How to Track Your ROI in Offline Marketing
There is an increasing interest in offline marketing campaigns and how they can impact the performance of digital enterprises. Offline marketing campaigns, when ran alongside digital marketing campaigns is often referred to as multichannel marketing. The problem most marketers have with offline marketing though, is tracking it to ensure a positive ROI.
Establishing an effective offline tracking system is quite involving, but the benefits are worth the effort. You can literally track any form of offline marketing, including TV and radio commercials, magazine advertising, billboards, emails and even direct marketing.
Lack of an offline marketing tracking method means that you can only rely on direct traffic in order to evaluate the performance of your online property. In such a scenario, if you experience an increase in revenue that relates to a specific offline campaign, then you will have to credit the increase to that specific campaign. The problem with this is that if someone comes across your offline marketing and then uses a search engine to visit your site, then these will not be attributed correctly.
One of the solutions that you can use is Google Analytics. Google analytics is effective in enabling you have access to information relating to the dates that specific campaigns took place. It really is a must-use tool, no matter what marketing channels you decide to use. It’s also free, and incredibly easy to set up.
How to effectively track offline marketing?
Custom domain and domain redirects
This method entails the use of specific website domain names as an advertising solution. This approach is effective for undertaking analysis at the campaign level and the method is most appropriate since it is quite easy to implement and understand.
An effective custom domain redirect entails slight website alteration. For instance, you can register your domain name using a domain extension, such as www.example.com to www.example.tv. The different domain name will then be used in the campaign.
The most important factor to consider is the availability of domain names. You can do this by ensuring that you are in a position purchase domain names well in advance. You can easily do this on any domain name registrar.
After setting up a custom domain name, you should then embark on the process of implementing a 301 redirect. This simply refers to a way in which users are automatically redirected to your website once they visit the custom domain name. For instance, if someone clicks on www.example.tv, they will then be automatically redirected to your actual site (www.example.com).
Doing all of this is pointless though if you can’t see that the traffic has come from your secondary domain, so you’ll have to ensure that you redirect the domain to a URL with custom campaign parameters.
You can build a URL with these parameters using Google’s Campaign URL Builder. There are lots of different parameters you can specify when using the URL builder, but here are the main ones you must use:
- Website URL – Your website URL (you must include http(s)://)
- Campaign Source - The source refers to the origination of your advert. For example, it can be an industry magazine such as Farmers Weekly or any other source.
- Campaign Medium - Medium refers to the marketing medium of the campaign, such as TV, radio and magazines.
- Campaign Name – This is the name of the campaign.
When you’ve finished, you should have a URL that looks something like this:
You can then redirect the .tv domain to this.
Custom landing pages
Custom landing pages are created in more or less the same manner in which domain names are created. The landing pages’ act as the final destination pages of your website and the main benefit of having such pages is the fact that you will not need to purchase additional domain names for your site.
The only downside to doing it this way is that you’ll have to make sure you don’t include these pages in your site’s navigation so that your results aren’t skewed. I’d also recommend setting the pages to “NoIndex” so they aren’t indexed in search engines.
Shortened URLs
This approach entails the using of a third party service to come up with truncated URLs for your campaign. Despite the fact that you are using a third party service, it is important to note that you will have to spend additional time in order to ascertain which URL is used for which specific aspect of the campaign.
You also have the option of setting up a branded domain on many third-party shorteners. I’d always recommend using the branded domain option, as it looks much more professional than sending your customers to a bit.ly or goo.gl link.
Discount codes
Discount codes have been used in marketing since the dawn of time and need no introduction. You simply create a different code for different adverts, and then match the sales to the code.
The use of discount code is an effective offline tracking method, but the drawback is that the codes only work if the customer completes a Call-To-Action, such as a purchase.
Including offline leads
Despite the fact that the main objective of the process is to keep track of online results, it is equally important to ensure that you are in a position to track offline leads so that you can attribute them to the correct channel.
One of the approaches that you can use when it comes to offline leads is the use of call tracking. The most appropriate approach to use is a bespoke call tracker since you’ll be able to record the specific details that you want, such as geographic locations.
Ensure you always ask the caller where they first heard about your business.
Successful offline marketing
The main objective of any offline marketing initiative is to enable you enhance the potential of your digital property. This objective can only be attained if the offline marketing solutions adopted are indeed successful.
One of the most important things to remember while implementing a tracking solution for your offline marketing campaign is that you must fully research the solution that you intend to use. This means that you should have all the resources that you need at hand so as to ensure that both the planning and implementation processes are as smooth as possible.
Furthermore, it is important to allocate adequate time for the process to ensure that you have all the details and resources that will go into the process. Furthermore, you should also take time to ensure that you have access to the right type of analytics parameters and that such parameters are in the correct working format.
One of the most important things to remember is that making any changes to your campaign once it has already been launched can be a daunting task. However, this task will be significantly simplified if you have put in place the right solutions in setting up the campaign in the first place. If the approach to setting up the campaign was done correctly, then you can easily make any changes and incremental adjustments in future. This therefore implies that your overall implementation of the campaign strategy will be quite flexible and easy to manage. For instance, if one channel isn’t performing in a manner that you anticipated, then you can easily make changes to this particular channel thus increasing the chances of running a successful campaign.