How to Measure the Success of a Marketing Campaign

Marketing costs are often one of the largest expenses for a business, making it so important to understand when your marketing campaign is delivering a worthwhile return on investment (ROI). The best way to do this is to establish clear ways of measuring success, and fortunately, there are many ways of doing so.

In this article, we’ll discuss the most popular and efficient ways of calculating marketing campaign success, from engagement rates to understanding different conversion metrics, helping you to understand whether you’re really getting the most out of your marketing efforts!

How Can You Track and Analyse Metrics?

Before you get started, it is important to identify:

• What data you will need to collect (e.g. what questions you will need to be able to answer when evaluating the success of the campaign),
• How to collect that data,
• Where will that data be stored, and
• How will you be interpreting the data

There are plenty of tools available which provide a wealth of data, helping you monitor key performance indicators (KPIs).

For example, if you are running an SEO campaign, Google Search Console (GSC) helps you understand how your website is performing in Google’s search results and how users are engaging with the content before they even land on your website. GSC can help you collate data such as keyword rankings, impressions and click-through rates (CTRs).

In contrast, analytics tools such as Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Adobe Analytics, Fathom, etc track what happens when a user is active on your website. How they achieve this varies and the level of information you can obtain can depend on whether or not the visiting user has allowed cookies or not. It is for this reason that it is important to consider what insights you need to collect, as any detailed tracking normally needs to be set up in advance and tested before launching a campaign.

In truth, there are so many analytical packages out there, but some will only provide you with metrics for their part of the journey, meaning you’ll need to consider how to “join the dots”. For example, Mailchimp - which provides data on metrics such as open rate, bounce rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate - won’t give you insight into how many potential customers made a sale, or how many were existing customers.

8 Steps for Measuring Your Marketing Campaign

Here are 8 actionable steps which will help you measure the success of your marketing campaign:

1. Define Clear Campaign Goals

Start by determining what you want to achieve from your campaign; are you hoping to increase traffic, generate more sales, or raise brand awareness? These goals should be clear and achievable since there’s no point in setting an objective that you simply won’t reach!

It’s also important to set these goals before you launch your campaign; otherwise, it’s easy and tempting to convince yourself that a campaign was successful when in reality, if you’d set goals in advance you may find that it fell a little short. This is especially common in owner-led marketing campaigns for your own business.

2. Gather Benchmark Data

After you've set goals, you should benchmark previous campaigns (if applicable) to help you assess if your goals are realistic and help guide any KPIs based on previous trends; after all, growth may not be linear. This will be useful later on for comparing new campaigns with past ones.

3. Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPIs help you evaluate whether or not your campaign is on target to achieve your ultimate goal. Choose the metrics which align closest to your goals. For example, if your goal is to increase revenue over a 6-month period by £100k, and that equates to a 10% increase in your existing turnover, you may determine that to achieve that you need to:

• Increase average order value by X amount by month 3
• Increase new visitors by X thousand per month
• Increase repeat sales by X%

Increase conversion rate by x%. There are a multitude of ways in which you can track campaign performance and we’ll cover a wider list of these later on.

4. Set Up Tracking Tools and Software

Use tools such as GA4, GSC, Meta Insights, or Adobe Analytics to collect data on your campaign’s performance. Ensure any additional tracking values such as UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters are properly configured for the most accurate tracking.

5. Monitor Metrics During the Campaign

Keep an eye on your KPIs as the campaign runs - this helps you identify trends or issues early and make adjustments if necessary to improve performance.

6. Compare Results to Benchmarks or Previous Campaigns

Evaluate your metrics against benchmarks or past campaigns to understand whether your campaign is underperforming, or exceeding expectations!

7. Analyse Data in Context

Review the results in relation to your goals and consider other factors, such as audience behaviour or external influences. For example, metrics like CTR should be paired with conversion rates to provide a complete picture.

8. Use Insights to Optimise Future Campaigns

Apply what you've learned to improve your strategy and reach larger goals. Focus on what worked well and address areas where results were not as strong, ensuring better performance in future campaigns.

