The success of an advertising campaign is not always a straightforward thing to measure. Every campaign needs to be monitored so you know what works best for a specific audience. Whether your company is focused on print, digital or both, there are various ways to measure the success of a campaign.
Let’s look at the best strategies for each.
Ways to Measure the Success of a Print Campaign
A methodical and focused approach helps measure the results of a print ad campaign. While your end goal might be to boost overall sales, you can also break it down to measure more specific things, such as building brand awareness, or boosting sales for a new product or service within a certain time frame or in a new market.
1. Monitor Sales
The simplest way to start is to measure sales volume after you run your ad. The key here is to measure sales before the ad runs, then measure the subsequent results post-ad. It’s also important to remember that results for print ads may take a little time, so don’t rush to measure your post-ad sales. Consider how long the ad may take to reach your audience before you begin.
2. Track Overall Reach
When advertising in a magazine or newspaper, examine its circulation or audience data – such as number of copies distributed and pick-up rate. This gives you a good indication of the potential reach of your ad.
Another helpful approach if you have the time and resources is to conduct surveys of your customers to find out if they’ve seen your ad, and if so, the impact it’s had on them.
3. Identify New Customers
Website visits, requests for information and phone inquiries can all be tracked to discover whether your ad is reaching the right audience. For example, as you’ll see below, tracking unique visitors to your website is a great tool. And you can use a dedicated phone line to track phone orders and other inquiries about your products.
4. Measure Store Traffic
An easy way to tell if your advertising is working is to track retail traffic by simply keeping a count of the number of people who enter your store. As with sales tracking, monitor traffic before you start the ad campaign so you know your base numbers. Asking customers how they heard about your business is another way to find out whether your ad is working.
5. Use Coupons and QR Codes
Include a coupon that customers can redeem for a discount or gift with their purchase. Code the coupons so you can determine which ad or publication generates the best results.
Or use QR codes directly in your ad, which do the tracking work for you. Scanning the QR code records such information as the location of the scan and how many people have scanned it. It can also send customers to a specific URL on your website.
6. Track Sales Incentives
Offer ways for customers to tell you they’re responding to an ad. Incentives such as “Get a 10% discount when you mention this ad” are an easy way to find out where customers are seeing your brand.
Ways to Measure the Success of a Digital Campaign
Measuring digital advertising may seem more straightforward, with click rates and other numerical metrics to draw from. However, not all of them will give you the useful information you need. Here are the key metrics to look at when tracking the effectiveness of a digital campaign.
1. Analyze Click Through Traffic
Click through traffic is the number of visitors that come to your site by clicking your ad. The click through rate (CTR) is the ratio of users who click on the link to the total number of users who view the advertisement. The CTR is commonly used to measure the success of an online advertising campaign. It may seem like a small number, but Google Ads reports that a good CTR is just under 2%.
2. Track Unique Visitors
Unique visitors are the number of individuals who visit your website during a certain timeframe, with each visitor only counted once. Once you launch a print or digital campaign, one of the best indications of its success is an increase in new visitors to your site.
3. Identify Your Conversion Rate
Your conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your site who take a specific action, such as signing up for your newsletter. While tracking click throughs, length of time on your site and how many pages viewed per visit are all great metrics, the best one is actual sales. If they purchase something from your website, you know you really captured them.
4. Record Number of Page Views
This is the number of individual pages that visitors to your site click on. Page views that are higher than unique visitors on your site indicate that your audience is visiting more than just one of your site’s pages, which is a good thing. It means they are really checking you out, which may lead to future sales.
5. Look at the Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors who come to your site and leave before clicking on any other pages is your bounce rate. A bounce rate of less than 40 percent is considered good. If it’s higher than that, you might want to reassess whether the ad content you are putting out there is truly relevant and interesting to your audience.
6. Learn to Track Key Metrics
One of the best ways to track the digital information that results from the above metrics is by setting up a Google Analytics account. It allows you to monitor and analyze data by specifying the metrics you’d like to include.
Plus, looking at your metrics on a regular basis allows you to really see how your digital ads are performing and adjust future campaigns as needed.
Ready to start your campaign? Contact our sales team to find the perfect advertising solution for your business.
This content was produced for the advertiser by RedPoint Media for commercial purposes. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Avenue staff.