Beyond the Click-backup of your interactive marketing dollars are not Wasted

In a recent survey we found that a majority are not the high-level brand marketers confident that their interactive marketing dollars are actually spent. Of the surveyed marketers, 85% said their ability to measure interactive needs improvement. Bottom line: Marketers underutilizing the interactive medium, and wasting U.S. dollars a day contrary results on the original track click-through.

I would suspect we would all agree that interactive is the quantifiable marketing medium, and that most marketers measuring online initiatives at the level of this (albeit a limited one). Being that is interactive, the fastest growing marketing medium, with more than billion in advertising revenue in 2005 and an expected increase 20-30 percent this year, the time to show tangible results for these online dollars, is here . Tracking of click-through rates is a start, but if you think this is a good indicator of your interactive-you miss the boat.

If you do not have a solid strategy, yet to develop before you build your online campaign or start your site, you are already set up for possible errors. The neglect of the success metrics to determine before you have to grab at straws at the end of the campaign begin.

measurement and analysis functions need to be a part of your upfront planning process, gather useful information. Analytics is not something that should do a project in his spare time. Analytics should be from someone who is dedicated to the know-how to the data they have to be done to understand the hand, otherwise you end up with a random approach, and not enough relevant key figures or analysis.

So, what is measured?
After chatting with a couple of analytics experts I work with, here is what I found. First, you need to determine the goal of global efforts. The goal is to reach as many people as possible in your target audience? Drive sales? Is it to increase engagement with the product? Or ride trials?

Once you have defined the goal, you can determine the success of particular metrics. Is it downloads? Applications? Buy product? Exit rates? In general, the audience has to take the related actions?

For example, if your goal is to increase the engagement with a product, you will want to know not only how many people visit the product page, but how many people download additional Product information and register for product updates or product testing.

You should develop a scorecard of your Analytics expert (in planning phase), linked lists of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) directly to your business objectives. KPIs will help you both assess the relative success of your campaign and diagnose possible opportunities for improvement.

However, there is another element which is the “why”. In a case where you want to download a trial product, look at those, the registration or download is complete. What she thought of following through with the process and at what point did you lose it?

Let us offer an example from a known brand among consumers a coupon promotion. KPIs for the initiative include the number of visitors who are registered, and the number who actually printed out the coupon.

Here’s what they found: The consumers were willing to register on the site to get the voucher, but 80% of the registrants do not really follow-through with action. Why? We found that people do not want to download software to print out a coupon, even if interest in the product, or it might have been a known brand.

Now you have an idea of what, when and how to measure your online initiatives, you can be sure that your interactive dollars are spent wisely. You can prove that your campaign achieves x registered users who have downloaded a trial and then bought the product online. If they are not purchased online, check the increase in offline sales by a survey to the follow-up with the registered users (although measuring a different article in itself). Who knows where to go is your budget if you can prove that in fact, return on Interactive.