22 Top Metrics You Can Use to Measure a Marketing Campaign

We’ve listed 22 different performance metrics, split into different campaign goals, that you could use to measure your success. However, keep in mind that not all will be relevant for every campaign, so choose strategically!

Goal-Setting and Benchmarking Metrics

• SMART Goal Setting Technique: A framework for setting goals that are:
  • Specific - “We want to increase sales of our running shoe range.”
  • Measurable - “Our goal is to sell 20% more running shoes compared to last quarter.”
  • Achievable - “We’ll achieve this by launching a targeted marketing campaign, offering a 10% discount.”
  • Relevant - “Improving running shoe sales aligns with our aim to grow the athletic footwear part of our business, which has shown steady demand.”
  • Time-bound - “We aim to achieve this 20% increase within the next three months.”
• Objectives and Key Results (OKRs): A goal-setting method that links objectives to measurable outcomes to track success.
  For example, your objective might be to increase brand awareness through our latest marketing campaign, and one of your key results might be to achieve a 25% increase in website traffic over the next two months.

Sales and Revenue Metrics

Some of these will only apply to eCommerce marketing campaigns, and some will apply to both online and offline marketing.

• Return on Investment (ROI): Measures the profitability of a campaign, relative to its costs. ROI is presented as a percentage; for a campaign costing £1,000, with a return of £6,000, the ROI would be 500%.
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Assesses the revenue earned for every pound spent on advertising. This is usually expressed as a ratio; a ROAS of 4:1 means £4 is earned for every £1 spent.

• Cost-per-Click (CPC): The amount paid for each click in a pay-per-click advertising campaign. This is calculated by dividing the total cost of an ad by the total number of clicks received.

  For example, if you spend £200 on a Google Ads campaign, and your ad receives 500 clicks, you’re paying 40p every time someone clicks your ad.

  For successful campaigns, it’s possible to actually reduce your cost per click, thus enabling you to achieve even more with your marketing budget - contact us for more information on how you can lower your CPC!

• Customer Retention Rate (CRR): The percentage of customers a business retains over a set period. Subtract the number of new customers from the total customers at the end of the period, divide by the number of customers at the start, and then multiply by 100 to get the percentage of retained customers.

  For example, you had 200 customers at the start of the quarter. You gained 50 new customers over the next three months, and by the end of the quarter, you had 180 customers who made repeat purchases - this means you retained 65% of your existing customers during that quarter.

• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The total revenue a business expects from a customer over their entire relationship. To work out a customer’s CLV, multiply their average purchase value by their average purchase frequency, and then multiply this again by their lifespan.

  For example, your online shop’s average purchase value is £50 per order, and the purchase frequency is 4 times per year. If their customer lifespan is 5 years, the average customer brings in £1,000 in revenue over their entire relationship with your business.

• Average Order Value (AOV): This is the average amount a customer spends per transaction, calculated by dividing the total revenue by the number of orders.
  For example, if your online business made £2,000 from 50 orders in a month, the AOV would be £40.
• Cart/Checkout Abandonment Rate: This metric measures the percentage of customers who add items to their cart but don’t complete the purchase. This is calculated by subtracting the number of completed purchases from the number of initiated carts, then dividing that number by the total number of initiated carts, and multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.
  For example, If 200 customers added items to their cart, but only 120 completed the purchase, your cart/checkout abandonment rate is 40%

Lead Generation Metrics

• Conversion Rate (CR): The percentage of users who complete a desired action, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. To calculate this, simply divide the number of conversions by the total number of interactions, and multiply this by 100. A key skill to learn is Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), which is all about helping you secure more value from the same number of users.

• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people who click on a link after seeing it. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions and multiplying the result by 100.

  The CTR can often massively vary depending on the industry, campaign type, method of delivery, and visibility. All of these factors affect the way in which the user interacts with the content, which can result in a higher or lower CTR.

