Digital Marketing ROI Means Knowing More Than Impressions

Digital Marketing ROI Means Knowing More Than Impressions

Marketers are allocating more resources to digital marketing and paid media for this year’s campaigns. As such, industry professionals are searching for ways to measure success that go beyond ambiguous metrics characteristic of first-generation digital media.

In this post, we highlight a shift in marketing, beginning with a move away from clicks towards real, sales-focused ROI.

40% of marketers don’t trust audience reach

It’s time for an adjustment. In an article published by Digiday, Nielsen reports that a significant segment of marketers do not trust social measurement. With so much data available, it’s important for marketers to understand how to use the right data at the right time in order to augment capabilities and optimize campaigns. The more marketers spend on digital media, the more important it is to have confidence in metrics and measures of success.

Social media measurement is a challenge

CIO.com published an article citing the “death” of social media engagement, calling on marketers to organize efforts around measurable goals. Measuring social has been a challenge up until this point–metrics like “engagement,” “impressions” and quantifying “likes” are not good enough anymore. CIOs and CMOs should be on the same page, measuring social impact in terms of the achievement of real sales goals.

Social media became a larger source of web traffic in 2014

The folks at Business Insider reported that the influence of social media sites in driving traffic significantly increased last year. According to the data, 22% of incoming traffic to desktop and mobile originated from a social site–up 14% from January 2014. The change reflects the rising popularity and viability of digital advertising in positively affecting ROI.

Social media measurement isn’t one-size fits-all

In a post published by The Next Web, the author argued that marketers should plan goals and base success on the kind of content produced. Data informs content, as content then informs data. If the metrics are inconclusive or not actionable, the result is poorly planned content strategies.

In the end, it all comes down to knowing what works and what doesn’t. The longer marketers hold on to antiquated measures of success, the longer campaigns and content will suffer.

As digital marketing becomes a more important part of the marketer’s bag of tricks, industry professionals will be forced to shift away from soft scoring to data-driven metrics.

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