How to Measure Digital Marketing Campaign
In this research article, we’ve described and explained each element of the digital marketing measurement model and have included some important analytic tools used to measure digital marketing performance and effectiveness. It’ll help in-
- Measuring Digital Marketing Performance
- Measuring Digital Marketing ROI
- Measuring Digital Marketing Effectiveness
Measuring the success of an engaging, exciting and effective digital marketing campaign is considered to be the most essential and the vital part. It is the key responsibility of a brand or a business to measure the digital marketing effectiveness. Evaluation of the success rate on each platform, channel and device, will help reveal the status of a campaign. The evaluation process of a campaign includes three stages- past, present and future. A brand should be able to perform better in the present as compared to the past, and it must have the capability to outperform the present in the future.
Let us suppose, a brand’s marketing campaign has been achieved a 20% growth in the past, is geared for another 10% in the present, and in the future, wants an incremental growth of 30%. First, they will have to leverage and effectively utilise all possible platforms, channels and mediums to make their digital marketing campaign achieve the target. But, to know the actual numbers and judge the success rate they would require to analyse and evaluate every aspect of their campaign. This is the most vital step to deliver the best digital marketing services. That is the reason a renowned digital marketing agency would consider this as his key responsibility while serving its client.
But, to get a proper evaluation report, every brand and manager needs to first be aware of the procedures and processes of digital marketing measurement process:
- First, choosing the correct digital marketing measurement tools,
- Second, getting acquainted with digital marketing measurement formula,
- Third, utilizing the knowledge of digital marketing measurement model,
- Fourth, considering all essential digital marketing metrics analytics.
Digital Marketing Measurement Tools
Measuring tools are the most important elements that are used by any creator or evaluator to help evaluate the end result of a brand campaign.
There are several tools that can be used effectively to measure a successful digital marketing campaign, but it is not possible to use each and every tool for every time. That is the reason, a brand has to choose tools that are best suited to judge the success rate of brand campaign.
For example, when it comes to a tailor, he/she never uses all tools available to them to create a designer dress. The use of tools is dictated by the design of the dress, the cloth to be used, its final purpose and the measurement of the person who will wear it.
Similarly, as a digital marketer the choice should depend solely on the criteria of the product or service for which the campaign is designed, its time period, demography, target sales, etc. To help marketers, some of the best digital marketing measurement tools have been listed below:
A single tool that is helpful for data collection, configuration, data processing and reporting. It’s specialized data reviewing feature helps to analyze the performances of the website or page, apps and different marketing channels used during the campaign. Google Analytics consists of JavaScript code on each page of websites, a data collection feature and a processing engine that presents the reports.
It is a unique tool of Google for designing and maintaining the PPC ads. It also enables to monitor the statistics so that brands can track the success of the ads by calculating the return on investment.
- Google Search Console (aka Webmaster):
It is a tool set to understand what is going on within the website. Google Search Console or Webmaster Tools helps to analyze contents, identify technical errors, check indexing status and optimize visibility of the websites. Search Console or Webmaster reviews a website the way a crawler views and crawls it and presents the detailed report in the dashboard to the website owner.
It allows to set alerts for a personal name, brand name and products. These alerts help notifications to remain updated. That is the main reason it is good to be used as a social media tool.
This tool helps to discover high-value audiences by applying real-time analytics and detailed segmentation.
Its analytics use simple dashboard interface to reveal the true picture of customers’ interaction with the brand across different channels.
It is an advanced analytics platform that answers the queries of reporting actions. It is apt for mobile and web functions.
It is an ideal tool to identify business KPIs. It is brilliant as it first explores the user database and then creates personalized user experiences for better app performances.
It is a unique online tool that helps to shorten the URL so that it becomes easier to share among different platforms. But, it is easy to measure the success rate of bit.ly URL. Add (a +) at the end of each bit.ly URL to count the number of clicks, track the location of the clicks and identify the top referrers. This is suitable not only for the brand URLs, but also to track competitor’s URL.
This tool helps to get a clear and complete overview of social media performance in real time and measure the team’s performance. Hootsuite analytics share customized reports of each social media platform’s performance. These reports are shown in dashboard called Boards mentioning the in-depth analysis of all platforms.
It is a tool to measure digital marketing campaigns with the help of mobile app attribution and data management procedure.
Digital Marketing Measurement Formula
Formulas are extremely essential to calculate and realize how the brand’s campaign has fared. It helps to compute and fetch the exact value based on all the variables required.
Digital revenue can be calculated on the basis of three factors/variables:
- Traffic
- Conversion Rate
- Product Value
By multiplying these three factors, exact digital revenue can be calculated:
Digital Revenue = Traffic x Conversion Rate x Product Value
Digital revenue is considered as one of the biggest parameters to measure digital marketing success for a brand or an organization. To generate more digital revenue, bring a significant change in one or all of the three mentioned factors.
Quality content and compelling social media posts will help to increase the traffic flow of brand’s website. Better user experience on the website can improve conversion rate and personalized approach towards customers can increase sales figure. If the right customer is targeted for the right product, sales volume will definitely show a remarkable, upward growth.
The effectiveness of brand’s digital marketing strategy can also be measured by the number of interactions and involvements of the existing and potential customers with a website.
Those interactions can be in the form of comments, reviews, likes, reactions, shares and ratings.
