Have you ever wondered if your marketing campaigns are really working? If they are generating the expected results and bringing returns to your business? If you don't know how to answer these questions, then you need to learn how to evaluate the performance of your marketing campaigns.
Evaluating the performance of marketing campaigns is an essential step for any digital marketing strategy. After all, it's not enough just to create and launch campaigns. You also need to monitor and measure their effects, to find out whether they are achieving the objectives set, whether they are profitable and whether they need to be adjusted or improved.
In this article, we'll explain what marketing campaigns are, how they are created and why it's so important to measure their results. In addition, we'll present the best marketing metrics for you to monitor the success of your actions and optimize your processes. Let's go?
What are marketing campaigns and how are they created?
They are a set of actions planned and executed with a specific objective, such as increasing sales, generating leads, strengthening the brand, building customer loyalty, among others.
Marketing campaigns can be carried out on different channels, such as social networks, email marketing, blogs, websites and paid ads, but to be successful you need to follow a few basic steps:
- Define the objective of the campaign, i.e. what you want to achieve with it, what problem you want to solve or opportunity you want to take advantage of;
- Know your target audience, i.e. the people you want to reach with your campaign. What are their characteristics, needs, pains and desires?
- Choosing the channels where you are going to publicize your campaign, opting for the most appropriate means of communicating with your audience;
- Create a message that reflects the value proposition of your campaign so that you can convince people to take action;
- Define the budget, i.e. how much you are going to invest in your campaign. This also involves defining how you are going to distribute this amount between the different channels;
- Establish the indicators, which are nothing more than the marketing metrics that will help you measure the results of your campaign.
Why evaluate campaign performance?
Evaluating the performance of marketing campaigns is essential to know if they are meeting their objectives and if they are generating a positive return on investment (ROI).
What's more, by analyzing the data from the campaigns, you can check whether they are in line with the objectives of your business and your target audience.
You can also identify the strengths and weaknesses of your strategies, opportunities for improvement and trends in the market and consumer behavior.
With analysis, you can find out how many people were impacted by your campaign, how many interacted, which channels were the most effective and which messages were the most persuasive.
Based on concrete data and not guesswork or assumptions, you can increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your marketing actions, reducing costs and waste and maximizing opportunities and profits.
Best marketing metrics to evaluate the success of campaigns
You hear a lot about marketing metrics, but do you know what they mean?
In a nutshell, we can say that these are indicators that allow you to measure the performance of your marketing campaigns in different aspects, such as reach, engagement, conversion, loyalty, satisfaction, and many others.
There are various indicators that can be used to evaluate the success of your campaigns, but not all of them are relevant or suitable for your business or your objectives.
That's why it's important to choose the ones that make the most sense for your reality and that help you answer the questions you want to know about your campaigns.
Below, we'll present some of the main marketing metrics you can use to evaluate the success of your campaigns:
Number of visitors
The first metric that helps you evaluate the performance of your marketing campaigns is the number of visitors.
It indicates how many people have accessed your website or blog over a given period, and shows the potential reach of your campaigns and the level of interest your audience has in your content.
To obtain more accurate results, the ideal is to segment this metric by traffic source (organic, paid, direct, social) to find out which channels bring the most visitors to your website or blog.
Click-through rate (CTR)
This is one of the most popular and important digital marketing metrics.
As its name suggests, it indicates how many people clicked on a particular link or button on a page or in an advertisement.
In other words, it shows the level of engagement of your audience with your calls to action (CTAs) and the efficiency of your campaigns in attracting users' attention.
And just like the number of visitors, this metric can also be segmented to make it easier to analyze the results and make them more accurate. In this case, you can segment this metric by type of CTA (text, image, video, etc.) to find out which formats generate the most clicks.
Conversion rate
The conversion rate is a metric that indicates how many people took a certain desired action on a page or in an ad, such as filling in a form, downloading a material or making a purchase, for example.
In general, it shows the level of conversion of your audience with your offers and the effectiveness of your campaigns in generating leads or customers.
Email open rate
The email open rate indicates how many people opened a particular marketing email you sent. It shows the level of interest your audience has in your content and the relevance of your subjects and headlines, and helps you discover the types of email that generate the most opens.
Length of stay
Another indicator that helps evaluate the performance of marketing campaigns is dwell time. It shows how long people stayed on a particular page or on a particular ad.
It is very useful for showing the level of engagement your audience has with your content and the quality of your information and design.
You can segment this metric by type of page (home, product, service, blog, etc.) or by type of ad (banner, video, carousel, etc.) to find out which types of page or ad generate the most permanence.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
CAC is another of the essential marketing metrics for your business, as it indicates how much you spent to acquire a new customer.
In other words, it shows the level of profitability of your campaigns and how much they are costing your business.
To find out the customer acquisition cost of your campaign, divide the total amount invested in marketing by the total number of customers acquired in a given period.
Segmenting this metric by marketing channel (SEO, paid media, social networks) helps you know which channels generate the most customers at the lowest cost.
Return on investment (ROI)
Finally, one of the most important marketing metrics: ROI (Return on Investment).
Its aim is to show how much you have earned in relation to what you have invested in a particular campaign or marketing action. In other words, the level of return on your campaigns and how much revenue they are generating for your business.
You can calculate this metric by subtracting the total amount invested in marketing from the total amount generated in revenue and dividing the result by the total amount invested in marketing.
Doubts about the process? CMLO&CO will help you!
Now that you know how to evaluate the performance of your marketing campaigns, you can apply these metrics to your strategy and monitor your results with more precision and confidence.
But if you still have doubts about how to do this or if you need help creating and optimizing your marketing campaigns, you can count on CMLO&CO, your strategic partner for planning, executing and evaluating your marketing actions, using the best tools and techniques on the market.
Get in touch with our experts, get accurate and reliable results on your campaigns and make more assertive decisions in favor of growing your business.