Measuring Digital Campaigns

Grant Leboff: So Dave, one of the things that business owners, marketing managers, really struggle with, I think, a little bit on digital, is the idea of measuring effectiveness of what they are doing. How would you go about looking at that?

Dave Chaffey: Yeah, that’s right, Grant. It’s a huge challenge. Almost every business I talk to hasn’t really got that nailed yet. The good news is, there’s some great tools available. I think every business has got Google Analytics or similar in store. The mistake they make, they don’t always customise them for their business.

So the starting point is to think that when you get a visit to the site, what are the outcomes you’re looking at in terms of people engaging with content? Then the outcomes, such as a lead, a contact, a download, how you’re tracking those. Then to customize Google Analytics so you can not only see those outcomes but the value of them. For example, I was working with a travel business and what they were able to see is that when someone downloaded a brochure, that was worth say three pounds for that download. Once you’ve go that value, at that point you can work backwards to see which media and which content is driving those downloads. Then that gives you a way to optimise and improve your ROI.

Grant Leboff: Google Analytics is a tool that I think most people would be familiar with although as you say, not necessary struggle to use it well. What other tools would you advise businesses to start to use alongside Google Analytics?

Dave Chaffey: I’d say probably the biggest weakness in Google Analytics is, although it’s got some social social media reports, it doesn’t have good integration with social media reporting. It doesn’t show Facebook, LinkdIn, Twitter, as well as some of the specialist social media tools. I think that’s what I’d recommend looking at. We use Buffer and Hoot Suite and Smart Insights and all of those have a way of integrating with Google Analytics. You’ve got your campaign tracking parameters and then you can see the type of posts and which social networks they’re from and you can learn what work works best there.

Grant Leboff: What do you think would be the key metrics in terms of social media monitoring that companies should start to consider, to be able to look at the effectiveness of what they’re doing on some of those platforms?

Dave Chaffey: Sure, well I think the metrics for social media are similar to any digital channel that you’re using to drive visits to the site and get outcomes. To help businesses think about those, I’ve got a mnemonic called VQVC. The first V is volume and I think everyone measures that. The reason I’ve put in the extra letters is so that people realize you’ve got to look at the quality, so conversion into different outcomes and the value as well. You’re able to measure things like goal value per visit or revenue per visit in Google Analytics. Often when I’m consulting or training, I find that people aren’t those value measures, but really until you’re not, you’re not really using Google Analytics at all. Just to round off the picture in VQVC, the final part is the cost. Then you can look at the overall ROI of the value against the investment you’ve made.

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