The response can come in any format, but each format should be trackable over time to analyse gains or losses.
Digital Marketing Measurement Model
A universal model of digital marketing elaborately estimates the success rate of a campaign. A customer has to willingly and happily walk across a five-level path before he/she becomes a loyal customer. The model above showcases each of the five levels of gaining the trust of every single customer. Those five levels of diffusion of a customer covers:
- Awareness – He/she gets some information from some sources and is aware of the brand right now.
- Consideration – He/she has considered the brand above other competitors.
- Research – He/she starts researching about the brand to know more and explores the website.
- Purchase – He/she buys products, avails services or indulges into building business connections.
- Relationship – He/she is satisfied with the products/services and becomes a repeat and loyal customer. Once a customer is loyal the chances of the recommending the brands to others become high.
It is true that at each level a customer may be convinced to move to the next level or may retreat. It is here that the challenge for marketers lies – design a campaign in a convincing way that each customer is convinced or excited to cross a level until they reach the ultimate end.
The model comprises of five parameters, which are set at the initial level of campaign formation and later evaluation is also done on the basis of these factors. Those parameters are:
- Objectives
- Goals
- KPIs
- Segments
- Targets
On the scale of these five parameters, the diffusion of a customer from one level of conversion to another level is calculated. Marketers should give values to each customer on every parameter. This will make it easier to evaluate whether customers are reaching to desired levels to meet the campaigns expectations or not.
Digital Marketing Metrics Analytics
Digital marketing metrics are the parameters that reveal the results of marketers’ efforts. These metrics are evidences or proofs to differentiate between the desired goals and the real achievements of a marketing strategy.
Traffic in digital marketing is the number of visitors engaging with the website. It can also be explained as the data sent or received by a website.
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- Overall : Overview of all web traffic that engages with the website from all sources are the website’s overall traffic.
- Mobile : Traffic flow that use smartphones and other internet-capable mobile devices to access the internet and visit the website is the mobile traffic.
- Traffic Source : The traffic flow to the website can be from various sources/mediums. It is important to track the source of each traffic coming to a site. That is the main reason, why the acquisition section in Google Analytics is gaining popularity. There are various channels like direct, organic, referral, social and others, through which traffic enters the site.
- Demographic : A brand should be targeting a definite section of the market as per the products and services. If it is a youth-centric brand, most of the customers will be millennials and hence it is important to know which demography the campaign is attracting.
- New vs Returning : For every campaign, there will be some new customers and some repeat ones. Attractive things help to grab the attention of new customers, while quality and consistency help to keep repeat customers loyal.
The traffic coming to the website as a result of a digital marketing campaign needs to be converted into customers. An increase in the number of leads is more likely to better sales growth and it will define more success rate of the campaign.
Traffic moving away from the website without engaging with the site is considered the bounce rate. Since all traffic does not engage, a marketing strategy should be backed by an appealing landing page.
Sometimes, after visiting a website page, visitors may get interested in a link provided on the page and click on it. This is the exit rate which usually takes the visitor to another website for which links have been provided.
It is the most effective metric to measure the success rate of a digital marketing campaign. On the basis of certain factors- Return on Investment (ROI) and Cost to Acquire a Customer (CAC), a campaign’s effectiveness can be judged. After all, our main motive is to get better engagement, higher conversion and bigger revenues.
Measuring Digital Marketing Effectiveness
Now that there is a clear understanding on how to evaluate, what tools to use, what formula to apply and what metrics to consider, it will be an easy task to carry out the measurement procedure effectively.
Many brands have eventually taken the support of the digital marketing measurement procedures, to evaluate their success and build market positions as leaders who have a loyal and stable standing in their product/services category. Some of the brilliant examples of such brands are Barclays, Royal Mail and Tommy Hilfiger.
Some even believe that it is worth it to spend more to scrutinize the marketing effectiveness, than to grab visitors’ attention. It is highly essential to understand what factors are enticing customers to visit a website. However, these factors depend and vary from one brand to another. Focusing on those key factors, will ultimately help managers carry out successful marketing campaign in future.
Additional Read: Building a Digital Marketing Strategy
FAQs
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What is KPI in digital marketing?
KPIs are key performance indicators – specific and measurable metrics that indicate success of digital marketing across channels. Some popular KPIs include cost per acquisition, revenue, ROI, traffic by channel etc.
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What are digital marketing metrics?
Digital marketing metrics offer you a snapshot of the health of your website or the success of your campaign. With metrics such as traffic, sessions, page views, average session duration (and many more, you can determine your ROI.
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How do you analyse a digital marketing campaign?
You can analyse the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaign based on your goals. If you’re looking at driving awareness, look for changes in traffic, impressions, and shares. If you’re looking at direct responses, look for changes in sign-ups, conversions, sales, click-through-rate, leads etc. The effectiveness of the campaign is measured by looking at the effort vs reward against the initial goals set.
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What is ROI in digital marketing?
ROI is return-on-investment – a measure of profit or loss you generate based on monies invested. In simpler terms, it answers the question of whether you are getting your money’s worth.
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What are digital marketing tools?
Digital marketing measurement tools are the most important elements that are used by any creator or evaluator to help evaluate the end result of a brand campaign. There are several tools that can be used effectively to measure a successful digital marketing campaign, but it is not possible to use each and every tool all the time. A brand must choose tools that are best suited to judge the success rate of campaign.