Tools like Google Analytics allow you to track incoming visitors to your website from various different channels. This tool also tells you how users are interacting with your website. Using analytical tools will allow you to establish the performance of your marketing campaigns and devise a data-driven strategy.
An important part of tracking your marketing efforts is planning. Too many businesses start marketing and then realize 6 months to a year down the line that they are not sure how effective their marketing really is. To make sure you can track your marketing efforts, we have put together this guide.
Step 1: Choose a goal. No matter what type of marketing you are doing, you need to have a goal in mind. This is usually a sale, sign up or subscription. For the sake of this article, we will assume your goal is a sale.
Step 2: Identify a method for tracking your goal from each marketing channel. For instance, you could use tracked links if you are sending out multiple emails. Each link would have a different tracked link so you could see which email led to a goal completion. If you are using physical marketing like a billboard or flyer, you could use a QR code with a tracked link or a coupon code that is only used for that channel.
Step 3: Identify the information you need from your tracking. Your tracking should tell you a goal has been submitted and which marketing channel it came from, but it can also provide lots of other info. For instance, you may need to know the time a sale was made, how much the sale was worth, what sold, where the buyer was located, etc.
All of this information can be used to fine-tune your marketing. As you gain more data it can also tell you more about your audience and show you the most effective channels.
Step 4: Compile the data. Tracking your marketing is great but if you are storing the data in a variety of places or keeping it in an unhelpful form, it is useless. Find a way to keep all the data you are tracking in a single place. This allows you to sort it in a variety of ways and tease out any patterns or opportunities.
Step 5: Put together a review schedule. You can have all the data in the world but if you never look at it, that information is useless. Set aside some time to take a deep dive into the data on a regular basis. This could be monthly or every few months.
Your goal should be to look for anything you can use to refine the targeting of your marketing.
If you follow these steps, you will have no trouble tracking your marketing activities. You should also be able to easily add new tracking or update tracking as your business grows.
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