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns, you can reach more people with fewer resources and get a better return on your investment. This takes a comprehensive approach to your marketing strategy, with an understanding of how each channel works and how it fits into the overall plan. Making sure each channel is optimized and that you have an efficient process for tracking leads and measuring performance is critical to success.

Here are three things you must do to ensure the success of your marketing plan:

• Develop a system for tracking your marketing efforts through to a sale.
• Practice good data hygiene by cleaning your data regularly (garbage in, garbage out).
• Maintain accurate budget and expense management to ensure you are optimizing your spend.

Each year brings its own set of challenges, so it is essential to take every measure to ensure that your marketing plan is successful. Earlier this year, we outlined 20 reasons why marketing plans fail and developed a guide for creating goals, visibility and consistency for team alignment which are detailed in this eBook.

Download “How to Execute a Marketing Plan with Operational Excellence” today, and learn how to efficiently and accurately execute your plan to achieve your goals.