Since I last wrote, I had an interesting debate with a fellow marketer that I promise relates to our usual industry musings. Bear with me.

The Greatest Mathematical Discovery of All Time is Nothing

That’s right; the most significant finding in all of mathematics is nothing. Before you can have something, you have to start with nothing and be able to measure up to something from nothing. I am, of course, referring to the number zero. 

Temperatures or distance traveled are measured to a starting point of zero Celsius, miles, feet, etc. In fact, for all measurements, there needs to be a reference or starting point, “zero” in many cases. This starting point is essential for both qualitative and quantitative measures. It can indicate a profit or a loss, success or failure, or how close a margin of victory a competition is.

Likewise, in Digital Marketing, measuring campaign success and reporting is essential and setting up your analytics is crucial prior to running any campaigns. Using Analytics tools, whether it is Google, Adobe, KISS, or another, will allow you to measure and optimize your campaigns.

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Setting up analytics is the first step  

Typically, your analytics tool or platform is in place for you to utilize and gain a history of data to compare. However, if your business is just launching and nothing is in place yet, I recommend using Google Analytics. Google Analytics is robust enough for most businesses, and the price is right (Free)!

You’re only as accurate as your tracking is set up for

I am frequently asked, “How did we do?” This question usually pertains to a campaign’s success and in order to truly determine your success, we need to look at the metrics we’ve set up on the site. Here are a few questions you will need to consider when evaluating the data.

• Are we able to tie specific sales/revenue to the campaigns we’ve been running?
• Has enough time passed where we can properly evaluate the campaigns success and determine how many customers we acquired?
  

Did the campaign meet our expectations? Meaning, did it...

• Reduce Cost per Acquisition
• Outperform previous campaign’s standards
• Acquire X amount of customers at $XX.XX cost per lead  
  

Hopefully, your supervisors have articulated the goals of each campaign. If not, I would recommend starting with “Outperform previous campaign’s standards.”

Pro tip: To scale your tasks and ensure your campaigns are performing well: time management will be crucial to success. You will need to set aside time for regular optimizations, emergencies, and data analysis to best use your insights. You can also use tools like Hopps to work with experienced marketing professionals who can help you determine which tasks are higher priority and what can have the biggest immediate impact. 

Whatever your goals are, and whichever tool you use to measure, you can tell a story of your campaign’s success or the challenges you encountered with the correct data. Using the power of 0, your last campaign and the current one, you’ll be on the right track to measuring MarTech ROI. 

Happy Marketing!