Measuring The Effectiveness Of Digital Promotional Activity For Business

Effectiveness Digital Promotional Activity

Level 2 Certificate in Digital Promotion for Business (601/6673/3)

Unit 08 Measuring the effectiveness of digital promotional activity for business (H/507/4160)

In this NCFE unit we will investigate and apply a range of digital promotional activities.

Understanding the process and benefits of measuring digital promotional activities.

1.1 Describe Ways To Measure The Effectiveness Of A Digital Promotional Campaign

Different key performance indicators KPI or metrics can be measured through the marketing funnel when a business run sa digital campaign. There are some KPIs that should be mandatory to report on as this way a business understands if the budgets on the campaign are effective.

Before a business look into details a business must understand the difference between the vanity and value metrics in marketing. Vanity metrics are figures that look good but behind the figure no true value is gained from these numbers. An example of this are many figures a business see in social media platforms. The number of followers gained during a campaign looks good but in reality does not equate to revenue for a business or individual.

Conversion rates are what the business Foydigital a digital agency will focus on.

The percentage of conversions of leads to subscribers and then conversions of subscribers to customers a few weeks or months down the line is the best way to measure whether a business is going to make money.

The best ways in which to measure the effectiveness of a digital promotional campaign could be by monitoring the reports on key metrics of value. Keys value to monitor include customer conversion processes along the marketing funnel. By observing these metrics, business are managing and being in control. Businesses are focused on meeting campaign objectives and cost effectiveness. Conversions occur whenever a desired action has taken place on the business website, in short this means a user is moving incrementally down the marketing campaign funnel.

At the top of the marketing funnel. The KPIs to consider are search engines positions for key terms and click throughs, website backlinks and click throughs. Finally social media together with email marketing click throughs to the business marketing website. These are key measurements of engagement of our users.

At the middle of the marketing funnel. The KPIs to consider are measurements from the website. Such as pdf  guide, eBook downloads, unique visitors to key pages such as the sign up for a quote form page and email newsletter form page, i.e a subscription for more newsletter a business can classify as a strong interest and intent to do business in future. The business Foydigital a digital agency can consider all these as micro conversions.

At the bottom of the marketing funnel sales qualified leads are what the business wants and will measure. In acknowledgement of this the KPIs to consider now are conversion goals set up in our analytics platform. These conversions are the following: sales revenue, i.e work started not yet paid for, paid work at a profit, repeat business and referrals given by customers. Sales pipe line conversion are critical to measure the effectiveness of a digital promotional campaign. It is the key goal completion of the business efforts.

To highlight once more the core promotional campaign metrics are looking at:

Call to action CTA click throughs to the website

Lead from forms to customers conversion rate

Sales i.e new customers gained by sales called booked, work agreed and started

Sales from other business services

By looking at the above facts the business will be focusing on meeting campaign objectives and cost effectiveness.

1.2 Compare The Effectiveness Of Digital Promotional Activities

On comparing the effectiveness of digital promotional activities a business needs to look at the cost of the activity against the results produced. The business Foydigital a digital agency is going to compare the following activities website: email, SEO, social media for effectiveness.

A business email address on a basic webpage or a website well developed, designed and launched are the most effective promotional activities followed by search engine optimisation, email marketing and social media.

An effective business website should have a sales button on its key pages, direct contact form for data collection and or an email address. This is critical to sales and is the minimal viable feature for a revenue generating business website.

All other promotional activities point to an email, website or contact details form. The directions are guided by a call to action button (CTA) on these other activities. CTA are from SEO, email marketing and social media activities.

The use of platforms or software packages like Google Analytics (GA), Bing Analytics or Google Console can help a business compare activities. GA is useful in finding out which of these sources brings the most value and benefits to a business. GA finds out which of these brings in the most qualified traffic by a user analysing the section traffic sources. Under this feature a business can see traffic from search, email, social, direct, referral and paid activities.

A comparison of analytics and metrics can be made on a percentage basis.

Results for example can show 55% organic search, 15% paid search  15% email, 5% social media, 5% referral, and 5% direct traffic.

