Marketing and businesses have always gone hand-in-hand with success or failure. In fact, while the marketing sectors features many shades of grey (so to speak), it does have one very defining characteristic, it’s campaigns are either successes or failures. In fact, a recent Reuters report revealed that digital marketing spend had grown by 44 percent in the United States in 2018 to help propel the global output to $100 billion. The question that remains is, “in a digital world driven by likes, shares, and viral potential, how do you truly measure success?”
Understanding The Competitive Framework
Before I can delve into two very distinct components of measuring digital marketing success, I want to take a moment to look at a few key statistics regarding the spread of digital content. In March 2018, the Radicati Group estimated that there were now 3.8 billion unique email accounts throughout the globe. These 3.8 billion accounts are used to send more than 281 billion emails a day. By 2022 the Radicati Group estimates that the number of daily consumer and business emails will swell to 333 billion. I mention the latter figures because there are countless articles that discuss analyzing open, click-through, and read rates for emails. While measuring the latter items is a great idea to help gauge your level of marketing success, it is important to also remember the heightened level of competition that exists across the Internet.
Regardless of size or industry, marketing teams across the globe need to have a solid content strategy. The challenge for planning, creating, delivering, and managing content is to remember that you are not alone in this quest. Take, for example, social media. It is estimated that there are over 2.77 Billion social media users. Adults, ages 18 and older, typically spend an average of 45 minutes a day on social media, which means that you have a specific timeframe for grabbing their attention. However, an even more astounding statistic comes from the 2018 Nielsen Total Audience Report, which revealed that American adults spend over 11 hours each day interacting with media.
That’s 11 hours when marketing campaigns are being rapidly sent, one after the other, in an attempt to capture the attention of their intended audience. In this vein, when it comes time to measure success in our digital world, there are a multitude of KPIs that could be analyzed. Likes, clicks, shares, open rates, and number of views are just a few of the common KPIs. However, in a heavily competitive market, I think that arguably the most important KPI is the conversion rate for your digital marketing campaign.
The End All Be All … Conversions
Whether it is purchasing a service, signing-up for a mailing list, or scheduling a demo of a product, there are numerous types of conversions. The key to understanding if you have produced a valuable marketing campaign is to a) establish your conversion goals, and then b) measure those goals. For example, you might be conducting an A / B test on your ecommerce site to determine which checkout page performs more effectively. The conversion goal for the latter marketing test might be the number of completed sales that each page achieves. By measuring the number of sales, you will be able to more easily determine which checkout page is better suited for your intended audience.
It’s no secret that the digital world is going to continue to be crowded with competitors. However, instead of “yelling louder than your competitors,” you should take the time needed to create content strategies that are focused on achieving specific conversion goals. While analyzing the traditional KPIs are still incredibly important, the real “end all be all” will inevitably be to determine if you have achieved your established conversion goals. After all, shares, likes, and comments can only take your company so far. In the end, in order to run a successful marketing campaign, you need to convert potential leads into paying customers, which means that success can and should be measured by your conversion rates.
Laura P has written 4,000+ articles, blog posts, product reviews, press releases, and website content for a multitude of clients. In the past 7 years, she has developed written, marketing, video, and web content for clients in the real estate, information technology, restaurant, auto, retail, equine sales, oil and gas, and public relations industries. Laura is highly proficient in SEO optimization, particularly in real estate and retail industries. She ghost wrote IT white papers, government contract task orders, RFIs, and RFPs that resulted in millions of dollars won. She has 7-years of experience working with and interviewing olympic athletes, small-business owners, CEOs, SMEs, and entrepreneurs on complex topics. As a professional writer, Laura strives to create content that is both meaningful and relatable to her readers.
