How do you measure advertising and marketing ROI?
Before any business invests money they have the desire to get a return on their investment (ROI). While major companies such as Apple, Google, GE and IBM will sink money into research and development, the ultimate goal is to make more money in the long run. The same is true when it comes to advertising. Before spending $3 million on a Super Bowl ad, GoDaddy does the research to determine their return on the investment. How can you determine you return on investment?
How to Measure Advertising
To measure advertising you need to be able to plot two points. A "before" point is measured before you begin advertising, and your "after" point is measured either along the way or after your ad campaign is complete. It these two points that will tell you whether your advertising was successful or not.
In any advertising campaign you will be able to implement a tracking layer. For a TV commercial the correct tracking method might be a unique website address or to purchase a specialized 1-800 number to verify where the calls or contacts are coming from.
When it comes to a digital advertising strategy there are a number of analytics programs available including Google Analytics for Business. With these analytics programs you can very easily track new visitors to your website along with many other important metrics.
Even within social media platforms there are many different insights that can be measured including likes, retweets, and shares. Metrics, and analytics are just a few of the reasons most businesses should be on Facebook.
Throwing spaghetti at the wall and then turning around before seeing if it sticks is a very bad business practice. Measuring advertising can be a challenge but it is necessary to determine your ROI. And if it's worth doing, it's worth measuring.
Where Can You Get the Most Bang for Your Buck?
This can be a tricky question for most business owners as no one wants to spend money where there is very little to no ROI. But how do you know where you can get the most bang for your buck? Time and again we are asked this question, and the answer is different for every business.
Understanding your customer is extremely important when it comes to effectively advertising and getting a return.
Just because a company in another industry is doing a certain form of marketing does not mean that you should do the same. Print advertising may be right for them, and completely wrong for you. But, if no one else is doing it you may end up getting rock bottom prices which will return even more ROI in the long run.
The key to this equation is how can you reach the highest potential audience for your services at the lowest possible price. The only way to figure this out is to fully understand your potential customers. When you fully understand your customer, you will fully understand how to reach them with the highest ROI.
How Long Does it Take to Get a Return?
This is a question that can only be answered after creating a very detailed advertising plan. Advertising can be very effective very quickly, and it can also be very effective over the long haul. Your marketing plan will dictate the speed with which you achieve success. The reason is that some marketing plans work really hard upfront, and disappear just as fast. Others, in particular digital marketing start slower but work much harder longer term.
