For most companies, the marketing optimization process never ends. Smart marketers continuously use past insights to modify strategies, redesign metrics, and analyze new information. Without accurate measurement, however, it’s impossible to use data to improve upon past efforts. Identifying the most valuable metrics is therefore both a pivotal and elusive component of the marketing process. When so many variables are at play and constantly in flux, how can you accurately measure success?
It’s no surprise that the data analysts at Movéo believe in the power of identifying KPIs and setting benchmarks. After a few rounds of implementation and analysis, data can provide a guiding light for what often seems like a shot in the dark. In today’s post, we’re taking a look at three ways marketers can set and pursue new goals based on insights from data.
Although it’s important for marketers to focus on the big picture, make sure your benchmarks aren’t too aggregated. Simply measuring “engagement” won’t be very useful when it comes time to distinguish the most effective aspects of your campaigns in order to make future budgeting decisions. The Content Marketing Institute recommends focusing on channel-specific interactions instead of broader categories. By segmenting data collection by channel, you’ll be able to discern whether Facebook ads, mobile search or weekly emails drove the most engagement, and use that information to optimize the next stage of your campaign.
Return on Investment (ROI) is a key metric in almost all areas of business, and marketing campaigns are no exception. Before you can measure ROI, however, you have to define what it means to your organization. Doing so accurately usually involves meeting with the sales and finance teams to develop one key definition of ROI and then pooling data from multiple sources (CRM, marketing automation and financial systems) to optimize data collection. Once you’ve begun collecting cross-departmental data, you can carefully set metrics based on company-wide goals, instead of those specific to the marketing department’s definition of success.
In a recent post, we mentioned using data to identify customer segments. Of course, simply identifying the segments is only half the battle — you also have to set benchmarks to ensure that you’ll glean value from them going forward. To do so, set different goals based on your marketing efforts for each persona. For example, imagine your website tracker has identified a large portion of your monthly visitors as 25 to 40 year old women. Last month’s data indicates that most of them came to the website from Facebook ads, and set a specific benchmark dedicated to increasing your monthly Facebook reach to this group.
Successful marketing embraces the idea of continuous improvement, and accurate measurement is at the helm of this process. Don’t let a lack of data inhibit your campaign’s success – ensure that measurement and analytics are at the core of your organization’s approach to marketing. Learn to capitalize on this ever-changing marketing world in our white paper, Return on acceleration.
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