ROI or Return On Investment is one of the most fundamental measurements in business.  Businesses of all sizes, in all industries analyze how their investments are influencing their bottom line.  The costs associated with advertising and marketing is one of the areas in which ROI is extremely important.  It is vital to understand what is working, or not working, to help shape new strategies moving forward.  Measuring ROI for your online marketing and advertising campaigns can help you determine the effectiveness of your message, keywords, placement, and if you are reaching your target audience.  Follow the steps below to help ensure that your online marketing campaigns are providing the return on investment you desire.

Step #1:  Set Goals

Setting goals is the first step towards measuring the effectiveness of your online campaigns.  What results are you hoping for?  An increase in visitors to your website by 50%?  An increase of 30% in sales?  Increase brand/business awareness?  It is important to determine and your goals and remember to make them within reach.

Step #2:  Choose Marketing Tactics

Once you have the goals of your marketing campaigns, it is time to consider what tactics you are going to employ to reach your goals.  Your marketing message, brand promise, special offers and unique sales proposition must take into account your ideal customer base.  Marketing messages that are targeted to a special niche are more effective than a generic message.

Step #3:  Determine How You Will Measure Results

There are a number of ways to determine the ROI from various marketing campaigns.  It is wise to test a variety of messages and special offerings through an array of channels.  Technological advancements have made it much easier to determine the effectiveness of campaigns.

Custom URLs:  Create custom URLs for each campaign you are measuring.  This allows you to track the number of visitors to your site drawn by a specific marketing tactic.  This can be used for display ads, pay-per-click advertising, marketing in social media, and direct response email advertising.  The landing page needs to be representative of the advertisement and have calls to action that will change your visitors into buyers.

Custom Phone Numbers:  This will provide similar information to the custom URLs.  If the goal of your campaign is to turn over leads to your internal sales team, having a variety of different phone numbers in marketing collateral will help you track what is working, or not working.  If you advertise across a variety of platforms including traditional media as well as online marketing, you can choose to measure the effectiveness of the message, or the placement, or both.  You can have one phone number that is dedicated to a particular online message, or one that is dedicated to a particular message that is promoted across several platforms.  It all comes down to if you want to measure the effectiveness of the message, or the placement.

Use Available Analytical Tools:  Nearly all online advertising platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Google and Twitter have built in analytical tools to help you determine the effectiveness of your campaign. These are free or very reasonably priced however, there are also more comprehensive analytical tools available that help you track your ROI.

Talk To Your Customers:  Ask new and existing customers, directly, how they heard about you and found your website.  Ask them what in your advertisement spurred them into action.  Be specific with your questions and your customers will be specific with their answers.  Track these responses along with other measurements to help determine the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Step #4:  Adapt Or Stay The Course

Once you have all of the results in and they have been analyzed, it is time to evaluate how, or even if, you need to change your message, offer, or location of your advertisements.  It could be that your first try was a homerun; however, there is nearly always room for improvement.  The answer is to test/refine, test/refine.

The most effective marketing campaigns, regardless of placement, require the right message, with a compelling offer being delivered to a strong potential customer base.  The four steps above will help you determine your ROI for the campaigns and allow you to adjust, tweak and adapt them to raise your revenue.

Push Local specializes in online marketing for small businesses including Servpro Franchises.  Our services include search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, map marketing, and local directory submissions.  Some of the organic terms we go after for Servpro franchises include: Austin water damage, Hyde Park water damage, Austin fire damage, Austin smoke damage, and Austin mold.  Push Local has shown continued success marketing for Servpro franchises with a number of clients currently ranking number one for their targeted organic search terms.