The downturn in the economy last year forced advertisers to scrutinize return on advertising investments (ROI) more than ever before. According to research firm Borrell Associates, online advertising is estimated to be $43 billion in the United States during 2009, which is up 12% over 2008. Why? Because it is so measureable! You don’ t have to benchmark the success of an advertising campaign on quarterly sales reports anymore; web analytics provide digital media performance statistics twenty-four hours a day/seven days a week. The key to accurately measuring true return on investment for digital media is establishing clear measurement parameters.
For example, if you own an online store, it is very easy to track a user from website entry to purchase through analytics. Post-click technology also allows you to follow a user who clicks through to your website from an ad, then leaves the site and returns later to make a purchase. You can calculate how many impressions are needed to produce a visitor, how many visitors are needed to produce a sale, and then calculate the exact return on an advertising investment.
If you don’t have e-commerce on your website you can still benefit from this process by tracking other online actions as key performance indicators (KPIs). The measurability of digital media can come in the form of:
- Website traffic
- Link clicks
- Video views
- E-mail opens
- Form completions
- Text messages
- Social network engagement
- In-bound links
- Application usage
Well defined marketing objectives and an understanding of your website’s capabilities will allow you to establish clear cut performance indicators for your digital campaign. You don’t have to be a web developer to make this happen; you just need to understand how your website can influence your cash register. It might take an extra step to calculate how that performance indicator translates to your return on investment, but it is well worth it.
Carolyn Sheflin
Digital Development Specialist
Tags: Analytics
This entry was posted posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 12:22 pm and is filed under E-Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
