Debunking the “sales is everything” myth.

When it comes to measuring campaign success, revenue has always been king. But believe it or not, sales alone shouldn’t be the ultimate metric. These days, campaigns need to do more than just increase business. If all you’re doing is looking at ROI, you’re missing the bigger picture. Instead, look to your strategy to provide more insight into whether your top-tier, long-term goals are driving the engine.

This is part of an overall shift currently happening in marketing—one that has moved away from the tried-and-true vertical marketing funnel and into a more cyclical, holistic approach as a way of reaching and engaging consumers.

So, now you want to measure more than revenue. Great! We recommend keeping the following things in mind to get the most out of your next campaign:

Campaign benchmarks require perspective.

Benchmarks help you gauge campaign success. They are related to the goals of your campaign and are involved before, during, and after your campaign happens.

If your goal is to increase your audience conversion rate, you might want to look at your CPC and website visitation lengths and make those your benchmarks. Benchmarks like social engagement levels or average website traffic per day, pre-campaign are great if your goal is to increase follower engagement with your social media-based ad campaign.

Think of your benchmarks as points of reference. They are subsets of your primary goal but are what enable you to measure your success and determine, eventually, if you did achieve your goal—or where you need improvement.

It’s not all about you (or your campaign).

While sales is an easy way to determine a success, or failure, revenue dollars are dependent on other factors, too. You need to consider things outside of your company’s purview and your current advertising campaign. For instance:

• Competitor efforts—current and potential future moves
• Recent events in the world or developments in your industry
• Past campaigns your company ran and how well those campaigns did
• New laws or procedures that could affect the bottom line

Pay attention to the world beyond your business. If the entire market is suffering a loss in sales, your loss in sales isn’t a big deal. If your direct competitor outbid you for air time, they may be doing better than you simply because they threw more money at their ad than you could.

Check yourself to get the most complete picture of how well you actually did. And to find to what extent you were able to accomplish your strategic goals. Everything is a bit relative.

Time is a variable.

And we all know it’s fickle. Benchmarks help give you perspective but you also need to have an end goal. Decide what date or milestone you want to achieve your goals by.

Determine if you want to increase brand awareness by Q1, change consumer perception by the end of the fiscal year, or increase brand awareness by Q2 in two new markets, ahead of time.

Once your end time has come, measure to see if you achieved your goals. Time provides you with perspective when it is coupled with your strategic goals and factored into your benchmarks.

The end game.

Increasing brand equity and awareness is how you grow or sustain your business. So, while revenue is important, achieving your strategic goals is the true measure of success.

A little unsure about what to focus on to help increase business? Let the ANDERSON team get you organized and create a spectacular campaign that gets the results you want. Drop us a line at info@anderson-adv.com today. And be sure to peruse our website to check out the successes we’ve created for other clients.