• Cost per Lead (CPL): The amount spent to generate a single lead, calculated by dividing total campaign costs by the number of leads generated.
• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): Unlike CPL, CPA is the cost of acquiring a new customer. To calculate, divide the total cost of the campaign by the number of new customers acquired. For example, if you spent £500 on a campaign and gained 50 new customers, you would divide £500 by 50, resulting in a CPA of £10.

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The total cost of acquiring a new customer, including all marketing, sales and onboarding costs. To work this out, add together all marketing and sales expenses and then divide that total by the number of new customers acquired.

  For example, if you spent £2,000 on marketing and £1,000 on sales, and gained 100 new customers, this would result in a CAC of £30.

• Website Traffic: A simple metric which tracks the number of visitors to your website. There are two main sources of website traffic - organic and paid.
• Traffic by Source: This identifies where your website traffic originates, such as search engines, social media, or email campaigns.

• Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who enter your website and leave via the same page, without taking any further action. To calculate this, divide the number of single-page sessions by the total number of sessions, then multiply the result by 100 to get a percentage.

  Bounce rate used to be regarded as a negative metric. However, Google and others have since abandoned it, as they've learnt that users often enter and leave a site via a single page view when they have successfully achieved what they needed to.

  For example, an article may have successfully provided someone with the info they required.

• Email Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who open your email, indicating how effectively your subject line and sender name attract attention.

• Video Completion Rate (VCR): The percentage of viewers who watch a video from start to finish. To calculate, divide the number of viewers who watch the entire video by the total number of viewers who started watching the video, then multiply by 100 to get the percentage.

  For example, if 500 viewers started watching a video and 400 watched it to the end, you would divide 400 by 500, and then multiply by 100, resulting in a VCR of 80%.

Brand Awareness and Engagement Metrics

• Impressions: The number of times your content is displayed to users, helping you to determine whether your campaign is targeting the right audience.
• Social Media Engagement: Measures interactions with your social media content, such as likes, comments, and shares. The higher the level of engagement, the greater the chance that others will come across your content.

• Net Promotor Score (NPS): Measuring customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend your product or service to others. The formula for this is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors (those who score 0-6) from the percentage of promoters (those who score 9-10).

  For example, if 70% of respondents are promoters and 20% are detractors, you would subtract 20% from 70%, resulting in an NPS of 50.

The Importance of Having the Full Picture & Interpreting Data Correctly

Data, when viewed as standalone figures, can often be misleading and lead to incorrect assumptions about campaign performance if all factors are not correctly accounted for and considered. To combat this, many larger businesses hire dedicated data analysts, although for small companies, this just isn’t an option. Therefore, before jumping to conclusions, you’ll need all the necessary context alongside your data - let’s take a look at why:

Not All Decreases Are Negative…

Think about a scenario where a website’s backlink profile suddenly drops by 150,000 links; at first glance, this might seem like a major problem. However, if you’re aware that these backlinks were deliberately removed as part of a strategy to improve the site’s overall backlink quality, this decline is actually a positive outcome. Without understanding the “why” behind the drop, someone might unnecessarily panic over what has actually been a carefully planned decision!

Not All Increases Are Positive…

Much like how not all decreases are bad, not all metric increases are inherently good. For example, a sudden spike in traffic might seem promising, but if it’s caused by irrelevant visitors who don’t convert, the increase could signal a problem with your targeting, rather than a successful campaign!

The Bottom Line…

The key thing to remember is that metrics should never be analysed in isolation. Always consider the bigger picture, including the context behind changes and how your performance compares to the competition. This ensures that you make data-driven decisions based on accurate insights, rather than just surface-level observations which could turn out to be misleading and result in poor decisions.

Contact Us to Kickstart a Successful Marketing Campaign

At Beyond Your Brand, we understand the difficulties businesses face in making the most of their digital marketing budgets, and many of our clients have had poor experiences working with other marketing agencies in the past. That’s one of the reasons why we’re proud to share our performance metrics and don’t tie clients into long contracts.

From pay-per-click ad campaigns that generate amazing ROAS to SEO strategies with exceptional traffic and conversion rate increases, our experts know the best marketing tactics to make the most of your budget.

If you’re interested in learning more, get in touch with us today!