Get Out Of The Dark
And Discover If Your Marketing Is Working
By Jeremy Huffman
Are you tired of being in the dark about what you’re getting from your marketing money? Are you frustrated seeing your marketing budget dwindle and not enough changes to your bottom line? If you feel like you’re feeling your way through a dark room, read on to discover how to get confidence in your marketing dollars.
You’ll get what you need from this post to find out what your money is getting you, but you’ll have more success once you’ve determined your ideal client and are publishing attention-grabbing content.
THE TOOLS
So how do you know if your money and efforts are working?
At Constant Flow Marketing, we use several tools to help us know if you are receiving high-quality leads. You can, too.
If you’re using digital marketing, you probably know there are vast reports in Facebook and Google Ads. Take some time to get to know these reports. Make sure you’re changing the columns so you’re seeing the most important stuff.
If you’ve looked around Google and Facebook’s reports and are overwhelmed, click and subscribe below to get a checklist of the most important data to watch. It’s not as bad as it might seem. Committed Business Owner is the only title you need to get started making smart money choices.
Now that you know what to monitor inside the two largest digital marketing platforms, you can set up an important step for tracking your leads. The easiest way to do this is with one-two punch tracking tool Zapier paired with a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Zapier is a software that connects applications and automates actions.
The beauty of Zapier is that it can do many actions triggered by one action. For example, when a lead submits a form through Facebook (trigger), Zapier can filter it (action), email you about it (action), and send it to your CRM immediately for later follow-up (action).
ANSWER THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR WEBSITE
Another important metric to consider is your website performance. Do people get what they need when they visit? Is it easy to navigate and easy for people to contact you? If you have a beautiful website but no one can find how to contact you, you’re losing sales!
Make sure your website doesn’t impede anyone from contacting you by using the free tool Google Analytics (GA).
The amount of information there is astounding – it can feel mind-boggling. Not to worry. We’ll make it easy. Focus on these few key aspects.
The questions we want answered from Google Analytics are:
The first step is to set up goals in Google Analytics. Goals are the backbone of your operation. They help you figure out how many prospects contacted you and how they heard about you. Here’s a video to help you set up goals (or conversions).
Now that you know how important goals are, you can find those tell-tale signs that your website is doing its job or not. Again, a short process.
HOW TO ANSWER THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR WEBSITE
Get into Google Analytics. Navigate from the left side panel to the overview section of Acquisition (1). Take a look at where your traffic is coming from (2). Then adjust your goals and see how they converted (3). Notice how you can change the dates for the data you see (top right corner).
Channels
Direct: Someone typed in your website URL into their search bar.
Organic Search: Someone typed in a search term into Google and they clicked on your website.
Paid Search: Someone typed in a search term into Google and they clicked on your ad.
Social: Instagram, Facebook, or any other social media sites where you advertise.
Display: Someone clicked on your ad when it was shown on a website as a part of the Google Display Network.
Other: Another undefined channel
Other relevant channel not shown: Referral – This is when another site refers your website.
Next, navigate (1) to see what pages people are using (2) and where they are converting (3).
In this next area, you see how exactly your money translated to leads.
Navigate to Conversions/ Goals/ Overview (1), click on Source/ Medium (2), and see which platforms brought in your leads (3).
After you’ve seen where people are clicking your ads, what they’re looking at on your site, and which channel brings them there, you’ve get a great set of data to start making more decisions about where you money goes.
Catch any costly abnormalities before they get out of hand by using the the compare time feature in the calendar section.
Once you’re familiar with Analytics, Zapier, and data from AdWords and Facebook, you’re ready to knock your ROI out of the park.
In the next post, learn how to use your phone time with ripe customers ready to buy.