Because online marketing is such an important investment of time and money, just like any part of your business, it makes sense that you’d like to make sure your marketing is working. It can be difficult to gauge how well your existing marketing strategy and efforts are working. How can you tell if the time and money you’ve been investing into online marketing such as your website, social media marketing, content marketing, affiliate marketing, emails, and blog posts has a positive return on investment? How to know your online marketing is working isn’t complicated: looking through analytics, tracking leads, and figuring out which campaigns and strategies draw prospects to your website and turn into paying customers is easier than you think.
Campaigns may be considered successful if your website is receiving a constant and consistently growing stream of visitors seeking your product or service. The end result is an increase in revenue, which should be the primary another way to track the success of your marketing campaigns. If your sales and revenue go up, your marketing is working well. If you are seeing a decrease in web traffic and sales, it is time to examine your efforts and potentially overhaul your marketing strategy. These larger trends are a great way to get an idea of whether your online marketing is working, and analytics can provide you with a more in depth understanding of where your business is coming from.
Analytics can help you to know where your web traffic is coming from
Like overall website traffic, you will also want to see your organic search traffic increase steadily each month. If you aren’t seeing an increase in traffic, you may want to take a look at your SEO to further improve and optimize your site for search engines. Search Engine Optimization is increasingly important as the internet becomes more saturated every day, and SEO can be the key to increased traffic and increased sales for your site. Google Search Console can help you to analyze what you’re doing right and what changes need to be made in your SEO to help your site organically rank higher.
However, while keyword rankings and organic search traffic are important, you should also keep an eye on other sources that may be driving your website traffic. It is important to identify these channels and market them to your advantages. Analytics software like Google Analytics can help you to identify these channels, whether they are through blogs, advertisements, social media, or other outlets.
Google Analytics can be used for so many different aspects of tracking your marketing success. One of the most important metrics to check is your bounce rate. Your bounce rate is the number of viewers who navigate to your website and quickly leave after only viewing one page, usually your landing page. Bounce rate is important because your web traffic means very little without it. What is the point of having tons of traffic if no one stays on the site long enough to learn more about your business or make a purchase? For many sites, the average bounce rate is between 40 and 50%. For most marketers, a bounce rate anywhere below 40% is considered a good rate. There are a few ways to improve the bounce rate of your site, including optimizing your site for mobile users, limiting external ads and pop ups, making your landing page welcoming and easy to navigate, and updating your blog regularly.
Figure out if your platforms are right for your target audience and demographics
There are a number of questions you should ask yourself to figure out if your digital marketing strategy is working, and one of the most important things to consider when deciding different strategies for your online marketing is your target audience and demographics and which platforms are best for reaching your target audience. Ask yourself, who are you focused on reaching? Where are you looking for them? If you notice your web traffic, leads, and sales come mainly from your social media presence, then it would make sense to increase your social media strategy, and devote less time to email marketing. Figuring out the best platforms to use to reach your intended audience can make all the difference in the success of your online marketing.
Check your social media presence
If you are using social media marketing as a marketing strategy, which every business should be doing, there are three things you need to be doing on social media. Increasing brand awareness, improving customer engagement, and generating new leads. Did you know that nearly 70% of Americans are active on Facebook? Small business owners should also look to Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn as potential sources of website traffic and new clients. Missing out on engaging on these platforms can mean you are missing out on getting your brand, your company, or your product in front of the eyes of potential customers. To see how much traffic to your site is generated from your social media platforms, you can check with your old pal Google Analytics to take a look at your social referrals.
The list of different ways you can check to see if your online marketing is working is never ending. Depending on the different strategies you use to market your business online, your analytics can look completely different from your competitors. Using analytics tools is your best bet for knowing the exact numbers when it comes to the success (or lack thereof) in your online marketing campaigns.
