A 5 step guide to improve your digital marketing campaigns

Transcription

1 A 5 step guide to improve your digital marketing campaigns

2 i Introduction 5 This guide provides five steps to improve your campaign success. It s practical and visual, equipping you with real know-how to immediately apply to your campaigns. #1

3 1 Choose your audience (carefully) Who are you targeting with your digital marketing campaign? This is much harder to answer than it sounds, so here is a very simple exercise to help you to focus when discovering your target audience. Follow these steps: a. Make a list of your best clients b. Make a list of your worst clients c. Identify the key characteristics between them Example: Best clients Andrew Smith Pam Jacobs Worst clients Dirk Da Silva Linda Adams Between the ages of Own a house Small business owners Technical Business affected by load shedding Between the ages of Very cost conscious Just shopping around Renting a house Not technical When you know which age range and behavioural characteristics you re targeting, it s time to decide where to target your potential leads #2

4 2 Choose your digital channels When you know who you re targeting, choosing your channel becomes much easier. The following channels are successful for: Channel Positive Negative AdWords - Search Great intent-based marketing. Reach people at the exact point of interest. Based on CPC pricing. Can get very competitive. Demand has to exist for service or product. AdWords - GDN Great for targeting people earlier in the buying cycle. Great for brand building. People may not yet be ready to buy. Lower conversion rates. Facebook Massive audience. Great demographic, life stage and interest targeting. Great for brand building. People may not yet be ready to buy. Lower conversion rates. LinkedIn Great for title, role or interest targeting. CPC s are very high (R20 - R30). #3

5 3 Clarify your objective (with everybody) After choosing your relevant channels, it s time to ensure all of your campaign stakeholders are on board with the execution of your campaign. Getting consensus with the project sponsor, project owner, brand managers, sales team, etc. is necessary for campaign success. No matter how well your campaign performed, if it did not meet stakeholder requirements, it will be deemed a failure. In order to get everyone s buy-in, you can remove the subjective element from the conversation with campaign performance modelling. Campaign performance modelling can be done in Excel and consists of building a model that outlines what the results of the campaign will be before you ve even begun the campaign. You can then present your model to all stakeholders and debate what the results should look like, asking questions such as: Is the most important metric impressions or leads? Are we looking for quality or quantity? Using this model, you can adjust the bidding strategy (to brand-based CPM, for example), which will significantly reduce the number of leads. This is visually communicated keep reading Here s an example: You present a campaign on AdWords for R per month. Based on the cost per click (R10) and the conversion rate (3%), you will receive 60 leads. Original AdWords model Current Budget for AdWords R Cost per click R 10 Clicks Conversion rate Leads 60 < This is your budget for AdWords < This number you can find in AdWords keyword research tool 3,00% < This is the rate which people convert on your website from a click to a lead #4

6 3 Clarify your objective (with everybody) The Head of Branding wants to advertise on News24. The model is updated to reflect this request. It will show that: The number of clicks will fall substantially The number of leads went from 60 to 5 A metrics-based debate can now take place until consensus is reached. It s important to stress that there are trade-offs. For example: News24.com s inventory is priced at a Cost Per Impression rate and AdWords is Cost Per Click rate. This means that the effective cost per click will be MUCH higher on News24 than on AdWords. This will lead to a higher cost per conversion. See below Current Budget for campaign R Cost per impression R 150 Impressions Click through rate Clicks 267 Conversion rate Leads 5 < This is your campaign budget < This is the cost to advertise on News24.com 0,2% < The CTR on News24.com 2,00% < This is the rate which people convert on your website from a click to a lead Then choose the key KPI for the campaign, such as: number of leads cost per lead cost per qualified opportunity #5

7 4 Make the conversion point easy There s a limited media inventory available and it s getting more expensive by the day. The market in South Africa is small, so make each impression and click count by improving your opportunities for conversion. Make sure the message in your ads is reflected on your landing/entry pages Message consistency is key, so use similar headlines in your banners, keyword ads and on the landing page. Using Google Analytics, look at the landing page bounce rate once the campaign has started. If it s more than 70%, you have a problem. Identify why users are clicking away from your page and rectify this. Make sure your banners are legible If text is illegible remove it The call to action is the star of the banner not the image Less is more, don t squeeze copy into each available space Make the banner about the audience and not you Make the conversion process easy If the conversion process is easy you will receive more conversions (downloads, leads or sales), which means your campaign will be more successful. You can achieve this through: having a clear headline and offer having a snapshot of the product or service you provide asking the minimum information on the lead form (Do you really need the person s postal code and ID number?) To measure success, use Google Analytics and benchmark against these ratios: ebook or content download 9% brochure download 5% consumer lead 5% B2B lead 2% ecommerce transaction 2.5% #6