So the businesses top channels are organic search. A business can further summarie that email addresses are more valuable than followers on Twitter i.e social media activities. As they are more engaged by 5%.

Furthermore newsletters click throughs from an email campaign provide more value than just special offers on a referral landing page. Email marketing platforms like MailChimp are hugely useful in creating and tracking campaigns as well as facilitating GDPR compliance.

This section 1 above is about understanding

So what are the benefits of measuring the effectiveness of digital promotional activities?

2.1 Explain Why It Is Important To Measure The Effectiveness Of Digital Promotional Activities

It is important to measure the effectiveness of digital promotional activities to make sure a business is spending its best resources on the best valued area of marketing. This is part of the digital strategy which is linked to the business strategy.

To effectively analyse our digital strategy our objectives should be effective or SMART. This means the business Foydigital a digital agency needs to measure its objectives over time. The strategy is therefore focused. The business Foydigital objectives will motivate the staff and make them accountable.

Checking And Progress  

Proof of success is the key here against the business plan that will keep the business on track. The business can evaluate and revisit the activities afterwards as it will know what is working and what is not working. The business will then adjust and go in a new direction i.e make a change or double down on the direction it is going in.

Over time comparisons should be made over a time period month to month to see if each activity improves the KPIs.

Will digital marketing pay off? Is it effective?

A business will have a budget for digital promotional activities and the business would want to know if its money has been spent well.

So if the overall goal is 5% increase in business sales in 6 months by using SEO organic, paid search, email and social media. To achieve this the budget is split in equal measure for each activity the business can find out of this is working by the end of the time frame set.

Using a spreadsheet the breakdown by months can be looked at to see if the activities are paying off. This then reflects if the budget ROI is working.

A business like Foydigital a digital agency can analyse and then take actions on future spending along the way instead of waiting till the end of the period set.

Read NCFE Level 2 Certificate in Digital Promotion for Business (601/6673/3) course units

2.2 Evaluate The Benefits To A Business Of Measuring The Campaign’s Effectiveness

If a business can not measure a campaign effectiveness it can not market it effectively or manage it to success. There is no accountability to budgets, objectives or set deadlines to make revenue and profits.

Once the business Foydigital a digital agency have the data from measurements. i.e information from key performance indicators KPIs the business will know the most effective marketing channels for the business and can adjust the overall campaign. These qualitative KPIs will come from Google Analytics, SEO reports for keyword searching, online platforms such as SEMrush, email platforms MailChimp, social media analytics from Linkedin, Twitter and Youtube. The business will as a backup to this data look at qualitative data from Trustpilot reviews, feedback, testimonials and Survey Money comments. Positive and negative comments will be looked at so that the business is putting its customers first.

Coordinated campaigns overtime using multiple activities can be developed to get maximum value out of the budget. A business can then stay on track with time constraints and set achievable business goals.

Now, the future and getting there with a plan

A business should know where it is now and where it wants to get to. Then follow a plan to get there with its campaigns.

Once the results of a campaign comes through. A business benefit is giving recommendations or best practice informing its staff on effective future campaigns.

The first benefit from the data above are website improves in user experience UX and user interface UI design.

A further business benefit is A/B campaign testing on content. This technique can then be used for more improvements and more successful campaign goal completions in future. The online tools from the website Crazyegg or optimize.google can be used for this form of testing. Also see cxl.com/copywriting.

Using landing pages is a good way to convert traffic from a social media campaign offer to actions from customers. A/B test may inform us about: 

  • Whether a page needs removal of navigation from a landing page which are distractions 
  • Including social proof and trust i.e reviews
  • Adding known logo and brands etc
  • Including scarcity or exclusivity (that you will not find anywhere else)
  • Using number lead headlines odd numbers 17, 11 etc
  • Magic words copy like secrets, hidden or revealed 

Iterative development

Finally a business benefit is a chance to identify opportunities for innovation and development as the facts are based on solid data, new ways of reaching the market can be tried and evaluated. Using online tools like https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-gb/ are another example of discovery of new insight.

Overall the objective is for the business to evolve, achieve more revenue and profits by using these methods.

This section 2 above is about understanding.