Digital Marketing has evolved to provide some of the most trackable and optimizable marketing campaigns that a business can deploy. This makes campaigns like pay per click marketing (PPC), social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and email marketing much more nimble than traditional marketing. These kinds of campaigns have many variables that you can research, test, and measure relatively quickly, working toward overall success. This begs the question, “What should your goals be in a digital marketing campaign?”

We’ve outlined a few major variables for you:

1) Digital Marketing Deliverables

Every campaign should have tasks related to it. For social media, you may decide that you want to post at minimum intervals to keep your pages on platforms like Facebook active, while also spending ad dollars to boost posts, and run one contest per month to increase engagement. For search engine optimization (SEO), you may determine that you need to add a certain amount of fresh content each month and take particular actions to build healthy backlinks. With PPC, you may decide that you want to try out particular ads, keywords, times of day, geographic targets, or even more advanced campaigns like remarketing. Your first goal should always be taking the initial best-practice actions that are most likely to yield the desired results. In essence, you need something to test and measure against. Overall, this is the number one thing to keep your eye on, especially early in a campaign. If you stay on the right path, as the weeks and months pass, you’ll get to the point where you’ll be able to decide if you’re on track for success.

2) Improvement

Digital marketing is the “test and measure” process. If you see that weeks and months are going by, and you aren’t seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, your marketing campaign may very well be a dud. That being stated, you should be continuing to react to what you’re seeing. In a PPC campaign, you can pause ads that are under-performing, and refocus your efforts and budget into ads that are performing better. In email marketing, you may find that messages sent at particular times are more successful than others. Overall, you want to see that you’re on the road to success even if you haven’t quite found your stride yet.

3) Branding

You may find some long-term benefits from your digital marketing. These include growing numbers of social media followers that you can continue to market to, increased brand awareness because people have been exposed to your PPC ads, email blasts, off-site mentions/backlinks for SEO, etc. Overall, these can all provide benefits to you over time, and while they’re not always the direct focus of your digital marketing campaigns, they can offer significant fringe benefits.

4) Traffic

Through free systems like Google Analytics, you can see trends in website visitors reaching your site through various digital marketing campaigns. Traffic is important, as you need people to sell to, but it’s important to keep in mind that traffic will fluctuate based upon seasonality, economic swings, and other trends that will cause fluctuations. Additionally, if the traffic that you’re receiving is not generating the leads or sales that you’re hoping for, it may not truly be bringing you success. As such traffic is an important factor to continue to track and review, but not necessarily the best goal to set.

5) Conversions

Depending on the type of website that you operate, you may be trying to get potential customers to fill out a lead form, call a phone number, or make an online eCommerce purchase. All of these goals are extremely important, but, like traffic, seasonality and other factors can come into play. While conversions are crucial toward long-term success, you should also be focused on cost per acquisition. Cost-effective conversions are a hallmark of a well-optimized and effective digital marketing campaign. They don’t necessarily happen overnight, but they mean profitable sales for your business. When calculating the value of a lead or sale, it can be important to factor in the lifetime acquisition value of that customer – not just what they’re buying today, but what they’re worth to your organization as long-term customers, potential referral sources and brand evangelists. It’s also crucial to look at your website itself. If your website is slow, has inconsistent branding or errors, or in other ways does not instill confidence in shoppers, your conversion rate may be lower than it should be. Similarly, if your offerings aren’t competitive, such as if your product or shipping prices are higher than competitors, your conversion rates will typically suffer. This makes conversions an important piece of a digital marketing campaign that should be watched closely, but in some cases, your marketing may be spot on, and other facets of your organization may need adjustments in order to maximize sales. If you haven’t already, take a look at how Nosto’s technology, such as Behavioral Pop-ups can help improve your website’s conversion rate regardless of your traffic sources.

6) Return on Investment

ROI may not be immediate and is not guaranteed, but you’re investing in marketing to see positive gains. It’s best to set a goal before engaging in a campaign for how long you plan to go before reaching a breaking point where you’re generating profitable sales. This will help you to budget accordingly, and be ready to stay the course as your campaigns are tested and optimized. Some campaigns, like PPC, are intended to generate faster results at a higher long term cost per lead or sale for most businesses, and others like SEO are expected to take longer to generate the desired results, with a typically smaller long-term investment over time. When in doubt, contact a digital agency like JLB Florida for a free consultation to learn more about what experts in the field of internet marketing can suggest helping your business grow.