Without measuring digital marketing performance, it’s impossible to determine whether your tactics are generating the right results. Think to yourself: what are your engagement rates, visitors, and leads that can be converted into results?
By doing this, you know how effective your tactics are and can adjust them when things aren’t working. Measuring ROI in digital marketing also ensures you’re getting your money’s worth.
What is ROI in digital marketing?
So, we better talk about what ROI is in digital marketing. It is Return on Investment made on your digital marketing campaign, essentially measuring the profits and losses within them.
- A profit is obviously a positive return and means the campaign is working, bringing in more money than you originally spent on it.
- A loss in money is indicating that something isn’t working and not achieving your goals.
Using your investment as the basis, ROI in digital marketing shows you whether it’s working or not, now we need to look at why. The success of a campaign depends on what your end goal is, from conversion to brand awareness. Define what your goals for your tactics are, then work backward to understand if your tactics are working.
There are various platform metrics that show how people are engaging with your content. Then there are the larger metrics that show how your activity is working. There’s a lot of data you can garner from multiple analytic platforms, so break down the journey.
Let’s start with the platform metrics.
ROI in digital marketing platforms
First things first, you need to provide relevant content for your audience to engage with, this will influence decisions about working with you. Check out how your platforms are performing:
Blog posts
How many people are visiting your blog, and what blog content is being engaged with? What is also important to keep an eye on is if they are unique and returning visitors. Analyse specific pages they are landing on, and the time spent on that page. Are they then going to the contact us page? This could be a conversion…
Social media
Engagement rates, clicks, followers, leads, and conversions are some ways to measure your social media activity.
Open rate, click-throughs, leads and conversions, and bounce rate.
The metrics above show how your content is performing per platform. Next, feed these results into the wider performance goals you should have. These include:
Conversion rate
This is an important way to measure the impact of your digital marketing and there are many strategies available. A conversion depends on your own goals - do you want them to fill out a form, make an initial purchase or simply go through to the contact page? Other examples of conversions can be surveying channels where your traffic comes from. It’s worth noting whether it's organic, a referral, or random.
One channel will normally provide you with more conversions than other channels, though this doesn’t necessarily mean it gets more traffic. It means the visitors that come from this channel are more engaged and more likely to buy or connect with you onsite. You decide what the best conversions should be for your end goal.
Cost per lead
A very useful and popular metric, CPL is an online advertising payment model in which the cost of the advert is determined from the number of qualifying leads achieved. It’s good to know just how much per lead your campaign investment costs. Simply divide your total spend by the number of leads and you’ll see how much each lead costs you. Lots of platforms will help you see how much a lead has cost you at different stages, for example, social media advertising. It’s possible to get very granular with targeting so you can ensure your content gets in front of the right people.
Cost per acquisition
The step-up from cost per lead is the cost per acquisition. This isa financial metric used to directly calculate the revenue impact of your marketing campaigns. Essentially, how much you invested in a campaign to get a new customer. Knowing how much you spend per new customer allows you to see which digital marketing technique works to get the best return. Importantly, you can also balance out how much a customer invests with you versus how much you spend to attain them. Are you getting the customers you deserve? Don’t be afraid to change your tactics if they aren’t working for you.
Customer lifetime value
It’s definitely possible to measure the value of one of your customers over a long-time view of your relationship with them. It’s a core part of digital marketing ROI as it shows how much a customer will spend time and money with you. For example, it might cost you £500 to bring in a customer. They might spend £500 with you in the first month, so this might not seem great ROI. But if they spend £500 a month for the next year, then that’s a fantastic ROI.
Look at the long-term value of a client and balance that out with your initial investment. It’ll provide an accurate view of your ROI in digital marketing.
Analysing your digital marketing results
Although it may be tempting, don’t check your performance on analytics every day. This doesn’t give you the general picture. It’s like stepping on the scales every day hoping to see a significant difference, days will be up and down- you need to look at it from an overall perspective. Even month-by-month only shows part of the picture. There are things that will affect your performance such as holidays, pandemics, and Google updates. Instead, view quarterly, six-monthly, and yearly to get the best understanding of how your tactics are working.
Define your goals from the start. What do you want to achieve? This will help to attain the best results. Using the SMART framework (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) to create goals to work for you and your company. Make sure you are keeping track of your goals. Put KPIs in place and adjust them if they aren’t working. This includes testing across all your platforms and tactics. There’s always room for improvement in your digital marketing and continually testing and adapting means you will get better performance.
There are many ways to update and reuse past content- change the image, headline, or text. Turn a blog post into a video. People love to see people, include your team and smiley faces! Check on your SEO and make it work even harder for your online presence.
Get the most out of your digital marketing
Digital marketing is an ever-changing channel, and we need to keep up with it to keep it relevant and working. Measuring your ROI and results from channels can show you where and how you’re succeeding. It can also show you where it needs your attention. There’s always something to learn from digital marketing about how your audiences interact and engage with you. You can continually shape and adapt your marketing to get the results you deserve.
Book your strategy call and make sure your digital marketing ROI is on track, email us at hello@ambitiouspr.co.uk.
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