Untitled Firm has a unique perspective on digital marketing. Our founding team members background in advertising technology at El Toro in Louisville, KY provided a window into the problems plaguing mid to large scale organizations. One common problem we’ve seen over and over is measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns.
For years, advertising agencies have gotten away with utilizing vanity metrics to measure campaign success. In other words, a digital campaign was successful if the advertisement had a high CTR (click-through rate). Digital marketing buzzwords like CTR, viewability and SERP (search engine results page) have all been created to, in our opinion, distract from the one thing that matters: revenue.
Untitled’s core principle is to bring marketing back to a more logical way of thinking. Because of that, we believe in a digital marketing approach that is driven by revenue, not metrics. In this article, we are going to discuss the way to actually measure success in a digital marketing campaign, without getting lost in the vanity metrics your advertising agency will bring up in your next meeting.
Proper Campaign Tracking IDs
Campaign tracking IDs are one of the best ways to prove that your campaign is successful and providing sales. If your company is using pay-per click services like Google AdWords, a tracking code can be placed on your website to treemap the entire purchasing process. From there, a direct correlation between cost-per click and revenue brought in by the campaign can be attributed. You can even view the sales in your Google Analytics dashboard.
It may sound simple, but one could be surprised at how little this service is used. Many agencies don’t want to be accountable towards revenue on digital marketing campaigns. Validating your agency by adding tracking codes is easy. Does the price you’re paying per-click justify the revenue brought in by the campaign? If not, something needs to be changed.
Proper UTM Codes
Sometimes, a digital campaign is all about driving traffic or sign ups. In this case, measuring effectiveness is setup on the front side.
A UTM code is a simple code that you attach to a custom URL which allows you to track the source or medium of a digital advertising initiative. Another similar concept would be a URL Parameter, like you’d see on Facebook.
UTMs are an important way to understand if the advertisement is working and driving the proper amount of traffic. The source of web traffic can be viewed in your Google Analytics under Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium. You should be able to see your custom UTM code visible. This is a clear way of identifying if you digital advertising methods are captivating.
Validate Sales At The Household Level
Validating marketing sales can be done very simply when utilizing tools like IP Targeting. This tool allows marketers to target specific household addresses via the IP address with digital banner advertisements.
For example, say you’re a financial company and want to target a list of physicians you’ve gathered from a data provider. Untitled can upload the list of addresses into the system and match about 60% of physical addresses to an IP address, the entry point for this type of digital marketing. From there, those specific homes are targeted with your ads. With IP Targeting, you can cut out all the noise and fake bot traffic, allowing you target their exact household.
Validating the effectiveness of an IP Targeting campaign is just as easy as setting it up. Once the campaign is over, the Untitled team can MatchBack those houses we targeted on the physicians list to those who actually ended up converting. Because we have the physical addresses before the campaign and after, we know with 100% accuracy how effective your campaign was. It’s like direct mail, but online. Leading with the household is one of the most important ways to create transparency in your digital targeting.
Untitled Firms Approach
Untitled’s approach to digital marketing is unique in that we don’t focus on CTR, viewability and other vanity metrics. In our opinion, CTR is a great way to know if your campaign is running, but not a way to prove if it truly worked. After all, when is the last time you took the time to click a digital banner ad? Proper data analysis, subliminal messaging combined with appropriate timing is the number one way to generate a sale in 2019. Combining customer data with a digital marketing campaign only helps your business on the front side: spend less time assuming who your customer is and more time actually targeting your real consumers. That is data driven marketing.
If you or your business is interested in learning more about Untitled’s digital marketing methods, contact us today. I’m sure we have a new solution you’re not used to hearing.