8 Digital marketing campaigns overflow with data, but it s rarely used in a scientific way to improve campaigns. Use this data wisely to make campaign improvements. Here are the basics to get this in place: Use Google Analytics to measure conversions from all channels 90% of websites in South Africa have Google Analytics installed, but very few actually use the conversion functionality. This information will allow you to see which channels produced conversions (leads) or just good quality traffic to your website. Here is a step by step process in Google Analytics of how to add code to your website and set up goals in order to track conversion and capture lead data. Click on Admin and then click on the option Tracking info. #7

9 Click on the option Tracking code from the drop-down. Your tracking code will appear and this what you need to copy and paste onto your website or landing page. #8

10 You can then set up different goals depending on how many forms you have, in order to capture the correct data. Click on the red button + NEW GOAL Name your Goal, choose Destination from Type and then click Continue. #9

11 Choose Begins with from the Destination drop-down and then add in your Thank You page URL and save. Using the utm_source= will help show you potential customers who visit your website via s you have sent them, or links to your website from s you have sent them. An example of these links would be hyperlinking your website in your signature. This can be done for Facebook, AdWords or LinkedIn as well. Just replace = with =facebook, =adwords or =linkedin. Add the utm_source=facebook to your Facebook ad link in order to capture specific data from Facebook. Do the same for AdWords and LinkedIn. Use each platform conversion tool to get into the specifics. Analytics is great to get an overview of your conversion data. With a scientific approach to marketing, the devil is in the details, so use each advertising platform s conversion tool to allow you to optimise: the adverts the banners you re using the keywords you re bidding on the conversion rate which audiences are delivering ROI on Facebook and LinkedIn Here is a step by step process in Google AdWords of how to add code to your website and set up goals in order to track conversion and capture lead data. #10

12 Click on the top option Tools and select Conversion from the drop-down. Click on the red button + CONVERSION. Choose to track website conversions. #11

13 Name your conversion and then choose No value tracked. Save and continue. You can now copy and paste the code onto your website to begin tracking contacts who complete your forms. #12

14 Once your conversion tracking is up and running, you can view the converted clicks in the highlighted column. Here is a step by step process in Facebook of how to add code to your website and set up goals in order to track conversion and capture lead data. Click on the option Tools and select Pixels from the drop-down #13

15 Click on Create Conversion. Choose to Track Conversions With Standard Events. Choose the option to Pixel Code. #14

16 Enter the relevant address and click Send. Facebook will the tracking code, which you can then copy and paste onto your website or landing page. Once the tracking code is up and running, you can view your conversions in the highlighted column in the Facebook Advertising interface. LinkedIn LinkedIn does not have anyway of tracking conversions in terms of pixels or code like the other platforms. However there is a little trick you can use. Using the utm_source=linkedin in your ads link you can manually track customers who have clicked on your ad from LinkedIn and then filled out your form. For now, this is the best way to capture data from advertising on LinkedIn. #15

17 Conclusion In conclusion A successful digital marketing campaign doesn t happen overnight. There is a lot of time, effort, and important data that goes into. It is imperative that you carefully choose your audience based on what has worked (and hasn t worked) for you in the past. When you know your right audience, you can choose the right digital marketing channel. Your target audience will populate either one or all the different marketing channels, so choosing the correct one will save you time and money. Clarifying your campaign objective more clearly with everyone involved means you ll achieve faster, easier buy-in from your stakeholders. Make each click count by making the conversion point as easy as possible so you don t scare people away with complications. Setting measurements and tracking is one of the most important steps because you ll have the data to prove whether your campaign is a success or not. You can take this data to various other stakeholders and show them how the campaign is doing. Following these steps will allow you to create a digital marketing campaign that s on the right road to success. Contact us for more information #16