When you’re spending money on advertising, you expect to get something in return. But results aren’t a given. That’s why measuring ad campaign effectiveness is so important.
Learning how to measure the success of a marketing advertising campaign helps you see the impact of the campaign. It gives you insight into what’s working and what’s not so you can make improvements and get better results.
So, how do you measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign? There are a few ways to go about it.
Let’s take it step by step.
Table of Contents:
Benefits of Learning How To Measure Ad Campaign Effectiveness
How To Measure Promotional Campaign Effectiveness
Measuring the Success of Advertising Campaigns With Meltwater
Tip: Learn more about campaign measurement in general and how to measure social media campaigns.
Benefits of Learning How To Measure Ad Campaign Effectiveness
Advertisers today have more data and tools than ever before to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. But collecting data isn’t the same as measuring ad campaign effectiveness. That's why you need to know how to measure the success of a promotional campaign.
You need to understand what the data is telling you and connect it to your advertising goals. We can do this by learning how to measure the success of an advertising campaign.
Here’s why this matters:
Confirm Your Ads Are Working
No brand wants to spend money on advertising that will never be seen. Tracking marketing campaign effectiveness can help you see whether your target audience is seeing and acting on your ads.
Plus, you can see which campaigns are driving results. If you’re running multiple ad campaigns at once, you can increase your ad spend on the ones getting the most traction.
Improve ROI
Measuring your campaigns (ideally in real time) gives you an opportunity to improve your marketing ROI. If you notice your ads aren’t getting attention, for example, you might tweak your message, creative, or offer to see if you get better results.
Create More Effective Campaigns
Analyzing past campaign data helps you learn what works and what doesn’t. When you have this data all in one place, you can make better decisions on how to execute future campaigns. Apply those lessons so you can create more impact right out of the gate.
How To Measure Promotional Campaign Effectiveness
Learning how to measure advertising campaign effectiveness is a multi-step process.
Here’s how to start:
1. Begin With a Campaign Goal
2. Choose Advertising Metrics That Reflect Your Goals
3. Analyze Website Traffic
4. Look at Lead Quality
5. Review Redemptions
6. Monitor Sales and Revenue
7. Survey Your Audience
8. Invest in the Right Tools and Technologies
1. Begin With a Campaign Goal
It’s impossible to know if you succeed if you don’t know what success looks like. Setting goals helps you to define what you want to achieve.
When setting advertising goals, be as specific as possible. For example, instead of saying you want to increase your social media audience, you could set a goal of gaining 500 new followers or increasing your audience by 15%. Those are easy to measure, plus they give you a clearer way to connect your advertising campaigns to your results.
2. Choose Advertising Metrics That Reflect Your Goals
Marketers will need to choose the right metrics for measuring ad campaign effectiveness. Metrics should relate directly to your goals so you can focus on the most important parts of your campaign and tune out the rest.
Some examples of advertising effectiveness metrics include:
- Click-through rate (CTR): the number of times a person clicks on your offer to go to your landing page or website.
- Cost per click (CPC): the amount you pay each time a person clicks on your ad (a great measure of cost-effectiveness)
- Engagement rate: The percentage of people who take action on your ad compared to the number of people who see your ad
- Conversion rate: The percentage of people who take advantage of your offer compared to the number of people who see your ad
- Open rate: The percentage of people who open your email compared to the total number of people who receive your email
- Bounce rate: The percentage of emails that are undeliverable compared to the total number of people on your email list
- Return on ad spend (ROAS): One of the most essential KPIs, ROAS represents the revenue earned for every dollar spent on a campaign
Tip: Here you find more important social media metrics. Also, learn how to boost your conversion rate with influencer marketing.
You'll also want to choose key performance indicators (KPIs) that make sense for the advertising channel you're using. For example, if you're running Google Ads or Facebook Ads, things like CTR, CPC, and conversion rate should be in your measurement toolkit. For email marketing, open rate, bounce rate, and clicks are key.
Each of these KPIs contributes to a much larger picture. For example, bounce rate alone doesn’t tell you much about your overall ad campaign performance. But a high bounce rate could indicate that a large portion of your audience is missing out on your advertising, which may have a negative impact on your results.
Also, beware of putting too much emphasis on vanity metrics. Things like likes, shares, new followers, and comments can support the idea that people are seeing your ads. But these metrics don’t always equal ad effectiveness. It’s important to put these into context with other engagement metrics to see whether you’re making an impact or just making noise.
3. Analyze Website Traffic
Advertising campaigns usually result in increased website traffic. This is especially the case when your ads direct potential customers to a product, landing page, or offer on your website.
Even if your advertisement doesn’t have anything to do with your website, you might still see an influx of traffic. That’s because people usually research the companies they do business with. Your website plays a role in their search for more information and to see if you’re a credible company.
Checking your marketing analytics or Google Analytics can give you an idea of how many people are interested in your ad. Make it a habit to check your analytics before, during, and after your campaign to see how your website traffic changes.
4. Look at Lead Quality
As a marketer, you probably get excited to see your digital marketing gaining some attention. But it’s important not to overlook the quality of your results.
Reviewing lead quality gives you an idea as to whether you’re attracting the right audience. Higher quality leads increase your chances of conversions.
There are a few ways to estimate lead quality:
- What content are your leads engaging with? Are they looking at product and pricing pages and case studies, or just blog posts?
- How much time are they spending on your website? Longer page view times indicate a higher interest in what you’re offering.
Don’t forget to check the source of the lead. Someone who found you on social media might not be as qualified as someone who found you via a targeted search on Google.
5. Review Redemptions
Coupons or other tracking codes can help you attach redemption rates to each campaign. Redemptions indicate the level of interest in your offer and whether you’re reaching your target market.
If you’re running multiple campaigns, reviewing redemptions can help you pinpoint which of your ad campaigns are the most successful. From there, you can work backward to see what made those campaigns so successful.
6. Monitor Sales and Revenue
Advertising campaigns generate higher brand awareness, which can lead to an uptick in sales and revenue — even if these aren’t the goals of the campaign. An increase in sales and revenue indicates more people discovered your company as a result of the campaign.
You can also look at the number of new customers you gained from your ad-driven strategy. More customers give you more ways to generate revenue on both a short-term and long-term basis.
7. Survey Your Audience
Post-campaign surveys are a critical part of measuring advertising effectiveness. Sending surveys after an ad campaign can give you an idea of how well your customers remember it and whether they acted on it.
A survey can also be a great tool to get consumer feedback on what they thought of the ad. Ask what they liked or didn’t like about the ad so you can create better campaigns that align with their interests.
8. Invest in the Right Tools and Technologies
Measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns is easier when you have tracking and monitoring tools that do most of the work for you. Rather than simply collecting key metrics, your tools should help you turn that information into usable insights. These insights allow you to optimize your campaigns, improve your strategy, and get better results.
Meltwater Radarly is a great example of an effective tracking and monitoring tool. Our end-to-end consumer insights platform monitors your brand across online and offline marketing channels to help you connect advertising actions with results. We track brand mentions, consumer insights, online reputation, and more so you can see how your marketing and advertising strategy is helping to grow your brand beyond conversions.
Measuring the Success of Advertising Campaigns with Meltwater
Learning how to measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign begins with the right marketing metrics and the best technology to capture, analyze, and report on those metrics.
At Meltwater, we make measurement easy by combining the power of AI with the discernment of human intellect. Our platform helps you make sense of your media ads and marketing data by adding context to your key performance indicators. Track not only sales and conversions, but also the overall impact your ads have on your brand awareness, audience growth, loyalty, and online reputation.
Request a free demo today!
